Hi there,
has anyone here already tried using App Storage to store videos, and to stream videos on a website from the App storage?
The agent is getting into an error cycle when I was trying it.
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Do you mean object storage?
If you’re trying to stream, you need to implement an HLS mechanism to create various quality stream chunks. Otherwise, you’ll have buffering issues.
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That is going to hit your pocket hard - I very much doubt Replit’s hosting and bandwidth costs are the lowest, and it very much feels like a “rolling your own” solution which is unecessary.
Wouldn’t you be better off using something like Youtube to host the videos?
I’m currently using Replit to build a native mobile app for a client, and the plan is to integrate with Vimeo to stream a bunch of tutorial videos to the user.
Asking AI agent to build this will be straightforward - the Replit app simply needs to display the Vimeo player; Vimeo takes care of everything else.
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I’ve built this and it works fine. It depends on your use case. Without knowing more about the app, it’s hard to say if this is a good route to take or not.
YouTube is very often a terrible solution because it invites clickaway and post-video nonsense.
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Vimeo is a solid option but you’ll end up paying for it.
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more than you’d end up paying Replit?
Quite possibly, yes. But there’s more to consider than just cost, also.
Again, we don’t know enough about the app to make a proper assessment.
I have an app in production using HLS and it barely moved my monthly costs up on Replit.
To get videos behind an integrated auth or paywall, without branding, it may cost quite a bit elsewhere.
Lots to consider.
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Agreed, we need to know more.
It also depends on your tech experience @alantebuev. If “implement an HLS mechanism to create various quality stream chunks” is alien to you, then as much as Replit’s agent will take a lot of that in its stride, I would hesitate on this kind of roll-your-own solution.
Yes I do. They recently changed the name of object storage to app storage.
For context, I am building a pretty simple website for a client and they want to add a lot of videos to it.
Until now, the videos have sat in my public folder of my repository but the performance has been taking a hit.
I assumed my solution would be to use a proper CDN to deliver these videos, but I am very new to this.
HLS mechanism is alien to me.
For now, I just want to find an easy and efficient solution on how to add videos to a website while maintaining fast performance.
I don’t know what the standard industry practices are to do this.
Ideally, I don’t embed these videos as youtube/vimeo videos.
What were the errors agent was giving you?
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Google Cloud authentication problem (object storage setup might not have completed properly)
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Trying to access a bucket that doesn’t exist
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video format error and the storage system not finding the files
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wrong path configuration
These were the last few issues. I think for now I will try to stick to self-hosting videos and try a few other ways to improve performance before going back to object storage
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That certainly sounds a bit messy - I hope you get to the bottom of it. If it was me, I’d work through each point slowly with the agent, asking it to analyse the issues and explain what it thinks is wrong and what needs resolving. But ensuring it is not allowed to make any changes until there is a solid plan - otherwise the agent is just going to dig the hole even deeper. I find for this type of analysis the deep thinking mode is a good option.
Thanks for the advice!
Asking the agent questions doesn’t use up credits right?
I managed to make massive performance improvements by compressing the videos and changing the transcoding.
I won’t mess with object storage for now but when I do I will follow your advice.
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Not necessarily. If it creates a checkpoint, it’ll cost ya.
I have integrated https://cloudinary.com/ into 3 of my apps pretty easily and their free allowance is very nice.
Asking questions (including in Build mode) does cost you.
Plan, Build - all cost.
Assistant is the only place you can ask questions for free (as long as you don’t accept code changes).
App Storage usually isn’t meant for streaming video, so errors and loops are pretty common when you try. It works for files, not for continuous playback. For real video streaming you need proper chunking (HLS/DASH) and delivery, which is why people use streaming backends or platforms like VPlayed instead of app storage.
BTW, I’ve successfully done this quite a bit, most recently a TikTok-style iOS app that runs beautifully from AppStorage streaming.
Depending on your app’s nature, you may need to configure HLS for reliable, auto-switching streaming.