Peer Mode

In peer mode, Zenoh nodes discover each other and communicate directly — no router needed.

When to Use Peer Mode

All nodes are on the same LAN
Low node count (multicast scouting scales to ~dozens of peers)
You want zero infrastructure

Configuration

{ mode: "peer" }  // this is the default

Topology

In peer mode every node maintains a direct connection to every other node it discovers. This full-mesh arrangement means zero-hop delivery but routing table size grows with the number of peers — suitable for dozens of nodes, not thousands.

Peer-to-peer full mesh

Scouting

Peers discover each other via multicast scouting on 224.0.0.224:7446 (configurable). When a peer comes online it announces itself; existing peers respond with their contact info.

Limitations

Does not scale to WAN or NAT-traversal scenarios
Routing table grows with node count

For larger deployments, use Router Mode.