How to Start a Free Video Meeting in Your Browser (No Account, Up to 5 People)

To start a free video meeting with no account, open Haivix Huddle, enter your name, and select Start meeting. Your camera and microphone turn on, and a short meeting code plus an invite link appear. Send that link to up to 5 people and they join from their own browser — no app, no sign-up, no download.

Huddle runs entirely in the browser on WebRTC, the same real-time audio and video standard other conferencing tools use. Live media passes through Haivix's media server for the session only. Meetings are not recorded, and the session ends when everyone leaves.

Key takeaways

A meeting holds up to 5 people, including the host.
Your name is required; the meeting name is optional and shows in the header and to guests while they wait.
Guests ask to join and the host admits them, so the link alone does not drop someone into the call.
Everyone joins with camera and mic on, and anyone can share their screen, one person at a time.
It is a live meeting, not a recording and not a scheduled calendar event.

What you need before you start

You need a current browser over a secure connection. Browsers only expose camera, microphone, and screen capture on a secure context — a page served over HTTPS (see MDN on secure contexts). Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari on desktop all work; mobile browsers can join with camera and mic, but screen sharing needs a desktop browser.

The first time you join, the browser asks for camera and microphone permission. Allow it for the meeting, and use the Mic and Camera buttons any time during the call if you change your mind. If you are worried about your setup, run the Webcam Test and Screen Share Test first.

Start a meeting in three steps

Starting is deliberately short — there is no sign-up wall between you and the call.

Enter your name (required) and, if you like, a meeting name such as "Weekly sync."
Select Start meeting. Huddle creates the room and turns on your camera and microphone.
Select Copy invite link, or read out the 8-character code, and send it to the people you want in the call.

How guests join

Guests do not need an account either. They open the invite link or go to the Huddle page, enter their name and the meeting code, and select Ask to join. Until the host admits them, they wait on a screen that shows the meeting name, so they can confirm they are in the right place.

The host sees each request in the Waiting room with the guest's name and chooses Admit or Deny. Only admitted people are connected to the meeting's audio and video, which is what makes the waiting room more than a formality — see how host approval works for the full picture.

Why the limit is 5 people

Huddle caps a meeting at 5 people on purpose. Small calls start faster, stay legible on a laptop screen, and avoid the scheduling overhead of a full meeting platform. If you need a one-way broadcast to a larger audience, Watch Together lets many viewers watch a single shared screen instead.

When 5 people are already in — the host plus 4 guests — a new request gets a clear "meeting is full" message rather than an endless wait.

While you are in the call

The controls sit in a dock under the video. Toggle Mic and Camera at any time; when your camera is off, you still appear as a titled placeholder tile so the group keeps a sense of who is present. Select Share screen to present a screen, window, or tab — the shared content takes the main stage while everyone else drops into a filmstrip along the bottom, covered in sharing your screen without losing sight of the group.

Fullscreen expands the stage, and the Stats panel shows connection quality plus the live resolution, frame rate, bitrate, and codec if you want to judge how the call is performing. A chat panel with emoji reactions handles quick links and messages without interrupting whoever is talking.

What Huddle does not do

Huddle is a live meeting, not a recording service or a calendar. Nothing is recorded or stored, and there is no scheduled meeting link that works before the host opens the room. Because guests are anonymous, treat the invite code like the key to the room: share it with the people you invited, not in a public channel.

If a connection refuses to establish on a locked-down network, run the Screen Share Test, which checks the browser, device, and network pieces a live call depends on.

About this guide

This guide is maintained by the Haivix editorial team and matches the live Huddle tool. Read more about us on the about page, and send corrections through the contact page.