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Pencil Spaces API /vs/ Whereby Embedded
Both are APIs for putting real-time interaction inside your product. But Whereby Embedded is, by its own description, the easiest way to add video calls to your app. Pencil Spaces gives you the entire live room — video, a native collaborative whiteboard, co-browsing, 1,000+ embedded tools, AI, and a single composite recording — behind one API, on your domain, in your brand.
10M+ sessions in production
1 API, not four
COPPA · FERPA · SOC 2 · GDPR · HIPAA
Whereby Embedded
Embeddable WebRTC video, screen share, chat, recording, and transcription — live in your app fast, with native mobile SDKs.
Pencil Spaces API
Everything a live room needs — video, native whiteboard, co-browsing, 1,000+ tools, AI, composite recording — in one integration on your domain.
The short answer
Whereby Embedded is a video-calling API — the fastest way to drop embeddable video into a product. Pencil Spaces API is a whole-session API: video plus a native collaborative whiteboard, co-browsing, 1,000+ tools, AI, and one composite recording, on your own domain. Use Whereby when you only need a call. Use Pencil Spaces when the session is your product.
One API, not four. No stitching Whereby to Miro, a co-browser, and an AI layer.
A real whiteboard. Native and real-time — not a Miro integration bolted on.
Co-browsing built in. Drive a shared live browser together; Whereby has none.
One composite recording. Faces, board, and tools in a single video you can hand over.
Your brand, your domain. Full white-label, not just swapped logos.
Built for K-12 & health. COPPA, FERPA, SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA — included.
How to think about it
Whereby is genuinely good software. It's one of the cleanest ways to add video to a product — a web component or React hooks, and you have a working call in an afternoon. This page isn't a takedown.
But a session is more than a video call.
A real room needs shared work, a live whiteboard, the ability to walk someone through a screen, interactive tools, a recording you can keep, and one place to look when something breaks. The moment you need those, Whereby stops being one integration and becomes four. That's the line this page draws.
Whereby gives you a call. Pencil Spaces gives you the room.
Lead with code
Whereby gets you a great video room fast. The moment the room needs a whiteboard, a shared browser, or tools, the integration stops being Whereby — it becomes Whereby plus three more.
Whereby Embedded
// Drop in a video room — genuinely this easy
<whereby-embed room="https://your.whereby.com/room" />
// Or build custom UI with the browser SDK
const { state, components, actions } =
roomConnection(roomUrl, {
localMediaOptions: { audio: true, video: true }
});
// You get: video, screenshare, chat, recording.
// You don't get: whiteboard, co-browse, tools, AI.
// Those are Miro + another vendor + another bill.
Result: a video call. Everything else is a separate integration.
Pencil Spaces API
// Create a full collaborative session
const space = await pencil.spaces.create({
recording: "composite", // one assembled video
tools: ["whiteboard", "cobrowse", "docs", "quizzes"],
branding: { domain: "live.yourapp.com", logo }
});
// Embed it — one surface, your brand, your domain
<pencil-space id={space.id} />
// You get: video, whiteboard, co-browse, chat,
// 3,000+ tools, AI summaries, composite recording.
Result: the room your product needs. One API. One bill.
Feature by feature
Whereby information reflects its public documentation and pricing. Where Whereby is strong, it's marked strong.
Capability
Embedded API
Embedded API
Real-time media
Embeddable WebRTC video
Yes
Yes
Screen sharing
Yes
Yes
Participants per room
Up to 200
Classroom to scale
Breakout groups
Yes
Yes
Native mobile SDKs (iOS · Android · RN · Flutter)
Yes
Mobile web
browser-based
The collaboration surface
Native collaborative whiteboard
Via Miro
separate product
Native, real-time
Co-browsing (shared live browser)
Not offered
Native
Embedded interactive tools
File sharing only
1,000+
Desmos, Docs, IXL…
Persistent room state across sessions
Reusable URLs
Persistent canvas
Built-in live chat
Yes
+ transcript
Yes
Recording & AI
Recording output
Cloud rec. of the call
One composite video
Transcription / live captions
Yes
metered add-on
Yes
AI session summaries
Transcript only
Native
AI coaching / quality rubrics
None
Built in
Brand, trust & scale
White-label (your domain + UI)
Branding elements
Full, your domain
Pre-built UI + fully custom SDK
Both
Both
Compliance
GDPR, ISO 27001
HIPAA add-on
COPPA · FERPA · SOC 2 · GDPR · HIPAA
Uptime SLA (paid)
99.9%
99.9%+
Proven production scale
Telehealth leader
10M+ sessions
Whereby details from public documentation and pricing at whereby.com and docs.whereby.com, accessed June 2026, and subject to change. “Whereby” and “Miro” are trademarks of their respective owners.
The fair version
If video is the feature, Whereby is a clean choice. If the session is the product, you'll outgrow a video-only API fast. Here's where each one wins.
You need embeddable video calls live in an afternoon via a web component or React hooks.
You want mature native mobile SDKs — iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter.
Your use case is telehealth or 1:1 meetings where the call is the product.
You want a generous, no-card free tier — 2,000 participant minutes a month — to prototype.
Your room needs a real whiteboard, co-browsing, and live tools — not just faces in boxes.
You want one API and one bill instead of stitching four vendors together.
You need a recording you can hand to a user — one composite video of the whole session.
You ship to schools or clinics needing COPPA, FERPA, SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA — included.
If all you ever need is a video call, adding Pencil Spaces is overkill — and Whereby's native mobile SDKs beat embedding a browser session in a WebView. We'd tell you to use Whereby. The rest of this page is for teams who already know a video call isn't enough.
Use the right tool for the job
To match one Pencil Spaces room with Whereby, you assemble the rest yourself — each piece a separate SDK, a separate failure mode, a separate line on the bill.
The Whereby path
Whereby Embedded
Video, screenshare, chat, recording
$/min + base
Miro
Whiteboard — in-room integration, separate product
+ subscription
A co-browsing vendor
Shared live browser — not offered by Whereby
+ $/hr
An AI / summaries layer
Beyond raw transcription
+ tokens
4 SDKs • 4 billing accounts • 4 support queues • glue code you maintain forever
The Pencil Spaces path
Pencil Spaces API
Video • whiteboard • co-browse • chat • 1,000+ tools • AI • composite recording
one rate
One API • one bill • one SLA • one place to look when something breaks
Every vendor you add is another reliability surface you don't control and another brand impression that isn't yours. Pencil Spaces collapses the whole stack into a single integration that already runs a product at scale.
Where the difference bites
01 — The whiteboard
Whereby has no native whiteboard. It offers an in-room integration with Miro — a separate product, login, and subscription — and Whereby's own engineers note the customization limits of relying on it. In Pencil Spaces the whiteboard is native to the room, real-time, and captured in the recording like everything else.
Whereby
Miro integration • separate vendor • limited controls
Pencil
Native canvas • your brand • in the composite recording
02 — Co-browsing
Tutoring a student through a problem set, onboarding a user, supporting a customer inside your live app — that's co-browsing, a shared browser both people can drive. Whereby doesn't offer it; you'd bolt on yet another vendor. Pencil Spaces ships co-browsing as a first-class part of the same API.
Whereby
Not offered • add a separate co-browse vendor
Pencil
Shared live browser • native • zero extra integration
03 — The recording
Whereby's cloud recording captures the video call. But the whiteboard (Miro) and any tools live outside that recording, so the artifact never reflects the whole session. Pencil Spaces assembles one composite video — faces, whiteboard, screen, and tools together — to replay, download, or hand to a user as-is.
Whereby
Records the call • whiteboard & tools not included
Pencil
One assembled artifact of the entire session
04 — The vendor
Whereby meters per participant-minute, then recording and transcription are separate add-ons — and Miro and a co-browse vendor are billed separately again. That's four SKUs, four pricing models, four things that can break independently. Pencil Spaces is one vendor, one bill, one SLA covering the whole session.
Whereby
Per-minute + add-ons + Miro + co-browse vendor
Pencil
One integration cost • everything included
API, rooms & lesson tools • powered by teacher-ready infrastructure
Pricing model
Whereby's published rates are clear and competitive for video. The cost that's easy to miss is everything a real session needs around the video.
Whereby Embedded
Free (Explore)
2,000 min/mo • limited white-label
Build
$9.99/mo + ~$0.004/min
Grow (12-mo)
$299/mo + ~$0.0037/min
Cloud recording
+ $0.01/min
Transcription / captions
from ~$0.006/min
Then, separately: a Miro subscription for whiteboard, and a co-browsing vendor — neither billed by Whereby.
Pencil Spaces API
Video + audio
Included
Native whiteboard
Included
Co-browsing
Included
1,000+ tools
Included
Composite recording + AI
Included
The point: you're not also paying for Miro, a co-browse vendor, a recording add-on, and a transcription add-on. Talk to us about volume pricing →
Same per-minute math — but with the Whereby path you're also paying Miro, a co-browse vendor, a recording add-on, and a transcription add-on. Pencil Spaces is one line.
Not a demo
Pencil Spaces isn't a reference app built to sell the API. It's a platform at scale that runs entirely on it.
Sessions delivered on the Pencil Spaces platform — the same infrastructure the API exposes.
API for the whole session — video, whiteboard, co-browse, chat, tools, AI, recording.
Compliance regimes at once: COPPA, FERPA, SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA — included, not add-ons.
Other vendors needed. No Miro, no co-browse vendor, no separate AI layer.
Questions, answered
Pencil Spaces API is the embedded collaboration layer behind 10M+ sessions — video, whiteboard, co-browsing, tools, AI, and recording, on your domain, in your brand. One API instead of four.
