Create A Live Streaming App In 6 Steps: The Ultimate Guide
A Step By Step Guide To Building A Live Streaming Platform Explained!
Planning to create your own live streaming app, but not sure where to start?
Allow us to help you 😊
We know you’ve got a lot of questions in mind, right now.
What’s the workflow?
Which tech stack to choose?
How to keep the platform secure?
What features to add?
Searching for answers to all of these questions can be truly overwhelming!
But don’t worry! We’ve got you covered.
We prepared this guide to make things simple for you.
You’ll learn,
- the steps to create a live streaming app
- the core streaming features for your app
- what other features you can add
- and the option to build the app in just few hours
First, let’s get into the basics.
Table of Contents
Understanding Live Streaming Basics
What Is Live Streaming?
Live streaming is a technology that sends out or receives live video and audio content over the internet, allowing viewers to watch events as they happen.
Live streaming technology encompasses both hardware and software components essential for transmitting live video content to viewers as it unfolds. This technology enables individuals to watch video broadcasts in real-time as they occur, offering a dynamic and immediate viewing experience.
Source: An extract from Washington Independent on Live Streaming Technology
The biggest reason why live streaming stands out from other forms of video content is – it connects content creators and audience with each other, directly.
Whatever the streamer does is viewable by the audience in real-time. And this is something that’s changing how we consume content every day.
Now, on the technological front there is a lot of interesting stuff that happens on a live streaming app. We’ll look into them as we go ahead in this article.
Key Features Of Successful Live Streaming Apps
💡Did You Know?
68%
consumers pay for a TV or live streaming subscription to access exclusive content, simplify their billing for both TV and broadband, and access streaming services through their TV provider.
Source: Deloitte’s Digital Media Trends
People are enjoying live streams like never before. They pay for a subscription service every month to watch live streams every day. Now, that calls for a serious focus on the features.
As people will most likely use the app on a daily basis, they’ll need features that are essential, easy and fun to use.
So here are some of them you need to consider while building a live streaming app.
- High-quality Video Streaming
Your video stream can’t stop because the viewer’s network strength is weak. Make sure that your app supports HQ streams that support various video qualities, from standard definition to 4K. So the app will adjust the quality automatically to the internet connectivity.
- Real-time Chat and Messaging
Imagine your audience getting all talky about your streams, they can’t keep themselves quiet from discussing your streams. This is where you’ll need a real-time messaging and live chat option, so people can send out and receive messages to each other, making your streams more lively and engaging
- Multi-platform Support
Your video streams must be playable on any device your audience uses. You can’t just allow your streams to run on a mobile and refrain from supporting Tablets.
This may interfere so much with people’s convenience in accessing your content. So make sure that your app is compatible with various devices and operating systems to reach a wider audience.
- Customizable User Profiles
Remember, you are not building a live streaming app, but also a community of people with similar interests. Your audience would want to express themselves in different ways and personalizing their profiles is one of the most convenient ways they’d like to do it. Make it fun and easy for them to edit and customize their profile, which would act as a social portfolio to connect with other users on your platform.
- Content Discovery
Imagine you’ve got an amazing collection of content and your audience is not able to access them because you have a bad UI and it is hard for them to navigate to your content. Everything might go vain.
To avoid such a situation, you need to implement a sophisticated search and recommendation system to help users find relevant streams effortlessly.
- Complete Source Code
- Lifetime Data Ownership
- Deploy on Own Server
- Monetization Options
At the end of the day, your streams must help you make money. To turn your efforts into reality, you’ll need options to monetize your content.
You can go for options like virtual gifts, subscriptions, or ad placements to earn out of your streams.
- Analytics Dashboard
You cannot improve if you do not know where your content or streaming parameters are lacking performance. This is where you’ll need an analytics dashboard that will give a centralized data of what really works on your platform and what does not.
This way, you can thoroughly study the user behavior on your app and understand which part of your app they like, and where you could improvise.
- Stream Scheduling
If you are so much into taking your content to your audience, more likely, you’ll create a collective of streams. Now, instead of spending time and effort manually in posting your stream to your audience, you can bulk create content and schedule them in one shot, saving a lot of time and energy.
And you can also set up notifications for your audience, when your scheduled premiere or stream begins, so they’ll never really miss out on your content.
- Recording and Replay
Almost 20% of your audience might not be able to make it to your streams, if they are caught up with their own priorities. But that must not be the reason why they’ll miss out on your content.
For situations like these, you can enable a recording option where users can set the recording of your stream and then watch it when they are available to make time for your content.
- Social Media Integration
Not many of your audience would have your app installed on your app. In these cases, you can have a social sharing option. People can repost your live streams on their social profiles, making it a great way to reach many more audiences across common networking apps like Facebook or Whatsapp.
Here’s a comparison table of these features and their importance:
| Feature | User Benefit | Creator Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| High-quality Video | Better viewing experience | Attracts more viewers |
| Real-time Chat | Increased engagement | Direct audience interaction |
| Multi-platform Support | Accessibility | Larger potential audience |
| Customizable Profiles | Personalization | Brand building |
| Content Discovery | Easy to find content | More visibility |
| Monetization Options | Support favorite creators | Income generation |
| Analytics Dashboard | N/A | Performance insights |
| Stream Scheduling | Never miss a stream | Better planning |
| Recording and Replay | Watch anytime | Content repurposing |
| Social Media Integration | Easy sharing | Increased reach |
Popular Live Streaming Platforms [2024]
As you plan to build a streaming app, it is very important to understand the existing apps in the market and what makes them so successful.
Here’s our favorite 5 Live Streaming Platforms:
1. Twitch
When you use Twitch, you’ll love the option to watch and interact with streamers at the same time. Also, you can send out messages to the streamer and they can reply to you in real-time. You’ll enjoy the way the app helps you interact with a community easily and get along with them with interactive features.
Why do people love this live streaming platform?
- Gaming-focused community
- Extensive monetization options
Key features:
- Emotes and custom chat commands
- Subscription tiers and bits (virtual currency)
- Extensions for interactive overlays
2. YouTube Live
YouTube Live allows users to stream videos live and interact with viewers through comments. It benefits from YouTube’s large audience, making it easier for creators to reach more people. Features like Super Chat let viewers support their favorite creators during live streams.
Why do people love this live streaming platform?
- Easy to use
- Integration with the world’s largest video platform
Key features:
- Seamless transition between live and VOD content
- Super Chat for monetization
- Automatic archiving of live streams
3. Facebook Live
Facebook Live lets users broadcast live videos to their friends or followers, using Facebook’s network for visibility. This feature is effective for reaching audiences already engaged with the creator’s content. Viewers can comment and react in real-time, enhancing interaction.
Why do people love this live streaming platform?
- Massive built-in audience through social network integration
Key features:
- Easy sharing and discovery through News Feed
- Live Reactions for real-time feedback
- Cross-posting to Pages and Groups
4. Instagram Live
Instagram Live allows users to stream video directly to their followers, promoting real-time interaction through comments and questions. It’s popular among influencers for creating authentic connections with their audience. The temporary nature of Instagram content encourages quick viewer engagement.
Why do people love this live streaming platform?
- Mobile-first, ephemeral live streaming experience
Key features:
- Integration with Stories
- Live Q&A and comment pinning
- Live shopping for e-commerce
5. TikTok Live
TikTok Live lets creators connect with their audience through live video streams, capitalizing on TikTok’s popularity. Viewers can interact via comments and virtual gifts, creating a personal experience. The platform’s algorithm helps surface live streams to interested users, increasing engagement.
Why do people love this live streaming platform?
- Short-form content creator transition to live streaming
Key features:
- Gifting system for monetization
- Duets and challenges integration
- AI-powered content recommendation
Now these are the top live streaming platforms, the reasons why people love these platforms and some of the unique features they have for viewer interaction. You can take these as inspiration for your live streaming platform, above this, you can plan out features that set you apart from these established platforms.
For example, you could focus on:
- Niche-specific streaming (e.g., education, fitness, cooking)
- Advanced AR/VR integration for immersive experiences
- Blockchain-based monetization for transparent creator payments
- AI-powered content moderation for safer streams
- Collaborative streaming features for multi-creator content
💡Did you know?
There is an easy way to create stunning live streaming apps in the next few hours. Our team of experts recommend VPlayed, a streaming solution that comes with pre-built features like Video CMS, Video DRM, and HLS/HTML 5 player, Book a free demo and start your streaming journey now!
Hope you got some idea on the existing players in the market. Now it’s your turn.
Here is a detailed guide on how to build a live streaming platform in simple steps. Let’s get started!
Building Your Live Streaming App in 6 Steps
Step 1: Planning Your Live Streaming App
This is a very important phase of your app development. If you miss to plan your live streaming app and jump right away into execution, you could lose out on huge resources and time. So it is better to understand what exactly you’ll do at each stage of the development process and arrange for resources accordingly.
Where should you start?
A. Understanding your Audience
You can’t create a live streaming platform with gaming features if your platform is completely focused to educate professionals. This is why you need to clearly understand who your audience is, and what kind of features they would love to have on your platform.
Something you cannot miss out to notice would be:
- Where are they located?
- What are their interests
- Which age group do they belong to?
- Will they be able to handle complex features?
- What type of content do they prefer?
- Which device they’ll use to watch your streams?
- How often will they watch your streams?
We could literally go on with the list. But as you brainstorm this based on your business, you’ll have a more focused understanding of what your audience needs in your live streaming platform.
B. Choosing a Niche or Focus
Your business must be based on a particular industry – Gaming, Education, Entertainment, Sports or Professional Events. Now, this is your niche – the market/ industry that your business operates for.
For each industry, the focus may differ. For example, if you are building a live streaming app for education, you will focus on features for learning – like screen sharing, white board and hand rise features, whereas the focus for a Professional event would be claps, registering or voting. This is purely subjective.
When you understand the focus, you will be able to prioritize the features that really matter to the business without losing your time and energy on the ones that are no way related to your target audience.
C. Setting App Goals and Objectives
A clear goal can help you streamline the workflow and get back to the track, whenever the focus goes off the line.
We’d encourage you to set specific goals like,
- User acquisition targets
- Engagement metrics (e.g., average watch time, concurrent viewers)
- Revenue goals
- Content quality standards
D. Determining How You’ll Make Money Out of Your Streams
You can easily earn with live streams. But the challenge lies in making the profit a sustainable and consistent income. Is it possible?
Why not?
Let us look into the different ways you can earn using your live streams
| Strategy | Description | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising | Display ads during streams | Passive income | May disrupt user experience |
| Subscriptions | Offer premium features for a fee | Steady revenue | Requires ongoing value delivery |
| Virtual gifts | Allow viewers to send virtual items to streamers | Encourages engagement | Needs a large user base |
| Pay-per-view | Charge for access to specific content | High-value content potential | May limit audience growth |
Got an idea how you can charge your viewers to access your streams?
You can choose one or more of these strategies, by effectively analyzing which one is better for your business model and type of audience.
Step 2: Choosing The Essential Technical Requirements
When creating a live streaming app, understanding and implementing the right technical requirements is crucial for success. Let’s explore the key components you need to consider.
A. Selecting the Right Streaming Protocol
A streaming protocol is a set of standards or blueprint that your app software follows to deliver multimedia (audio and video) over the internet in real-time.
You need a protocol to make your live streaming app work. It can be RTMP, HLS, WebRTC or DASH.
Which one should you choose?
Here are quick infos you’ll need about these protocols.
| Protocol | Latency | Compatibility | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTMP | Low | Limited | Live streaming |
| HLS | High | Wide | On-demand and live |
| WebRTC | Very Low | Good | Real-time communication |
| DASH | Medium | Wide | Adaptive streaming |
For a live streaming app, we would suggest you to use RTMP for ingestion and HLS or DASH for delivery to ensure low latency and a wide device compatibility.
B. Choosing a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
To understand what a CDN is, here is a definition by Cloudflare:
A content delivery network (CDN) is a group of servers spread out over a region or around the world that work together to speed up content delivery on the web.
A server is an important part of the live streaming process. A CDN is a group of servers that is essential for distributing your live stream to viewers across different geographical locations.
Now, what are the benefits you will enjoy when using a CDN for your live streaming platform?
We’d say there are 4 primary perks to it.
- Reduced Latency: When you use CDN, your platform will have minimum latency. This means, your users will enjoy a faster streaming experience.
- Improved Stream Quality: Your video is not dependent on one server, rather a group of servers that will take care of the overall quality of your streams.
- Better Scalability: You can scale up or down your streaming platform, as much as you want and the performance will be consistent.
- Enhanced Reliability: There won’t be lags or staggers on your platform. Viewers will find your app reliable to watch your streams.
C. Implementing low-latency Streaming
A live streaming platform must deliver video streams faster and smoother. How can you achieve it?
We’d urge you to consider these following strategies:
- Use chunked transfer encoding
- Implement WebRTC for real-time communication
- Optimize your encoder settings
- Utilize edge computing for faster processing
D. Ensuring Scalability and Reliability
Your live streaming app must handle sudden spikes in viewership without compromising performance. So what can you do about it?
Here are some of our suggestions:
- Use cloud-based infrastructure for easily scaling your streams
- Employ load balancing to distribute high incoming traffic
- Implement redundancy and failover systems
E. Incorporating Adaptive Bitrate Streaming
Adaptive bitrate streaming is a technique that automatically adjusts video quality based on the viewer’s internet speed and device, ensuring smooth playback.
Your audience will use different devices and their network strength may vary from each other. But that cannot be the reason why your audience might experience buffering and delays.
Whatever be the network strength, you can implement adaptive bitrate streaming with the following techniques:
- Creating multiple renditions of your stream
- Implementing a quality selection algorithm
- Enabling seamless switching between qualities
- Optimizing for different screen sizes and resolutions
Step 3: Designing The User Interface
You can’t retain users on your platform for a long time if you have a clumsy UI. You need to focus on the layout, user-friendly elements and navigation to make sure that your users have a fun and enjoyable live streaming experience.
How to make your UI interesting and smooth? Let’s give you a few suggestions:
When you design your layout, make sure that you have a clear navigation menu and a prominent search function so that people will be able to navigate across your app easily.
And one more important element is visible streaming controls that will make life easier for your users across your app.
Where exactly can you implement it?
- Simple one-tap streaming start/stop buttons
- Easily accessible volume and video quality controls
- Intuitive gestures for mobile users (e.g., pinch to zoom, swipe to navigate)
⚡Quick Tip⚡
Having a fancy look alone is not enough. Your app needs to engage your users as much as possible.
For this you’ll need features like
- Real-time chat functionality
- Reaction buttons (e.g., likes, emojis)
- Polls and Q&A features
- Donation or virtual gift options
Step 4: User Registration and Authentication
Your users will need a registration mechanism. Users can use their email and password to register on your platform or use their social media logins like Facebook and Google. Plus, to make sure that their data is safe, you can set up a two-factor authentication, so that no one other than the authorized user can access their account.
Step 5: Ensuring App Security and Compliance
Once you build a live streaming app and people start using it, you need to set up a security system to protect user privacy and data. There are some of the most efficient ways to do it:
- You can set up end-to-end encryption to protect user data and maintain privacy of users.
| Encryption Method | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| AES-256 | Highly secure, widely used | Computationally intensive |
| ChaCha20 | Fast, suitable for mobile devices | Less widely adopted |
- Use secure storage for sensitive information
- Provide clear privacy policies and user controls
- Regularly audit and update data handling practices
- Develop clear community guidelines
- Implement automated content filtering systems
- Set up a reporting mechanism for users
- Research and understand GDPR, CCPA, and other relevant regulations
- Implement geo blocking for region-specific content restrictions
- Ensure proper data handling and storage practices for each region
Step 6: Testing and Launching Your App
Now that you’ve developed your live streaming app, this is how you will prepare for a successful launch. Let’s explore the key steps in testing and launching your app.
- Beta testing is essential to identify and fix issues before your app goes live.
Here’s a checklist for effective beta testing:
- Recruit a diverse group of testers
- Test on various devices and operating systems
- Monitor app performance and stability
- Track user engagement and retention
- Gathering and incorporating user feedback.
- Prepare for app store submission
- Plan a marketing strategy for launch
With these steps completed, you’ll be well-prepared to launch your live streaming app and attract users.
The Easiest Way To Build A Live Streaming App
Most businesses choose to deliver a custom streaming experience to their customers and if you have the same idea, you are lucky that you have MirrorFly!
Shortly put, MirrorFly is a white-label solution that you can use to build a complete live streaming platform. The solution comprises APIs and SDKs that can add more than 1000 features to your apps. From video recording to RTMP support, you’ve got everything that you need to create a full-featured live streaming experience.
And do you know what the best part is? You have full control over the data. This means, you can access MirrorFly’s source code, customize any part of it to personalize your platform, and enable any type of security feature, as you prefer.
But that’s not the end of the biggest perks. MirrorFly also lets you self-host your app. You can choose to host your platform on any type of servers, yours, MirrorFly’s or any third-party, the choice is completely yours!
So what are you waiting for?
Go to this form, fill in your details, and one of our experts will get in touch with you within 24 hrs, and there begins the history of your live streaming business!
Happy Developing!
Ready To Build Your White-Label Live Streaming Platform?
Drive 1+ billions of conversations on your apps with highly secure 1000+ real-time Communication Features.
Request Demo
200+ Happy Clients-
Topic-based Chat
-
Multi-tenancy Support
200+ Happy Clients
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
A video streaming app is a software application that allows users to watch and stream videos without downloading them. Users can watch and stream live TV shows, videos, product demos, sports videos, etc.
Building a live streaming app requires some technologies to ensure smooth and efficient streaming. Here are some of the technologies used in a live streaming app:
- Content delivery network (CDN)
- Real-time messaging protocol (RTMP)
- Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC/li>
- Media servers
- Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABS)
- Video encoding and transcoding
- Mobile and web development technologies
Yes, streaming apps are profitable based on their monetization strategies. Multiple monetization strategies like pay-per-click, advertising, sponsor contents, crowdfunding, influencer marketing, etc. will drive your streaming app’s profit scale upwards. Along with monthly subscriptions, users must have access to premium contents and pay-per-view to generate revenues.
Live streaming offers several advantages to both viewers and content creators, such as
- Real-time interaction
- Instant access to events
- Convenience and flexibility
- Broad reach and scalability
- Cost-effective distribution
- Analytics and data insights
- Monetization opportunities
- User-generated contents
The cost of making a live streaming app depends on your project requirements, technical expertise, and team size. Common pricing starts at $40000 for building an app for one platform and extends based on your requirements and the number of platforms you prefer.
Further Reading
- Top 20 Benefits of Live Streaming for Businesses
- 8 Best Live Streaming Apps in 2024 For Mobile & Web
- What is In-App Live Streaming: The Ultimate Guide [2024]
- 10 Best Live Streaming SDKs & APIs: Full Review [2024]
Krishi Shivasangaran is a digital nomad and a veteran of Digital Marketing strategies. She is passionate about learning the newest trends in Live Video Call. And, when she's off-role, she loves to sketch and make people realize the true color of nature.
Live app development has always captivated me, and your post truly clarified the process of creating a live streaming app. Thank you for sharing your expertise!
Your step-by-step guide to creating a live streaming app is incredibly insightful! It’s refreshing to see the complexity of app development down into manageable stages.
Your post came at the perfect time! I’ve been exploring ideas for a live streaming app, and your clear, step-by-step guidance has given me the confidence to move forward. Thanks for sharing such valuable insights!
Building a live streaming app felt daunting until I came across your blog post. Your structured approach, addressing everything from technical requirements to user experience design, makes the process feel so much more achievable.
Your breakdown of the benefits, features, and monetization options for live streaming apps adds real depth to the conversation. This post is essential reading for aspiring developers and entrepreneurs looking to enter the live streaming market.