Open channel overview
Open channels support unlimited participants and high-throughput messaging, making them ideal for live streaming, social communities, gaming, and other large-scale interaction scenarios.
Key characteristics:
- No limit on the number of open channels per App Key, and no cap on participants per channel.
- Open channels have an auto-destroy mechanism: by default, a channel is destroyed after 1 hour of inactivity (no participants joining/leaving and no new messages). You can extend this duration or configure scheduled destruction via the Server API.
- Offline participants are automatically removed. When preset conditions are met, the server kicks inactive participants.
- Local messages are deleted when a participant leaves.
- Open channels do not support offline push notifications. Only online participants receive messages.
Service configuration
The client SDK supports open channels by default — no activation required. Some features can be configured in the Console under Chat > Chat settings.
Feature overview
Open channel relationships are managed by the server. The SDK provides join, leave, and metadata management APIs. Additional management features require the Server API.
| Feature | Description | Client API | Server API |
|---|---|---|---|
| Create / Destroy | Create or destroy open channels. The client SDK does not provide these APIs. | N/A | Create / Destroy |
| Join / Leave | Join an existing open channel or leave. | Join / Leave | N/A |
| Query info | Query channel info (ID, name, creation time) and participant list (up to 500). | Query info | Query info |
| Keep alive | Prevent auto-destruction of specified channels. | N/A | Keep alive |
| Metadata (KV) | Set custom key-value attributes for use cases like seat management in live audio rooms or game state tracking. | Metadata management | KV management |
| Ban participants | Ban participants from a channel. Banned users are kicked and cannot rejoin during the ban period. | N/A | Ban |
| Mute participants | Mute individual participants or all participants in a channel. | N/A | Mute |
| Message priority | Set low-priority message types. Under high load, low-priority messages are dropped first. | N/A | Priority |
Comparison with group and community channels
Open channels differ from group channels (member-based, persistent) and community channels (subchannel-based, unlimited members). See the product comparison documentation for details.