Introduction
Live streaming has become a popular trend over the past few years. Many businesses and individuals prefer live streaming over traditional media content because of the new level of interactivity and engagement that can be achieved with the audience. In order to deliver reliable and high-quality live streams, a cloud-based solution is often required.
There are many cloud services available that facilitate livestreaming, but two of the most popular are AWS Elemental MediaLive and Wowza Streaming Engine. In this article, we will compare these two services in terms of Cloud Billing and Cost Management.
AWS Elemental MediaLive
AWS Elemental MediaLive is a cloud-based service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) which enables the production of high-quality live video streams. MediaLive makes it easy to set up, configure, and operate reliable live workflows in the cloud without requiring expertise in video processing. With MediaLive, users can create live video streams for delivery to broadcast television, satellites, and the internet.
AWS Elemental MediaLive offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which means that customers only pay for the services they use. The pricing structure is based on the data rate (GBPS) and duration (Hours) of live video output. The cost of streaming is calculated as follows:
Streaming cost = (Data rate in GBPS * Duration in hours * Price per GBPS per hour)For example, if you stream video at 4 GBPS for 10 hours, your cost would be:
Streaming cost = (4 x 10 x 0.85) = $34
AWS Elemental MediaLive offers a free tier, with which new customers can try the service for free for a year. The free tier consists of a monthly allowance of 200 minutes of live video output.
Wowza Streaming Engine
Wowza Streaming Engine is a customizable media server software that allows users to stream video and audio content to any device. It offers a comprehensive set of features for live streaming, including adaptive bitrate streaming, DVR, and live transcoding. With Wowza, users can create and deliver high-quality video and audio streams to any screen.
Wowza Streaming Engine offers a range of pricing plans, depending on the user's needs. Among the available plans, Wowza offers a pay-as-you-go option, which is calculated based on the GBPS of video content delivered. The pricing structure is as follows:
Streaming cost = (Data transferred in GBPS * Price per GB of data transfer)For example, if you deliver 10 GBPS of video content, your cost would be:
Streaming cost = (10 x $0.085) = $0.85
Wowza Streaming Engine offers a free trial, which allows users to test the service for 30 days. After the trial period, users must select a pricing plan based on their requirements.
Conclusion
Both AWS Elemental MediaLive and Wowza Streaming Engine offer reliable cloud-based solutions for live streaming. Both services offer pay-as-you-go pricing, which allows users to pay only for the services they use. However, the pricing models of the two services differ slightly.
For most live streaming applications, AWS Elemental MediaLive offers a more cost-effective solution than Wowza Streaming Engine. AWS Elemental MediaLive offers a lower price per GBPS of streaming, and it also offers a free tier for new customers. Additionally, AWS Elemental MediaLive is a fully managed service, which means that users do not need to worry about infrastructure or maintenance.
On the other hand, Wowza Streaming Engine offers greater customization options, which may be important for users with specific requirements. Wowza Streaming Engine also offers a 30-day free trial.
Before choosing a live streaming service, it is important to consider the specific requirements of your application, and to evaluate the features and pricing of each option.