Viewers arrive on browsers, phones, and desktop players, and SRS meets each of them with the right protocol from a single published stream. A broadcaster pushing RTMP can reach browser viewers through WebRTC with sub-second latency, phone apps through HLS, and desktop players through HTTP-FLV, all from the same live source without running parallel encoders. WHIP endpoints accept WebRTC ingest from browser studios and tools like OBS, while WHEP serves WebRTC playback, so an entire publish-to-viewer path can stay on modern web protocols. Operators shape each channel with virtual hosts, authenticate publishers and players through HTTP hooks that consult your own backend, and record live streams to disk as DVR archives for replay. Forwarding republishes a stream to YouTube, Facebook, or another SRS instance, and origin clustering lets edge servers pull from a central origin so one ingest feeds viewers in several regions. The built-in HTTP API reports streams, clients, and server health for monitoring, and GB28181 support ingests surveillance camera networks alongside creator broadcasts. Configuration lives in a single reloadable file, so changing a vhost or enabling HLS rarely means restarting the listeners your audience is attached to. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. MIT licensed.

Twitch and YouTube Live, replaced by infrastructure you control: Owncast is a self-hosted live streaming and chat server. Point OBS, Streamlabs, or any RTMP-capable broadcaster at the server's ingest port, and Owncast transcodes the feed with FFmpeg into HLS with multiple quality variants, playing it in a built-in web page with a real-time chat beside it. Chat supports anonymous participation, custom emotes, and moderation tools - message removal, user bans and suspensions - with optional authentication via IndieAuth or a Fediverse account. ActivityPub integration puts the stream on the Fediverse: viewers on Mastodon and compatible services can follow a channel and get notified the moment it goes live. Video delivery can come straight off the server or offload HLS segments to S3-compatible object storage so a modest VPS handles thousands of concurrent viewers while only managing ingest and chat. The backend is a single Go binary with a React frontend - no accounts platform, no database server, no dependency stack - and the player embeds in any website. MIT-licensed, with roughly 9k GitHub stars, zero platform fees, and no algorithm or takedown policy between you and your audience.

AzuraCast is a solution for running internet radio stations, packaging the entire broadcast stack into a single Docker installation that gets you on air in minutes. Built on PHP with a Vue.js frontend, it uses Liquidsoap as the AutoDJ engine to compile media from playlists, live DJ inputs, and scheduled programming into composited output streams, then broadcasts via Icecast-KH, SHOUTcast 2 DNAS, or Rocket Streaming Audio Server to thousands of concurrent listeners. The media library supports drag-and-drop uploads with automatic metadata extraction, while playlist management handles sequential, random, weighted, and time-scheduled rotations. Live DJ accounts let remote broadcasters connect via BUTT, Mixxx, or any Icecast-compatible software, with automatic crossfade transitions between AutoDJ and live input. The built-in Web DJ tool enables broadcasting directly from the browser without additional software. Each station includes public-facing player pages with now-playing metadata, album art, song history, and embeddable widgets for external websites. The listener request system lets audiences queue songs through the public interface. Multi-station administration hosts unlimited stations on a single server with individual user accounts and granular role-based permissions. Comprehensive analytics track listener counts, geographic distribution, unique listeners, and listening duration with exportable reports. HLS streaming delivers adaptive bitrate broadcasts for mobile compatibility. LADSPA audio plugins enable professional equalization and processing in the stream pipeline. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. AGPL-3.0 licensed.

MediaMTX sits between cameras and viewers as a self-hosted live media server, taking in video and audio streams over one protocol and handing them back out over another, so one IP camera feed can end up playing in a browser, a phone app, and a recording archive simultaneously. Publish with FFmpeg, GStreamer, OBS Studio, a browser, or a Raspberry Pi camera over RTSP, RTMP, SRT, WebRTC, Media-over-QUIC, HLS, MPEG-TS, or RTP, and read it back on any other protocol without a transcoding pipeline. Run dozens of camera feeds side by side, each on its own path, and keep every path available even while its publisher is offline. Record everything to disk in fMP4 or MPEG-TS as it streams, then play recordings back later through the same server instead of shipping files around. Authenticate publishers and viewers with built-in users, an external HTTP check, or JWT, and use the control API plus Prometheus metrics to wire the server into the rest of your monitoring stack. Forward streams to other servers, proxy cameras behind NAT, and fire hook commands whenever a client connects, publishes, or disconnects, so a doorbell camera can trigger a snapshot or an alert as it starts streaming. Reload the configuration while clients stay connected, and tune everything from the same mediamtx.yml file or environment variables, with no database or runtime dependencies to babysit. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. MIT licensed.

Point OBS or a hardware encoder at Restreamer's built-in RTMP or SRT ingest and it serves your website while rebroadcasting to YouTube Live, Twitch, Facebook, Vimeo, TikTok, LinkedIn, PeerTube, and anything else that accepts RTMP, SRT, or HLS - a complete self-hosted live-streaming server from datarhei. That multistreaming normally costs a monthly Restream.io subscription; here it's one FFmpeg process per destination on your own hardware. The web UI is genuinely approachable, with a wizard that walks beginners through camera setup, while professionals get the full surface: multiple audio/video inputs (USB, RTSP network cameras, virtual devices), codec and processing settings, separate audio muxing, and hardware acceleration via Nvidia CUDA, Intel VAAPI, or Raspberry Pi. Serving your own audience is first-class - a built-in Video.js player embeds in your site, a ready-made publication website streams without any embedding work, HLS chunk sizes are tunable, and automatic Let's Encrypt handles HTTPS. Viewer and bandwidth monitoring with limits keeps traffic costs predictable, and it's GDPR-friendly: no third-party provider, no audience data stored. A fully Swagger-documented REST API drives automation. SRT support keeps latency under a second.