Red5 Documentation

Red5 Pro Clustering

With a typical high capacity web site which serves static files and scripts, load balancing is used and every client facing server is a mirror image of a master with a shared database.

Live streams are almost always unicast over UDP or TCP to a distribution server. The subscribers are also TCP or UDP unicast receivers. When it is time to add more capacity for live content, it is not practical to have the broadcaster publish to additional servers. As such, other servers must be able to acquire and repeat the streams in real time.

The Clustering Plugin available from Red5 Pro allows for:

  • Basic Clustering that provides more than one endpoint of a broadcast stream to subscribers
  • Advanced Clustering that provides more than one endpoint for publishers to broadcast to as well as multiple endpoints for subscribers

Clustering is available with Startup Pro, Growth Pro, or Enterprise Pro Licenses. It is not enabled for Trial or Developer Licenses.

To enable clustering, you will need to have at minimum, a Startup Pro License associated with your Red5 Pro Account.

To purchase a license that supports clustering, visit the Overview Section of your account and fill in the required information under Upgrade to Professional Server License.


For larger cluster environments, consider using Red5 Pro Autoscaling, which allows for cluster scaling based on load.