The best hosting type for a live streaming project is usually different than for a regular web site.
Dedicated vs VPS
A VPS (Virtual Private Server) can be used for live video streaming project development and testing but is not recommended at production times.
Dedicated servers are recommended.
Multiple VPS (Virtual Private Servers) share same server with same hardware (disk, CPU, memory, connection). While resulting performance issues are not visible when serving http pages, frame loss/latency/temporary freezing can occur in live streams on a VPS, depending on how the other VPS on same server use the shared physical resources and temporary lock these. When 4-12 VPS share same 100Mbps server connection, that can limit number of simultaneous users to 10-20. You should avoid using a VPS for production mode.
Connection speed is very important for video streaming and limits maximum simultaneous users that can be served. A dedicated server has own dedicated connection.
Also location of server is important. From our tests the US servers with 1000Mbps connection, reach 200-750Mbps upload speed from different locations in US, 80Mbps from UK, 30Mbps from FR, few Mbps from Asia.
Shared vs VPS
Altough it seems counter intuitive, a shared hosting plan on a server that runs a rtmp service can be better than a VPS because in the first case, the RTMP service (process) has full access to all dedicated server resources and distributes these to clients with designed streaming fluency. On a VPS, the RTMP service is installed on a fraction of the server and resource allocation/balancing is done above the RTMP server. This can cause visible streaming interruptions, latency or server crashes due to throttling and resource cutting applied to rtmp service process. We recommend using a RTMP service installed directly on a dedicated server, even if service is shared. We don’t recommend a RTMP service installed on a server share.
Reseller accounts (setup with WHM/CPanel) are accounts that can manage multiple CPanel accounts. Multiple reseller accounts are usually hosted on a VPS or dedicated server and have less resources and priority than a VPS. Usually reseller hosting providers don’t include rtmp hosting due to management and resource allocation hassle.
Cloud instances are similar to VPS and have similar limitations (there are multiple instances on a server and each one can grow and occupy available free resources). Reference: AWS CDN Instance connection limit, EC2 Bandwidth Limit .
In conclusion, a dedicated server is recommended. If that’s not possible a shared host where rtmp service runs on directly on the dedicated server is the next best thing. A cloud or vps environment comes last and can be used for setting up a custom testing/development setup.
