HOMER
A 100% open-source, carrier-grade observability framework for real-time SIP, VoIP, and RTC packet capture, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
What is HOMER?
HOMER is a 100% open-source observability framework for real-time monitoring and troubleshooting of SIP, VoIP, and WebRTC communications. It captures packets, events, logs, and statistics, transforming them into searchable and correlatable data to help operators diagnose issues and ensure service quality. It solves the problem of managing and analyzing massive volumes of real-time communication data in scalable, carrier-grade environments.
Voice network operators, VoIP service providers, telecommunications carriers, and enterprises running large-scale real-time communication services who need deep visibility into signaling and media performance.
Developers and operators choose HOMER because it's a fully open-source, battle-tested solution that handles insane data volumes, supports modern observability standards, and offers end-to-end correlation without vendor lock-in. Its unique selling point is being a carrier-grade framework that seamlessly bridges traditional VoIP monitoring with contemporary logs, metrics, and traces tooling.
Overview
HOMER - 100% Open-Source SIP, VoIP, RTC Packet Capture & Monitoring
Use Cases
Best For
- Troubleshooting SIP call failures and signaling issues in real-time
- Monitoring RTP/RTCP stream quality and QoS metrics for VoIP services
- Correlating logs, metrics, and traces across distributed RTC applications
- Capturing and analyzing custom real-time communication protocols
- Deploying a self-hosted, scalable observability stack for telecommunications
- Integrating VoIP monitoring data with visualization tools like Grafana
Not Ideal For
- Small-scale VoIP deployments or personal projects with minimal traffic
- Teams needing an all-in-one monitoring solution with built-in dashboards
- Environments where data sources cannot be adapted to the HEP/EEP protocol
Pros & Cons
Pros
Supports distributed capture servers and agents across any OS/platform, making it suitable for large enterprises and operators with massive data volumes, as highlighted in its carrier-grade deployment capabilities.
Transforms VoIP data into standard logs, metrics, and traces, seamlessly integrating with tools like Grafana and qryn for visualization, aligning with industry standards for comprehensive analysis.
Captures and processes SIP, RTP/RTCP reports, RTC events, and custom protocols, providing extensive coverage for real-time communications troubleshooting and monitoring.
Retains full backwards compatibility with HEPv3 while adopting modern observability standards, ensuring smooth transitions for existing users without losing features.
Cons
Requires configuring multiple components like heplify-server and homer-app, along with external databases and visualization tools, which can be time-consuming and challenging for non-experts.
As a headless observability solution, HOMER 10 lacks a built-in interface, necessitating additional setup with Grafana or similar for data visualization, adding to the implementation overhead.
Relies on the HEP/EEP encapsulation protocol, so data sources must support or be adapted to this format, potentially limiting integration with non-compliant systems and requiring extra configuration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
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sipgrepSIPGREP: Display and Troubleshoot SIP signaling over IP networks in console
rtpbreakRTP stream extractor
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