Cloudflare Stream + Backblaze vs. GCP for Short Form Video?
1 point by slroger 3 hours ago
Hi HN, I'm building a short form video app(avg clip length 40 seconds, expecting 10-50,000 plays per day, growing, with 20% of traffic outside the US,80% in the US, mostly mobile). I'm deciding between:
1.) CloudflareStream + Backblaze(B2): Pros: Simple product, minutes viewed pricing(possibly cheaper than GCP for video streaming), built in transcoding. Concern: not sure if their ABR quality will match the quality of say GCP's which was really good in prior use.
2. GCP(GCS+TranscoderAPI+MediaCDN) Pros: I used this set up previously and it was robust, storage was cheap, network costs were low and the streaming quality was excellent. And the console was fairly easy to navigate(especially compared to AWS) I left GCP because of non Video Streaming related issues(Video Intelligence API was exceptionally expensive) but considering going back just for Video storage and streaming Cons: There were some issues configuring the transcoder API and also concerned there may be gotcha prices as I get more users
So if you've used Cloudflare Stream or GCP's video streamin services I'd love your take on: Real world playback quality for short videos especially 1080p/720p behaviour and bitrate ladders on CloudStream.
Any gotchas in pricing when it comes to either CloudStream or GCP Video Streaming services
Reliability/Operational issues you've run into.
I'm currently leaning on Cloudflare Streaming as it seems cheaper/better deal but concerned about reliability and quality of video streams. So maybe going back to GCP for video streaming wouldnt be so bad.
So looking forward to your thoughts, thank you
I've been using Cloudflare's ecosystem heavily for my video tools and can share some thoughts:
For your use case (40s clips, 10-50K plays/day), Cloudflare Stream's per-minute pricing model could be significantly cheaper than GCP, especially as you scale. Their ABR quality is quite good for 1080p/720p - I haven't noticed quality issues in practice.
One consideration: Cloudflare Stream has a 30s minimum charge per video, so for 40s clips you're paying for 60s. This might eat into the cost savings vs GCP.
Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare has free egress which is huge, but make sure you're using the Bandwidth Alliance properly to avoid surprise charges.
Have you considered keeping source files in B2 and only using Cloudflare Stream for delivery? That hybrid approach might give you more flexibility.