Burble

Voice first. Friction last. Complexity optional.

Table of Contents

• What is Burble?
• Why Burble?
• Key Features
• Quick Start
  • One-command container deployment
  • Development setup
  • Run tests
• Coprocessor Benchmarks
• Wondering How This Works?
• Documentation
• Questions?
• License

What is Burble?

Burble is a self-hostable voice communications platform built for people who care about latency, privacy, and control. Think Mumble’s audio seriousness meets modern browser-based joining — no downloads, no accounts, no friction.

One command to deploy. Sub-second to join. Your server, your rules.

Why Burble?

	Burble	Mumble	Discord	Jitsi
Self-host	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Browser join	Yes (WebRTC)	No (native only)	Browser + app	Yes
Latency	<10ms (Zig SIMD NIFs)	~15ms	~50-100ms	~30ms
Privacy	E2EE optional, no telemetry	Encrypted, no telemetry	Telemetry, scanning	E2EE optional
Precision timing	IEEE 1588 PTP (<1us)	No	No	No
Embeddable	Yes (game/app integration)	No	No	Partial

Key Features

Audio performance — Zig SIMD coprocessor NIFs deliver 26,350x speedup over pure Elixir for LZ4 compression, 62x for echo cancellation, 37x for FFT. Your server doesn’t break a sweat.

Precision Time Protocol — IEEE 1588 PTP support with sub-microsecond synchronisation across nodes. Automatic clock source detection with graceful fallback (PTP hardware → phc2sys → NTP → system). Built for multi-server deployments where timing matters.

Four topology modes — From single-server (monarchic) to fully distributed mesh (serverless with mandatory E2EE). Set BURBLE_TOPOLOGY and go.

Erlang/OTP backbone — Supervision trees, hot code upgrades, fault isolation. If a room crashes, everything else keeps running. That’s not marketing — that’s OTP.

Bridge interop — Bidirectional Mumble/Murmur relay. Migrate your community without forcing everyone to switch at once. Jitsi and Matrix bridges planned.

Embeddable client library — Drop Burble voice into your game, workspace, or app. Used in IDApTIK (asymmetric co-op game) and PanLL (panel workspace).

Quick Start

One-command container deployment

git clone https://github.com/hyperpolymath/burble && cd burble
cd containers && podman-compose -f compose.toml up
# Server: http://localhost:4000
# Web client: http://localhost:8080
# VeriSimDB: http://localhost:8081

Development setup

# Prerequisites: Elixir 1.17+, Zig 0.15+, Deno

# Build Zig coprocessor
cd ffi/zig && zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast
cp zig-out/lib/libburble_coprocessor.so ../../server/priv/

# Start server
cd server && mix deps.get && mix phx.server

# Start web client (separate terminal)
cd client/web && deno task dev

Run tests

just test          # All tests
just test-server   # Elixir tests (49 tests)
just test-ffi      # Zig coprocessor tests
just bench         # Elixir vs Zig benchmarks

Coprocessor Benchmarks

SIMD-accelerated audio processing via Zig NIFs:

Operation	Elixir	Zig NIF	Speedup
LZ4 compress	83ms	3.1us	26,350x
Echo cancel	19.4ms	310us	62x
FFT (256pt)	826us	22us	37x
Convolution	300us	11us	27x
Neural denoise	54us	9us	6x

Wondering How This Works?

If you’re curious about the tech behind these claims — how we hit 26,350x, what PTP actually does, why OTP gives us fault isolation — see EXPLAINME.adoc for the receipts.

Documentation

• Show Me The Receipts — feature highlights with code paths and honest caveats

• Architecture — control plane, media plane, topology modes, supervision tree

• Threat Model — security analysis and mitigations

• ABI/FFI Design — Idris2 proofs + Zig implementation

Questions?

Open an issue on GitHub or reach out directly — happy to explain anything in more detail.

License

SPDX-License-Identifier: PMPL-1.0-or-later

Copyright (c) 2026 Jonathan D.A. Jewell (hyperpolymath) <j.d.a.jewell@open.ac.uk>

See LICENSE for full text.