If you search for a live streaming platform on Google, I know you’ll be shown many results. So the question is, which of them is the best live streaming platform? That’s the question I’m going to answer in this article, along with how to possibly set it up. So, stay cool as we progress with the sections.
What is a Live Streaming Platform?
Live streaming platforms are services that provide real-time decoding and transmission of real-time audio and video data. All the features can be added with a few code lines instead of writing everything from scratch. For instance, building a live streaming application from scratch can take you more than a week or even a month, depending on your programming and technical prowess.
With live streaming platforms, you can easily set it up without worrying about the implementation of crude APIs. Everything is almost plug-and-play with live streaming platforms.
ZEGOCLOUD is a good example of a free live streaming platform. They provide scalable and high-performance live streaming features for many platforms. Web, mobile, and even desktop apps are available. There’s no doubt that it’s by far the best live streaming platform out there.
You’ll have access to all the features you could have ever wished to have in a live streaming application, as ZEGOCLOUD’s Live Streaming Kit is richly featured and very reliable. You can build your application without worrying about growth rate, as everything is being handled by the SDK.
Why You Should Choose Professional Live Streaming Platforms
There are numerous advantages to building your live streaming applications on professional live streaming platforms. Below are some of the reasons why you should choose professional live streaming platforms:
1. High-quality live streaming
High-quality video encoding formats are supported by professional live streaming platforms such as ZEGOCLOUD Live Streaming Kit. So you don’t have to worry about the quality or spend time trying to implement the feature, as you do so by simply calling an API.
2. Stream without interruptions.
Live streaming on conventional platforms like YouTube or any other social media app can be very annoying, as you’re likely going to see an advertisement in the process. With professional live streaming platforms, you’re free from all forms of advertising.
3. Insights tracking
Professional live streaming platforms provide information about your live streaming activities.ZEGOCLOUD, for instance, offers advanced live streaming analytics on dashboard consoles. So you can get insights by seeing how your live streaming activities are going so far. You can monitor important information like engagement, viewer counts, and behaviors with various professional live streaming platforms.
4. Revenue opportunity
With professional live streaming platforms, you can easily add a paywall where people can pay before they can access live streaming events. This can take the form of a pay-per-view strategy or any other type of revenue generation strategy.
5. Cost effective
Let’s assume you’re not a programmer and you want to build live streaming services from scratch. This is going to cost you a lot of money. Even if you’re a programmer, hosting these programs is also very costly. We also have a free live streaming platform where you can watch live streaming videos for free.
Best Live Streaming Platform to Build Live Streaming Apps
We have just scratched the surface of what ZEGOCLOUD’s live streaming platform is. It’s so far the best platform to build flagship and highly reliable live streaming services. You can use UIKits to make the experience more appealing if you’re not sure how to build the UI for the applications.
The unique thing about Live Streaming Kit is the availability of its code in an open-source format. So if you need more features and customization, you can check out the Live Streaming Kit open source code if you’re skilled enough to make the changes. You can also contact our 24-hour technical support team for inquiries.
Features of the Live Streaming Kit
ZEGOCLOUD’s Live Streaming Kit has dozens of features. One of its core strengths is its adaptability to PCs and mobile devices’ screens and its handling of complex network and device exceptions in a standard way. without giving the developer a chance to think about complex functions.
Apart from that, below are other embedded features of the Live Streaming Kit.
- Out-of-the-box live stream interface
- Customizable UI
- Livestream invitation
- Text chat
- Screen sharing
- Recording
- Audience list
- Cross-browser compatibility
- Built-in bandwidth management
- Auto network reconnection
- Network analytics display
- Customizable branding logo
From the above features, you can see that the Live Streaming Kit SDK is indeed powerful.
Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Live Streaming Web App
As I have been saying throughout the article, building live streaming features with ZEGOCLOUD’s Live Streaming Kit is very easy. Just follow the steps below to get started:
Preparation
- A ZEGOCLOUD developer account — Sign in
- VS Code or any IDE or text editor of choice.
- Computer with audio and video support.
- Basic understanding of web development
Live Streaming SDK Integration
Follow the steps below to integrate live streaming into your project:
Step 1: Login to the ZEGOCLOUD admin console.
ZEGOCLOUD offers a powerful developer console where you can create your apps easily. The first step to integrating the Call Kit SDK is logging in to ZEGOCLOUD’s admin consoleor signing up if you don’t have an account.
Step 2: Add a new project
After clicking the “Create new project” button, you’ll be prompted to select the type of app we want to build. Select “Live Streaming” since we are making use of the Live Streaming Kit. Click “Next” to proceed.
Step 3: Enter the project name.
After creating a project in step (2), the next phase will be naming our application.
Note: You can only name a project with numbers, letters, and underlines (_).
Step 4: Choose a UI build method.
If you scroll down after entering the project name, you’ll see a window where you can select UI customization options. Two options exist. There are “prebuilt UIkits” and “custom SDKs.“The custom SDK gives you advanced customization options and low-level SDK customization. I will be going with prebuilt UIKit since we’re just testing out our live streaming kit.
After choosing the UI build method, you can proceed with the building process. Wait for the project to be completed.
Step 5: Choose a platform and download configuration files.
I will choose “Web” as the platform I’m building for. You can also choose other platforms as needed.
click on “integrate and get config files” to proceed to download page.
Opening the downloaded configuration and integration file reveals the following lines of code:
<html>
<head>
<style>
#root {
width: 100vw;
height: 100vh;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="root"></div>
</body>
<script src="https://resource.zegocloud.com/prebuilt/crypto-js.js"></script>
<script src="https://resource.zegocloud.com/prebuilt/prebuiltToken.js"></script>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/@zegocloud/zego-uikit-prebuilt/zego-uikit-prebuilt.js"></script>
<script>
window.onload = function () {
function getUrlParams(url) {
let urlStr = url.split('?')[1];
const urlSearchParams = new URLSearchParams(urlStr);
const result = Object.fromEntries(urlSearchParams.entries());
return result;
}
// Generate a Token by calling a method.
// @param 1: appID
// @param 2: serverSecret
// @param 3: Room ID
// @param 4: User ID
// @param 5: Username
const roomID = getUrlParams(window.location.href)['roomID'] || (Math.floor(Math.random() * 10000) + "");
const userID = Math.floor(Math.random() * 10000) + "";
const userName = "userName" + userID;
const appID = 839236438;
const serverSecret = "235c98d0ee06c5ce99a590abe9cf72f9";
const TOKEN = generatePrebuiltToken(appID, serverSecret, roomID, userID, userName);
const zp = ZegoUIKitPrebuilt.create(TOKEN);
zp.joinRoom({
container: document.querySelector("#root"),
sharedLinks: [{
name: 'Join as a host',
url: window.location.origin + window.location.pathname + '?roomID=' + roomID,
}],
scenario: {
mode: ZegoUIKitPrebuilt.VideoConference,
},
turnOnMicrophoneWhenJoining: true,
turnOnCameraWhenJoining: true,
showMyCameraToggleButton: true,
showMyMicrophoneToggleButton: true,
showAudioVideoSettingsButton: true,
showScreenSharingButton: true,
showTextChat: true,
showUserList: true,
maxUsers: 2,
layout: "Auto",
showLayoutButton: false,
});
}
</script>
</html>Run a demo
Open downloaded on any browser of choice to launch the project.
Conclusion
The ZEGOCLOUD Live Streaming Kit makes building live streaming features into an application easier. You don’t have to worry about complex programming concepts like API development and native network configurations, as the Live Streaming Kit does that behind the scenes.
Talk to Expert
Learn more about our solutions and get your question answered.
