Cloudflare Opens Low-Latency HLS Beta to All Stream Customers

Cloudflare is making its Low-Latency HTTP Live Streaming (LL-HLS) support available to all Stream customers as an open beta. The feature, first introduced in a closed beta during Speed Week 2023, aims to reduce glass-to-glass latency to as little as three seconds, enabling more interactive streaming use cases like live chat, e-learning, sports, and gaming.

LL-HLS is an extension of the standard HLS protocol that reduces the time between an event occurring on the broadcast end and it appearing on a viewer's screen. This measurement includes transcoding, network conditions, and client-side buffering—reflecting the actual user experience rather than just byte delivery timing. With appropriate encoder and player configurations, broadcasters can achieve sub-three-second playback.

Pricing stays flat

The LL-HLS beta does not change Stream's pricing model. Customers pay $1 per 1,000 minutes of video delivered and $5 per 1,000 minutes of video stored, billed monthly. There are no additional charges for ingress, encoding, or egress. The service includes a built-in web player and HLS/DASH manifests for use with third-party players, plus access control features such as signed URLs and hotlinking prevention.

Network-driven latency improvements

Stream leverages Cloudflare's global network, with points of presence within 50ms of 95% of the internet-connected population, to reduce delivery latency. Video is ingested close to broadcasters and routed through Cloudflare's infrastructure, with encoders run on-demand and player manifests generated as close to viewers as possible.

Enabling LL-HLS for a live input

To use LL-HLS, create or update a Live Input in the Cloudflare dashboard and enable the “Low-Latency HLS Support” toggle. RTMPS and SRT endpoints are then automatically provided, along with an HTML embed for the built-in player. Recommended broadcast settings are:

  • Codec: h264
  • GOP size / keyframe interval: 1 second

Broadcasters can {{BLOCK_1}}

Stream will automatically provide the RTMPS and SRT endpoints to broadcast your feed to us, just as before. For the best results, we recommend the following broadcast settings:

  • Codec: h264
  • GOP size / keyframe interval: 1 second

Optionally, configure a Live Output to point to your existing video ingest endpoint via RTMPS or SRT to test Stream while rebroadcasting to an existing workflow or infrastructure.

Stream will automatically provide RTMPS and SRT endpoints to broadcast your feed to us as well as an HTML embed for our built-in player.

{{BLOCK_2}} test LL-HLS without disrupting existing workflows by configuring a Live Output to rebroadcast to a current ingest endpoint. {{BLOCK_3}} During the beta, the built-in player will automatically use low-latency mode for any enabled Live Input, falling back to standard HLS when necessary. A “Low Latency” indicator will appear in the player when LL-HLS is active.

For testing with custom players, append ?protocol=llhls to the HLS manifest URL. This flag is not yet intended for production use and may change; Cloudflare recommends monitoring the DevDocs changelog for updates.

All new and existing Stream subscriptions are eligible for the LL-HLS open beta with no contract requirements or pricing changes.