The scope of video streaming has broadened from content platforms like Netflix to social use cases like gaming with friends and professional circumstances like telehealth, distance learning, and remote work. As this functionality grows in popularity, your app users will come to expect it. Luckily, ready-made components can streamline your development process and create a dynamic in-app streaming experience.

What is Video Streaming?

Video streaming transmits multi-media media content as data to digital devices over the internet. Live streaming is a continuous flow of data that users can watch directly without downloading. It is usually hosted on a remote server or in the cloud, accessible through the internet. Video streaming can also be leveraged to access on-demand content without requiring a download either.

The main difference between downloading and streaming video is that streaming is a continuous transmission of video files in real time, whereas downloaded content cannot be played while being downloaded. Instead of loading and buffering small amounts of the video at one time, downloaded video files are loaded all at once.

Why Use an API?

Video streaming APIs enable apps to stream content and other data through their host servers. The API extracts the data from the servers and makes it available to the app and its users. Streaming APIs allow your app users to access video content and can also be integrated with systems for controlling and monitoring content, tracking user data, and customizing embedded players.

Using an API for video streaming prevents engineers from having to develop a streaming solution in-house and offer customer support, heightened security, better scalability, reliability, UI design kits, documentation, outsourced maintenance, and more. Streaming APIs provide three key benefits to video apps:

1. Increased Efficiency

APIs are ready-made components that eliminate any bottlenecks your development team would typically encounter when building a solution from scratch. You can also leverage them to automate admin encoding tasks so your team can focus their efforts elsewhere. Not only do they streamline internal processes, but APIs can be customized to be more responsive, which means your app users can enjoy fast and high-quality video streaming experiences for live and on-demand content.

2. Continuous Innovation

The efficiency APIs create within your development team and app enables your engineers to continue expanding and iterating upon other in-app functionalities to make it stand out from the competition. Your API provider should be dedicated to continuously improving its solution, upgrading features, increasing security, implementing maintenance, and keeping documentation and tutorials up to date. This assistance can expedite any customizations your team would like to make in-house by ensuring the most complete and advanced version of the solution is ready for them to integrate.

3. Seamless Integrations

Your team can easily integrate a video API with their platform by adding a small amount of code into an existing framework, whether a desktop or mobile app, security system, or server. The hard work that goes into developing a sound infrastructure is never lost, and services don't have to be interrupted because of how the API can be seamlessly combined. However, if innovation is what you're after, integrating an API can be the perfect opportunity to reimagine your product to better reach and serve your user base.

Types of Video Streaming APIs

Social Live Streaming

Social streaming enables friends to connect over video, event attendees to join virtual sessions, and teams to collaborate. The connection must be secure, stable, and scalable with feature-rich API capabilities like screen sharing, chat, and interactive streams.

1. Agora

Pricing: According to usage and a la carte feature menu, Agora's serviceconnects users across an in-app video with low latency, adaptive bitrate streaming, HD video, dual streaming, and channel switching capabilities. To provide the best user experience, Agora ensures that the streaming audio is as high-quality as the picture with voice effects, 3D spatial audio, and full bandwidth capture.

2. Mux

Pricing: According to usage

Mux's video API helps developers build and scale in-app streaming experiences. Mux divides its API's capabilities into four stages: adding video/going live, processing, streaming out, and managing your video stream. The API features direct uploads, pull-based inputs, audio normalization, adaptive bitrate streaming, and the ability to add subtitles, simulcast, integrate your CMS, view engagement metrics, and more.

3. Wowza

Pricing: $25/mo- $1,560/year

Wowza offers several live streaming solutions as APIs, from low-latency streaming to live broadcasting, interactive live streaming, and surveillance. Integrate it into your platform to enjoy scalable, quality streaming that leverages HLS, WebRTC, and SRT, depending on your video app's goal and use case.

Video Game Streaming

Video game streaming allows users to go live during gameplay for other enthusiasts to watch and enjoy. Gamers should be able to go live easily, and viewers should join when they'd like with little buffering, a clear stream, and quality audio.

1. Twitch API

Pricing: Free

Twitch is an online platform and live streaming API for streaming videos. Developers can leverage the Twitch REST API and Javascript SDK to connect gamers. Live video helps them create mini-interactive experiences like polls, predictions, and raids, as well as displaying leaderboards, real-time game analytics, and more in an in-app dashboard.

2. Discord

Pricing: Varies

Discord's API is an HTTPS/REST API for general operations and a persistent secure WebSocket-based connection for sending and subscribing to real-time gaming events. The most common use case of the Discord API will be providing a service or access to a platform through the OAuth2 API.

3. YouTube Live

Pricing: Free

The YouTube Live Streaming API enables developers to create, update, and manage live events on YouTube. It is comprised of pieces of the YouTube Data API and the YouTube Content ID API. The Data API enables YouTube gamers to manage their accounts, while the Content ID API enables interactions with YouTube's rights management system. Developers and gamers can leverage the YouTube Live API to hold live-stream gaming competitions and broadcast them to their existing account followers.

Video on Demand (VOD) Streaming

Video on Demand (VOD) streaming provides users with access to video content, such as television shows, recorded events, etc., to watch at their leisure. It differs from traditional broadcast channels, where you can only access and watch content at a scheduled time. With VOD, the only requirement for a user to access videos is an internet-compatible device that works with your app.

1. Vimeo API

Pricing: Free

Vimeo's API supports flexible, high-quality video integration with a full-featured upload API. The API includes privacy controls, flexible storage, and automatic transcoding to host videos of the highest quality. You can optimize your user experience with a fully customizable player (with SDKs) and third-party links for web, mobile, or TV-based devices. Your team can manage content, track metadata, and optimize videos with the Vimeo API.

2. Wurl

Pricing: Free

Wurl delivers a video streaming platform. It links video producers to global streaming sites providing a large pool of video and digital content. The Wurl API allows developers to build applications that connect to video publishers and provide digital content, e.g., videos, to their users in real-time or as an on-demand platform.

3. DailyMotion

Pricing: Free

The DailyMotion API is a video streaming API that allows developers to build dynamic streaming applications for users and features a variety of SDKs for engineers to leverage, custom data reports, monetization opportunities, easy video uploads, player embeds, and more. DailyMotion also features a Cloud content repository that users can access and stream video-on-demand.

Qualities to Look For When Choosing A Streaming API

While some streaming API features may vary in importance depending on your app's specific needs, the qualities below cover all of the essential components every new video app must consider before choosing a solution.

1. Hosting

APIs hosted on a Global Edge network are critical for delivering smooth video with low latency to live stream viewers. The Global Edge network ensures that user devices always have an edge server nearby.

2. Feature Catalog

Your needs for any video infrastructure will always be relative to your organizational goals. To narrow the scope of features you're interested in, make a list of "must-haves" vs. "nice to haves" and note any deal-breakers.

3. Customer Support

Most video streaming API providers will have comprehensive documentation explaining the API calls and giving examples. It can be hard to pick up a new skill without clearly presented formal resources. Really, the more available documentation, the better. But sometimes, documentation alone is not enough. Check that customer support and developer resources are available for unexpected issues.

4. Speed

Whether your video app specializes in live-streamed content or hosts a library of on-demand video, delivery speed is critical to your user experience. Look for APIs supported by DynaScale, a feature that automatically optimizes resolutions, frame rates, and codecs based on network connectivity, available bandwidth, and CPU, ensuring the smoothest possible playback.

5. Reliability

A reliable video stream will be the cornerstone of an enjoyable user experience for your app. Making sure the infrastructure of the API you choose is sound, scalable, and supportive should be one of the most important criteria on your list. Live call quality monitoring features in an API can help you keep a pulse on and maintain optimal streaming performance by displaying analytics in a dashboard that scores live streams on SFU stability, bandwidth, CPU metrics, and more.

6. Security

Your security and compliance needs for your video API will vary depending on your use case. Telehealth providers must ensure their streaming solution is HIPAA compliant, while Fintech apps will be more interested in PCI compliance. Be sure to identify the level of security and industry-specific compliance requirements your video app will need to keep users and their data safe before choosing your API.

Conclusion

Social live streaming, video game streaming, and VOD streaming are all rapidly growing niches of the video app market. If you are developing any of these apps, your live stream functionality must be reliable, secure, and enjoyable for users. If you don't have the bandwidth within your roadmap or resources to spare to build a complex streaming functionality, integrating an API is the perfect solution that is flexible enough to feel custom and ready-made enough to require little maintenance and upgrades.