Red5

From its open-source roots in 2005 to its current XDN ecosystem, Red5's mission is to accelerate how people connect, learn, and play. The company builds custom real-time interactive streaming solutions for industries ranging from sports and education to surveillance and security.

Red5 envisions a future in which new real-time experiences power major revenue streams in entertainment and the future of work. Example scenarios include:

• Mobile surveillance and security applications that help make everyday life safer.
• Interactive sports opportunities that deepen fan engagement and enrich leisure time.

Red5 is committed to providing the software and tools that turn forward-thinking ideas into reality.

Core principles and values

Red5 highlights a set of core principles that guide its products and culture:

• Excellence: A high-quality development culture that pursues excellence in every facet of the business.
• Flexibility: Flexible, scaled customization options for real-time experiences.
• Dependability: A reputation for dependable delivery of real-time streaming experiences.
• Culture: A friendly, diverse, global, remote-first culture that values different perspectives and work styles.
• Efficiency: A focus on efficiency in work culture, code, and product solutions.
• Real-time experiences: A commitment to TrueTime Solutions™ that deliver streaming at "the speed of thought."

Team and structure

Red5 is led by an experienced leadership team and supported by specialists in product, engineering, architecture, and customer success. Roles on the public company page include:

• Executive leadership (CEO, COO, CTO, CIO).
• Sales leadership and regional sales roles.
• Product management and solutions architecture.
• Senior software architecture and technical account management.

The company operates as a friendly, diverse, global, remote-first team.

Careers at Red5

Red5 regularly posts open positions for technical and customer-facing roles. Examples of roles described on the careers section include:

• Cloud Support Engineer.
• Technical Account Manager.
• DevOps Engineer.
• Java and C++ Developer (Live Streaming).

While details vary by role, postings often highlight:

• Experience with cloud infrastructure (such as AWS, Azure, GCP, and other cloud providers).
• Familiarity with streaming-related technologies and protocols (for example HTTP, WebSockets, RTMP, WebRTC).
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills.
• Comfort working as part of a distributed, remote team.
• A dynamic environment with opportunities for growth and learning.
• Competitive salary and benefits, flexible working hours, and remote work options.

Candidates are typically invited to submit a resume and references through the channels listed on the site.

Red5's professional services team:

• Designs and builds custom live streaming applications and modules.
• Accelerates new feature development on top of Red5 platforms.
• Provides architectural guidance for fully customized solutions.
• Offers hands-on consulting and training to enable in-house teams.

The team has been building custom live and real-time streaming applications for well over a decade. Example projects include:

• Live auctions with Proxibid.
• In-venue sports arena experiences with top US leagues.
• Drone surveillance solutions created with partners such as Accenture Government.

These projects demonstrate fully scalable, sub-250 ms video delivery with broad cross-device and cross-browser compatibility.

Red5 emphasizes that working with their in-house experts can save time and money compared with outsourced groups that lack live, real-time streaming experience. Companies such as Disney, Samsung, and NBC Universal have used Red5 for custom development.

Enterprise Support Plan

The Enterprise Support Plan is Red5's top-tier standard support offering.

• Includes up to 10 hours of standard support (9:00 am–5:00 pm Eastern Time).
• Includes 5 hours of emergency support.
• Support hours can cover:
• Architecture and design help.
• Deployment recommendations.
• Configuration guidance.
• Hands-on DevOps assistance.

Customers can sign up for the Enterprise Support Plan directly from Red5.

Custom service-level agreements (SLAs)

For organizations whose needs go beyond the Enterprise Support Plan, Red5 can provide custom SLAs, such as:

• Expanded availability for support.
• Multiple tiers of emergency response.
• Other tailored support arrangements.

These are defined in consultation with Red5 and documented in a custom agreement.

Per-event support

Red5 also offers per-event support options:

• Customers can purchase blocks of support hours dedicated to specific live or special events.
• This is suited to organizations that have critical one-off or periodic live events where expert assistance is required.

How to engage

Organizations interested in professional services, support plans, or custom SLAs are encouraged to contact Red5 directly to discuss their requirements and the most appropriate engagement model.

Start Free / Pay-As-You-Grow

Designed for developers and startups who want to get started quickly and pay only for what they use.

• Included each month:
• 50 GB of streaming.
• 6,000 instance hours.
• 1 region: US Central.
• Support: Documentation and email support.
• Overage rates:
• $0.08 per GB of streaming beyond the included amount.
• $0.69 per instance hour beyond the included amount.
• $0.04 per 1,000 PubNub transactions (for global real-time application infrastructure such as messaging, chat, presence, reactions, synchronized state, AI interactions, and interactive experiences).
• Sign-up: No credit card required for the initial free tier.

Growth (annual plan)

For teams ready to scale their real-time streaming.

• Base price: $999 per month, plus usage-based discounts.
• Included each month:
• 10,000 GB of streaming.
• 10,000 instance hours.
• Regions: Multi-region support with 10 globally distributed regions:

1. Australia East (Sydney)
2. Brazil East (São Paulo)
3. Canada Southeast (Toronto)
4. Mexico Central (Querétaro)
5. US East (Ashburn)
6. US West (San Jose)
7. Italy Northwest (Milan)
8. UK West (Newport)
9. Saudi Arabia West (Jeddah)
10. Singapore (Singapore)

• Platform features:
• Unlimited access to Transcoding.
• Unlimited access to Live Mixer.
• Unlimited access to the Stream Manager API.
• Unlimited scaling within the service.
• Support: Documentation, email support, and access to a private Slack channel.
• Overage rates:
• $0.05 per GB of streaming beyond the included amount.
• $0.37 per instance hour beyond the included amount.
• $0.04 per 1,000 PubNub transactions.

Enterprise

For established organizations that need custom terms, higher volumes, and tailored SLAs.

• Pricing: Call Red5 for custom pricing and service-level agreements.
• Typical inclusions:
• 20,000 GB of streaming each month (as a starting point on the public page).
• Discounted pricing per GB of streaming.
• Discounted pricing for instance hours.
• Discounted pricing for PubNub transactions.
• Support:
• Documentation and email.
• Private Slack channel.
• 24/7 phone support.
• Additional options:
• Custom feature development.
• Guaranteed SLAs tailored to your requirements.

Important notes

• Prices, inclusions, and discounts can change; always confirm details against the latest Red5 Cloud pricing page or your agreement.
• Usage-based charges depend on actual consumption of streaming, instance hours, and PubNub transactions.

Red5 Pro is self-hosted live streaming server software for building live and on-demand applications at global scale. Pricing is based on license plans and the number of server instances you run, not on viewing minutes or bandwidth.

All pricing and features listed here are summaries of the public pricing page and may change. For the latest details or custom arrangements, contact Red5 directly.

Plan structure

Red5 Pro offers plans aimed at individual developers through to large enterprises. Plans are available on monthly or annual subscriptions.

A license gives you the right to run Red5 Pro streaming capabilities on your servers. It defines:

• Your plan level (Developer Pro, Startup, Growth Pro, or Enterprise).
• The features included with that plan.
• How many Red5 Pro server instances you can use.

An instance is a single running Red5 Pro server used to process and deliver streams. Each server you spin up counts as one instance for billing. If a server runs for 15 minutes or more, it is counted for that month, and you are billed based on the highest number of instances running at the same time.

Red5 Pro is hosting-agnostic. You deploy it on your preferred infrastructure (for example AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or your own data center). Infrastructure and data transfer costs are paid directly to your provider.

Red5 Pro does not charge based on:

• Minutes streamed.
• Number of viewers.
• Bandwidth usage.

Instead, costs are tied to your license level and instance counts.

Developer Pro

• Price: $29.99 per month (additional fees may apply for services such as Castaway, custom SLAs, and custom-developed features).
• Connection limit: Up to 100 connections.
• Core features:
• Low latency live streaming.
• Live recordings.
• Video on demand.
• Protocols: WebRTC, RTMP, RTSP, HLS, IP camera (based on the information on the pricing page).
• Scalability:
• No clustering.
• No autoscale.
• Support: Community resources and email support.

Startup

• Price: $119 per month (additional fees may apply for services such as Castaway, custom SLAs, and custom-developed features).
• Connection limit: Unlimited connections.
• Protocols and features: Includes adaptive bit rate streaming (as listed on the pricing page).
• Scalability: Autoscaling for unlimited capacity across supported clouds such as AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or DigitalOcean.
• Support: As described on the current Red5 Pro pricing page.

Growth Pro

• Price: $299 per month (additional fees may apply for services such as Castaway, custom SLAs, and custom-developed features).
• Protocols: Includes support for transcoding and IP camera workflows.
• Support: Includes access to a private Slack channel.

Details for other features and scalability options for this tier should be confirmed against the latest official pricing page.

Enterprise

• Price: Starting at $3,499 per month (additional fees may apply for services such as Castaway, custom SLAs, and custom-developed features).
• Includes everything in the other plans, plus:
• Unlimited connections.
• Offline deployments.
• 24/7 support.
• Support: Phone support is included.

Exact entitlements, scaling limits, and any custom options are defined in your Enterprise agreement with Red5.

Mobile SDK pricing

Red5 offers project-based pricing for mobile SDKs:

• Monthly billing: $419 per month for each launched project.
• Annual billing: $349 per month for each launched project when billed annually.

You do not pay separately for individual SDKs. If you need iOS, Android, and Linux SDKs for the same project, you still pay a single fee for that project. The mobile SDK price covers all required SDKs for one launched project.

Important notes

• Prices, plan names, and feature sets can change over time.
• Some page sections are summaries and may omit less central details.
• For binding pricing, discounts, or custom arrangements, always refer to your official Red5 order form or agreement and the most recent pricing page.

• Ultra-low latency: Sub-250 ms end-to-end latency, designed to be faster than humans can perceive.
• Real-time interactivity at scale: Supports interactive experiences for millions of concurrent viewers.
• Multiple streaming protocols: Supports WebRTC, RTSP, SRT, RTMP, WHIP, WHEP, Zixi and other modern streaming protocols.
• Flexible deployment: Deploy on premises, in public cloud, multi-cloud, or at the network edge (such as 5G MEC), depending on the product you choose.

Typical use cases and industries

Red5 solutions are used to power a wide range of real-time and mission-critical applications, including:

• Sports streaming: Highly interactive live sports broadcasts and fan engagement experiences.
• Surveillance and security: Real-time monitoring solutions that help operators see more and act faster.
• News broadcasting: Multi-stream live news coverage with real-time monitoring and low delay.
• Traffic monitoring: Cloud and on-premises traffic video monitoring systems.
• Sports betting: Sub-250 ms synced streams that enable micro-betting and real-time wagering experiences.
• Online auctions: Real-time bidding experiences with synchronized video and actions.
• Casino and iGaming: Immersive live dealer and interactive gaming experiences with tightly synced video.
• Other mission-critical apps: Any application that depends on synchronized, real-time video, audio, and data delivery.

How Red5 helps

Red5 combines patented technologies, real-time streaming expertise, and a mix of software products and services to help organizations:

• Build new real-time streaming applications from scratch.
• Add ultra-low-latency streaming features to existing products.
• Scale reliably from initial pilots to large global deployments.
• Deliver virtual experiences that feel as immediate and responsive as in-person interactions.

Red5 Cloud is a fully managed platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for live streaming and on-demand applications:

• Built and operated by Red5 as a managed cloud service.
• Delivers globally scalable, ultra-low-latency streaming.
• Provides dedicated infrastructure for each customer to help ensure performance, security, and flexibility.
• Designed so teams can start quickly without managing their own streaming server infrastructure.

Red5 Pro

Red5 Pro is self-hosted live streaming server software:

• Designed for ultra-low latency streaming at scale.
• Can be deployed on premises, in public cloud environments, or at the network edge (including 5G MEC).
• Used to build custom live streaming and real-time interactive experiences.
• Supports modern streaming protocols such as WebRTC, RTMP, RTSP, HLS, and IP camera sources (details vary by plan and configuration).

Developer SDKs and tools

Red5 provides a range of developer tools to help integrate real-time streaming into applications:

• SDK support for web, iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, Unreal Engine, and Unity.
• Developer tools for building interactive streaming experiences across multiple devices and platforms.

Open-source projects and free tools

Red5 maintains open-source and free tools that developers can access, customize, and contribute to, including:

• The Red5 media server.
• TrueTime Solutions™ components.
• Load testing tools and other utilities for evaluating real-time streaming performance.

Mobile apps

Red5 also offers a mobile app that can:

• Broadcast and view live video with ultra-low latency.
• Connect directly to Red5 Cloud so users can stream from iOS or Android devices.

Professional services

For teams that need additional help, Red5 offers professional services, consulting, and support plans. These are covered in a separate document on Support Plans and Professional Services.

Ask anyway — the agent will say plainly that it is not published rather than guess.