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by charlesding2024 180 days ago
I've been using Cloudflare's ecosystem heavily for my video tools and can share some thoughts:

For your use case (40s clips, 10-50K plays/day), Cloudflare Stream's per-minute pricing model could be significantly cheaper than GCP, especially as you scale. Their ABR quality is quite good for 1080p/720p - I haven't noticed quality issues in practice.

One consideration: Cloudflare Stream has a 30s minimum charge per video, so for 40s clips you're paying for 60s. This might eat into the cost savings vs GCP.

Backblaze B2 + Cloudflare has free egress which is huge, but make sure you're using the Bandwidth Alliance properly to avoid surprise charges.

Have you considered keeping source files in B2 and only using Cloudflare Stream for delivery? That hybrid approach might give you more flexibility.

1 comments

I see, yes I am planning to keep the raw video files in B2.

So about the 30 second minimum charge, my current scenario is users can record and upload videos of any length between 5-60 seconds max if they are recording from the app's camera. On average I have found its 40 second videos. But if uploading from their gallery max is videos of 3minute length or lower.

Thank you for the reply as well. Glad the quality of cloudflare stream is good

Makes sense. Just a heads-up on the hybrid approach: storing raw files in B2 while also ingesting to Stream means you're paying for storage twice.

Also, for the mobile app, definitely look into Direct Creator Uploads. You can generate a signed URL on your backend and let the phone upload straight to Cloudflare. It saves a ton of headache handling bandwidth on your own servers.

Merry Christmas!

thank you for this, will definitely look into the Director Creator Uploads. For storing raw files dont know if I have an alternative if Cloudflare stream isnt keeping the raw file. Merry Christmas to you too!!