RTE Superpower: Monkey × Agora: Ten Years of Making Real-Time Interaction for 100 Million Users "Seamless"

Introduction

RTE Superpower

The shared laughter during cross-ocean videos, focused eyes in remote classrooms, thoughtful care from AI devices… The “superpower” of real-time interaction (RTE) seamlessly integrates into daily life, dissolving distances and making every connection between people, and between humans and AI, warm and meaningful. This power is reshaping business and livelihoods, becoming a silent engine for enterprise growth—its value hidden in every real-world application of Agora and its clients.

Behind each success story lies a precise alignment of “superpower” technology and enterprise needs, a true achievement after both sides have tackled tough challenges together. The Agora【RTE Superpower】series will focus on authentic collaborations and tangible implementation value, showing how RTE technology helps enterprises meet user expectations and break through growth barriers.

We invite you to explore these stories, decode the core of “superpower,” and discover the deeper forces that enable collaboration to drive business growth.

In the field of real-time interactive cloud services, Agora has served thousands of enterprises across more than 20 industries, including education, IoT, and social networking. But if we talk about the longest-standing partner, HOLLA Group’s global real-time video social platform Monkey definitely ranks at the top.

Since 2015, when video social was still a new concept, Monkey’s entire business has been built on Agora’s RTC capabilities. Over ten years, their user base grew from zero to over 100 million, covering countries from just a few to over 190, while our partnership has always been driven by a single core mission: to jointly ensure a real-time interactive experience for users worldwide.

For Agora, this decade has been a continuous validation of the “as natural as water and air” technological philosophy, repeatedly proven across hundreds of millions of users.

01

Where the user is, the challenge is

In the world of real-time social interaction, a single lag can mean losing a user forever.

How can we provide stable, continuous real-time video interaction for users around the globe, on a stage with vastly different network environments?

Network jitter, device performance disparities, and zero tolerance for lag in social scenarios—each is a severe test.

Wang Guangwei, head of HOLLA’s business platform, described the dilemma during an interview: “Because our platform serves global users, many regions may have underdeveloped infrastructure, leading to frequent network lag, disconnections, black screens, and other issues. This causes user churn, which was an urgent problem for us to solve.”

Even more complicated is that feature iteration speeds far surpass expectations, requiring the technical architecture to address current quality issues while keeping pace with future social innovations. Weak network environments are the biggest variable—users could be anywhere with any network condition, so solutions must be prepared for the most extreme scenarios.

At the same time, when user numbers reach hundreds of millions, quickly pinpointing call issues in specific users or regions becomes a critical engineering challenge.

02

Ten years, we’ve perfected “simplicity”

Why are we able to work together?

Wang Guangwei answered: “First, because we understand Agora’s SD-RTN network, which is completely different from CDN technology and fully meets our low-latency requirements. Second, we learned that besides RTC audio and video services, Agora also offers AI real-time translation, real-time moderation, and other features… We can accomplish all these functions within a single SDK, without needing to coordinate with multiple vendors.”

Monkey’s entire business is built on Agora’s SD-RTN software-defined real-time network. This “completeness” means every technical choice Agora makes directly impacts the experience of every second for users worldwide.

Based on this trust, three things must be done well:

Global “folding”: SD-RTN uses intelligent routing algorithms to dynamically select the optimal transmission path for each video call, effectively avoiding congestion and instability in public networks. This keeps Monkey’s global end-to-end average latency extremely low, providing users with a “seamless” real-time experience.

Battling weak networks: Agora’s anti-weak-network transmission and packet loss algorithms ensure smooth audio and video calls even in environments with up to 80% packet loss. This means that even in areas with poor signal, or in enclosed spaces like subways or basements, Monkey can still deliver stable, reliable social experiences.

Optimizing device performance: The SDK continuously perceives network bandwidth and device capabilities, automatically adjusting bitrate and resolution to find a balance between clarity and smoothness. We provide the best solution for users, ensuring optimal experience under any network condition.

These capabilities collectively support Monkey’s consistent global service. The results are directly reflected in user behavior.

Silent praise from 100 million users

HOLLA CTO Zhang Yuzhi shared: “Our user base has increased tenfold, even hundredfold… Many users are becoming more loyal to our product. Among the numerous user feedbacks we handle, almost none complain about audio or video lag. They have no issues or suggestions. For tech people, no news is good news… No complaints about lag means we’re doing well, and that’s the best feedback.”

03

When Monkey wants to try new tricks

The vitality of social apps lies in continuous innovation of features. Over nearly a decade of collaboration, Monkey and Agora have gone beyond simple 1v1 video matching. Together, they explore how to use RTC technology to create more complex and engaging social scenarios, with “multi-player team” matching as a key outcome of this exploration.

Our innovative response:

Multi-channel management: Agora’s SDK supports users joining multiple channels simultaneously, providing a perfect architecture for “team-based” gameplay. Users can gather and communicate in a private “team channel” while also connecting to a public “matching channel” to find other teams.

Cross-channel media relay: After team matching, Agora’s “Co-host across Channels” feature allows real-time forwarding of a team’s audio and video streams to another team’s channel, enabling inter-channel communication. Two small teams appear to be in the same virtual room, bridged by two independent channels.

Multi-stream synchronization: In multi-user, multi-channel scenarios, all audio, video, and signaling streams must be synchronized to millisecond accuracy to prevent experience disruptions. Agora’s synchronization mechanism ensures precise alignment of visuals, audio, and operations.

This flexible technical combination enables Monkey to break through traditional social interaction limits, turning imaginative ideas into reality. It greatly enhances user engagement and community activity, while providing a solid technical engine and limitless imagination for future explosive growth.

04

A decade of collaboration: professionalism, responsiveness, and trust

Recently, HOLLA CTO Zhang Yuzhi reflected on nearly ten years of cooperation, summarizing three keywords: collaboration, professionalism, and trust.

“Agora and HOLLA have grown together through collaboration,” Zhang Yuzhi said. “We both emerged during the rise of mobile internet and have gone overseas together. Over these ten years, our products and Agora’s technology have been refined repeatedly, and new Agora features are often tested and validated in our scenarios first.”

What impressed him most was Agora’s “on-site” approach. “Support teams often visit our company for offline exchanges,” he said. “The key is their ability to analyze logs and troubleshoot face-to-face—this kind of hands-on professionalism is very encouraging at critical moments.”

What truly transformed the partnership were those unplanned moments.

“The call at 4 a.m.”

“During a late-night technical adjustment, we assessed that we didn’t need Agora’s support, but during the operation, we found we needed their confirmation on a key piece of information. We took a chance and called them, and they responded quickly, helping us resolve the issue immediately.”

He added, “This kind of support—anytime, anywhere, without complaints—gives us peace of mind.”

“The AI translation multiple-choice question”

When integrating AI translation, Monkey faced the challenge of balancing quality and cost. Instead of providing a simple standard solution, Agora invested heavily to offer a comprehensive technical path that considers both. “They didn’t wait for us to request features—they proactively explored all the pitfalls.”

It’s these deeply rooted, yet critical, supports that have taken their work from mere cooperation to mutual trust among friends.

“Now, when we encounter issues, we just call directly—no need for formal introductions,” Zhang Yuzhi said. “Because we know the other side is a partner who understands our business and is willing to shoulder responsibilities.”

Ten years is a long time. For Monkey, it’s enough to grow from zero to covering over 190 countries and regions, with more than 100 million registered users, facilitating 20 million cross-cultural exchanges daily.

Ten years is also very short. For Agora, it’s just a matter of continuously doing one thing well—ensuring users worldwide experience stable, smooth real-time interactions.

Perhaps, this is the unique romance of tech people: leaving complexity to themselves, simplifying for users; hiding pride in their hearts, cherishing the experience in their hands.

In the future, Monkey will go even further.

And Agora will still be fully committed in milliseconds.