We continue with series of technician videos. If you have troubles to set up your own video streaming system – drop us a message and we’ll fix it.
Let the battle begin: Flussonic vs. Wowza
Flussonic is a totally automated system, you can set up and configure it, and you won’t need support afterwards. So you’ll only need a tech expert to install it, who, by the way, may be provided to you for an additional fee by the Flussonic company. The major disadvantage of this approach is. A 5 bucks virtual server won’t do any good here. Besides, you need the right specialist for configuration process. Yet, there are many advantages:
The platform is extremely powerful. You can have many users and many viewing hours. It has its API, the visual component, everything is set and working. This system is, for example, used in many airports as a security system to watch the stream in real time. So you can imagine how powerful the system is.
An undeniable drawback of this solution is that Flussonic is a system ‘in the box’, it’s not a modular, so can’t expand it. You cannot add or delete any functionality, you use it as it is. You buy it, set it up and use it. The only exception here is that you can call customer support service and ask them to add something. In fact, we had such a situation with our client, we addressed Flussonic support and they added the functionality we needed for us and all their other clients.
Wowza turn!
Wowza is an extremely popular software. They claim that even not technical people can set up and use it. It’s written in Java, a more popular programming language than Erlang, so people often think that it’s easier to find a specialist to work with it. Yet it’s not as simple as it seems. Not every Java programmer can deal with this platform as they need to understand how video technology and streaming work.
Secondly, Wowza positions itself as a multi-modular system where you can switch off or add some functionality.
Yes, there are many plugins you might use but around 50% of them don’t work. Moreover, some of them may even break the system, so you need to be careful. More importantly, Wowza is not as powerful as previous solutions. Primarily because it’s written in the language used for virtually anything in the world, including microwave ovens, phones, washing machines etc. Productivity is the price you have to pay for a universal language. And in video streaming productivity is crucial, that’s why more and more businesses turn to either nginx-based solution with FFMPEG or Flussonic, which is written in Erlang, to save money.
