HACKER Q&A
📣 Raed667

Do you use a Video CDN?


I'm looking into integrating short-video upload/streaming to a project built on top of Google Cloud.

I was wondering if anyone went through this path, and when did you start seeing benefits form using a CDN compared to serving files from GCS ?

If you used a CDN, I'm curious which one did you pick and what made you choose it ?

  👤 ColinWright Accepted Answer ✓
I've literally just started using PeerTube to host the actual videos, but my web site has the web pages on which the videos are embedded. I needed somewhere to host the actual videos because my server package doesn't give me enough space, I chose PeerTube because I hate Google with an irrational loathing, vimeo has limits that I'm likely to exceed, and the process with PeerTube was clear and simple. More, here was actually a person at the other end of the contact form when I had a question.

I'm not convinced I like the PeerTube recommendation systems, etc., but I'm just pointing people at my web pages, so it doesn't seem like that will matter.

I'll be interested to see other people's answers.

For reference, I am keeping copies of all the material on my own machines, just in case the PeerTube instance disappears. After all, "The Cloud" is just another name for other people's machines over which you have neither control nor authority.

👤 arkj
Few things to consider

1) are users spread out geographically? 2) are you expecting high traffic? 3) are you ok to spend more for performance?

If your answer is “no” to any of the above, then probably, there is no need of a CDN.

I have tested azure blob and s3, found both to be acceptable for small projects.