The Most Reliable Media Server Software
Video Infrastructure You Can Control
For organizations that can’t afford downtime, Wowza Streaming Engine is the reliable media server software with a proven track record of reliability. Install it on owned hardware and run it in a private cloud, public cloud, on-premises, or at the edge. Keep video pipelines operational through packet loss, hardware failure, and network instability. Wowza backs deployments with 24x7x365 support from a team of experts.
200,000+
Live instances
99.99%
Uptime
~35,000
Mission-critical networks
SOC 2
Type II, air-gapped
Reliability Starts With A Rock-Solid Foundation
Wowza Streaming Engine runs entirely inside your environment. Choose your hardware, network, and downstream systems, and Wowza Streaming Engine connects across all of them to keep your operations uninterrupted.
- Deploy on bare metal, virtual machines, containers, private cloud, public cloud, hybrid, or edge hardware
- Run fully air-gapped on an isolated network with no internet access using an offline license key
- Keep video, metadata, and credentials inside the existing security perimeter
- Size and scale infrastructure against real traffic instead of a vendor’s tier limits
- Build on software from a SOC 2, Type 2 certified company
Build Redundancy and Failover into the Delivery Path
Wowza Streaming Engine has built support for redundancy from the encoder to the edge. You configure backup paths in advance, and the media server automatically routes around a failed component without you needing to get involved.
- Configure a secondary origin server URL on every edge
- Publish redundant source streams from paired encoders
- Distribute load across an origin-edge tier
- Route viewers away from saturated servers with Dynamic Load Balancing
Ensure Resilient Ingest Over Unpredictable Networks
Hold contribution feeds together on unstable networks out of your control. Wowza Streaming Engine reliably ingests feeds across cellular links, vehicles in motion, and remote sites on satellite backhaul.
- Ingest and deliver across RTMP, SRT, RTSP, MPEG-TS, WebRTC, HLS, and MPEG-DASH without protocol lock-in
- Recover lost packets with SRT ARQ retransmission within a configurable latency budget
- Absorb jitter, packet loss, and fluctuating bandwidth without degrading stream integrity
- Monitor incoming feeds and reconnect automatically after an outage
- Interleave RTSP over TCP for camera feeds on restrictive networks
Monitor Feed Health For Confidence
Keep your streams live by monitoring feeds with Wowza Streaming Engine. Monitoring runs inside the media server, so operators work in the observability systems they’re used to.
- Track connection counts, network throughput, uptime, CPU, memory, Java heap, and disk usage in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager
- See connections, uptime, and throughput for any incoming stream
- Pull stream analytics programmatically through the Wowza Streaming Engine REST API
- Receive real-time webhook notifications for key stream events, like stream start, stream stop, or application shutdown
- Feed observability stacks through JMX (Java Management Extensions) and SNMPv2c
Regular Maintenance & Support Protect Your Deployment
Wowza Streaming Engine users benefit from regular patch releases that address bugs and security findings between major builds. Keeping the media server up-to-date is the first step to ensuring reliability and resiliency.
- Receive patch releases that resolve bugs, regressions, and third-party library vulnerabilities
- Published release notes include CVE remediation detail in every upgrade
- Plan upgrades on your maintenance schedule rather than vendor’s timeline
What support plans does Wowza offer?
Wowza also offers premium support plans, with higher tiers committing to escalated response times and around-the-clock access.
Standard Support
48-hour response time during business hours
Silver Support
8-hour response time during business hours
Gold Support
2-hour response, Severity 1, 24x7x365
Platinum Support
30-minute response, Severity 1, 24x7x365, with a dedicated account owner
What makes Wowza Streaming Engine reliable?
Wowza Streaming Engine is reliable because it removes external dependencies from the video path and gives operators direct control of redundancy, observability, and maintenance. The software runs where the operator chooses, using failover paths that the operator defines, and reports feed health without calling out to a cloud service.
When to run redundant origins
Organizations delivering live video to internal video walls, public dashboards, or paying subscribers
When to run air-gapped operations
Defense programs, government agencies, and industrial sites on isolated networks with no internet access
When to add load balancing
Operations centers with growing camera counts or unpredictable viewer spikes
Reliability Is Built On Wowza
Control Your Infrastructure
Wowza Streaming Engine runs on owned hardware and isolated networks, keeping the video path under operator control.
Build In Resiliency
Secondary origins, redundant encoders, load balancing, and origin-edge tiers give every layer a backup.
Maintain Full Visibility
Manager dashboards, REST APIs, webhooks, JMX, and SNMP report feed and server health.
Get Help When You Want It
Engage the Wowza Design Center team to validate redundancy and failover before production.
What Do Wowza Customers Say About Reliability?
Wowza Streaming Engine Reliability FAQs
What is the most reliable media server software?
Wowza Streaming Engine is one of the most reliable media server software options for enterprise and mission-critical video deployments because it runs entirely on infrastructure the operator controls. It also supports redundancy at the encoder, origin, and edge layers, while also providing full observability into feed health. More than 200,000 Wowza server instances running, with customers streaming over 30 million hours of live video every month.
How does Wowza Streaming Engine handle failover?
Wowza Streaming Engine handles failover through configured backups. Each edge server accepts a secondary origin server URL and switches to it when the primary origin fails. Encoders can publish redundant source streams so a single contribution failure does not end the broadcast.
How do operators monitor stream and server health in Wowza Streaming Engine?
Wowza Streaming Engine reports connection counts, network throughput, uptime, CPU, memory, Java heap, and disk usage in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager or via the REST API. It records those metrics every five seconds at the application, virtual host, and server levels. Teams can subscribe to and connect webhook alerts for key events like stream start, stream stop, and application shutdown to existing monitoring stacks.
Can Wowza Streaming Engine run air-gapped or fully offline?
Wowza Streaming Engine can run fully air-gapped and offline, on an isolated network with no internet access, using an offline license key. Defense, aerospace, government, and industrial deployments use this configuration to meet security requirements that rule out cloud-enabled platforms.
What uptime can an organization achieve with Wowza Streaming Engine?
Customers running Wowza Streaming Engine report uptime figures exceeding 99.99% uptime in many cases. Load-balanced multi-server deployments improve that number. Achieved uptime depends on the architecture and redundancy an operator chooses to deploy.
What support does Wowza offer for mission-critical deployments?
Wowza customers with mission-critical deployments can opt into premium support plans that offer 24x7x365 coverage and escalated response times. Wowza Design Center additionally provides access to certified engineers who validate redundancy and failover before production.
How does Wowza Streaming Engine scale?
Wowza Streaming Engine scales through an origin-edge architecture. A Live Stream Repeater distributes one origin feed across many edge servers, a Dynamic Load Balancer routes each viewer to a less-loaded server from every edge, and a Media Cache scales on-demand delivery.
How does SRT improve streaming reliability?
SRT (Secure Reliable Transport) improves streaming reliability in two main ways. First, SRT runs over UDP, and second, it adds ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest) retransmission which recovers lost packets within a configurable latency budget. Wowza Streaming Engine supports SRT for both ingest and delivery, keeping contribution feeds intact across cellular, satellite, and public internet.