An alternative to Cloudflare Stream: Orbit Stream
Orbit Stream: publish over RTMPS from the software you already use; viewers watch over HLS, delivered from the same edge as all of Orbit.
What Cloudflare Stream does well
Cloudflare Stream bills on two numbers only β minutes stored and minutes delivered β with ingress, encoding and bandwidth included, the same way for live and on-demand, and delivers from a network with data centres in 348 cities.
At a glance
| Item | Orbit Stream | Cloudflare Stream |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Live broadcasts published over RTMPS and watched over HLS | Video storage, encoding and delivery, for on-demand and live |
| Who runs it | Hosted on the Orbit network | Hosted by Cloudflare |
| Free option | In paid Orbit packs; not in the free pack | No free allowance; ingress and encoding are free; $5 per 1,000 minutes stored a month, $1 per 1,000 minutes delivered |
Cloudflare Stream details are from Cloudflare Stream's own page 1, Cloudflare Stream's own page 2 as of 2026-09; terms change, so check there for the current ones.
Where Orbit fits
For simple per-minute pricing at scale, Cloudflare Stream is the stronger choice. Orbit Stream is for broadcasters who publish from their own RTMPS software and want live channels, recordings and chat in one Orbit console.