In this study, you’ll learn how Red5 with CacheFly integration simplifies the delivery of live and on-demand video at scale. The solution combines low-latency streaming with DVR-style playback, failover reliability, and worldwide CDN distribution, extending reach to devices beyond WebRTC. With minimal configuration, developers can transform live streams into on-demand assets while ensuring high-quality performance anywhere in the world. The combined solution and new features are now available in Red5 Cloud to select customers, and is currently being used by a major pro tennis championship. If you’re interested in using our joint solution, please get in touch with us to get access to these new features.

Meet the Red5 team at CacheFly’s booth 5.D80 during IBC2025 in Amsterdam, September 12–15, to see our joint solution in action. Learn about our presentation and book a meeting.

About CacheFly

The CacheFly logo

CacheFly is a premier Content Delivery Network (CDN) specializing in ultra-low latency, high-throughput performance for businesses that demand speed and reliability. Learn more at: www.cachefly.com or via LinkedIn.

What the Solution Does

As Red5’s co-founder and CEO Chris Allen recently shared in his LinkedIn post, Red5 Cloud, our fully managed PaaS that delivers globally scalable, low latency streaming with dedicated infrastructure for each customer, now integrates with CacheFly CDN giving customers a streamlined connection between these two solutions. It supports time-shifted playback, archived content, and live-to-VOD transitions with minimal configuration. This approach opens up a lot of possibilities for devices that don’t support WebRTC like Roku.

For customers, this means access to capabilities like:

• VOD Recording & Playback. Transform live streams into on-demand assets instantly, eliminating the traditional content lifecycle delays that plague broadcasters.
• Trick Play + Instant Replays. Enable viewers to fast forward, rewind, pause, and replay moments during live events. This brings the control of on-demand viewing to real-time experiences.
• CDN Playout at Scale. Leverage CacheFly’s global network to ensure high-quality delivery anywhere in the world.
• Failover with HLS. Seamless fallback to HLS provides broadcast-level reliability that enterprise customers demand.
• Device Reach Beyond WebRTC. Extend HLS streams to platforms like Roku and connected TVs.
• Real-Time Stream Scrubbing. Navigate within a live stream as intuitively as on-demand content, redefining viewer expectations for live experiences.

For customers needing full control over infrastructure, Red5 Pro provides the same performance for on-premises or self-managed deployments.

How the Solution Works

An example of the Red5 Cloud and CacheFly integration deployment diagram. 

What we are rolling out with CacheFly is very different from what our competitors in the WebRTC delivery space are doing right now. Most real-time video streaming solutions out there relegate recordings to a very simple feature: they can save the recording as a single MP4 file that you can upload to cloud storage. From there, it’s on you the developer to figure out what to do with it. In our opinion, this is not enough.

Red5 Cloud and CacheFly are deploying a complete integrated solution where your recordings, time-shifted playback, and DVR style scrubbing are first class citizens, making it easy to build complete apps without having to write custom CDN integrations and pipelines for managing your recordings.

Red5 Cloud can ingest multiple protocols such as WebRTC, RTMP, ERTMP, RTSP, SRT, Zixi, HESP, WHIP, and WHEP, and it can generate HLS streams from them. The CacheFly involves writing HLS segments in real-time to an expandable storage system hosted on Red5 Cloud. The resulting files are then made instantly available to Cachefly’s CDN for global distribution.

We have also worked with LL-HLS in our CacheFly integrations, fetching segments directly from memory to speed up delivery and achieve sub 3 second latency.

Who Should Use It

Developers, startups, and enterprises that need to reach the widest range of devices can benefit from using HLS, since it is the industry standard and well supported across platforms. For applications where real-time performance is not critical, low-latency HLS delivered through CacheFly’s global CDN provides a reliable way to scale video delivery worldwide. This approach is especially useful when broad compatibility and distribution matter more than achieving sub-250 ms latency.

Why They Should Use It

Key benefits of using this solution include:

• Global distribution. Leverages CDN-level delivery to scale content worldwide, adding more distribution points for your streams and supporting large, geographically dispersed audiences.
• DVR capabilities. Provides the ability to pause, rewind, and replay live streams, giving viewers flexibility and enhancing the overall user experience.
• Broad device compatibility. HLS is widely supported across browsers, mobile devices, smart TVs, and set-top boxes, ensuring your streams can reach the widest possible audience.

Real-World Applications

Major International Tennis Championship Event

A leading global tennis tournament worked with partners using Red5 Cloud’s HLS capabilities to power an immersive viewing experience. By leveraging segment timestamps, they synchronized live video streams with advanced VR techniques, creating a more engaging way for fans to experience the matches in real time.

Partner Testimonial

This collaboration represents a fundamental shift in how we approach streaming infrastructure. By combining our global delivery capabilities with Red5’s real-time streaming innovation, we’re enabling platforms to deliver experiences that were previously impossible at scale.”

– Nenad Merdanovic, Vice President of Engineering at CacheFly