What is Monibuca

Monibuca (abbreviated as m7s) is an open-source streaming media server development framework built entirely in Go language. It features high scalability and easy deployment, designed specifically for building high-performance, low-latency streaming media applications, while also providing developer-friendly secondary development interfaces that make it easy to quickly customize your own streaming media solutions.

Core Features of Monibuca

Monibuca has the following core features that make it a powerful tool in the streaming media service domain:

Outstanding Performance

• High-Performance Architecture - Employs lock-free design, partial manual memory management, and multi-core computing technologies to achieve extremely high processing efficiency
• Low-Latency Transmission - Zero-wait forwarding mechanism ensures sub-second end-to-end latency, suitable for real-time interactive scenarios
• Efficient Resource Utilization - Optimized memory and CPU usage supporting high concurrent loads

Flexible Extension

• Plugin Architecture - Core functionality implemented through plugins, loaded as needed, with unlimited extension capabilities
• Customization Ability - Supports development of custom plugins to meet specific business requirements
• Multi-Protocol Support - Built-in support for mainstream streaming media protocols including RTMP, RTSP, HTTP-FLV, WS-FLV, HLS, WebRTC, GB28181, ONVIF, SRT, and more

Rich Functionality

• Media Processing - Supports screenshots, transcoding, SEI data processing
• Clustering Capability - Built-in cascading and room management functions, supports distributed deployment
• Preview Features - Supports video preview, split-screen preview, custom split-screen
• Security Guarantees - Provides encrypted transmission and stream authentication capabilities
• Recording and Playback - Supports MP4, HLS, FLV format recording, with speed adjustment, fast-forward dragging, pause, and other interactive capabilities
• Dynamic Time-Shift - Dynamic cache design, supports live broadcast time-shift viewing
• Remote Calling - Supports gRPC interfaces, facilitating cross-language integration
• Stream Aliasing - Supports dynamic setting of stream aliases, flexible management of multiple streams, implementing director functionality
• AI Integration - Integrates inference engines, supports ONNX models, with customizable pre-processing, post-processing, and frame drawing

Developer-Friendly

• Debugging Support - Built-in debugging plugins, supporting real-time performance monitoring and analysis
• Monitoring System - Supports Prometheus monitoring, providing comprehensive performance metrics
• Log Management - Log rotation, automatic cleanup, custom extension
• WebHook - Supports subscribing to stream lifecycle events, enabling business system linkage
• Complete Examples - Rich example code helping quick onboarding

Monibuca Architecture Design

Monibuca adopts a modular, plugin-based architectural design, mainly composed of the following core parts:

Core Framework

• Streaming Media Engine - Core component processing audio and video data forwarding
• Plugin System - Provides complete plugin lifecycle management
• Task System - Manages asynchronous tasks, optimizing performance
• Configuration Management - Unified configuration loading and management mechanism
• Logging System - Customizable log recording and processing
• API Services - Provides HTTP and gRPC interfaces

Core Forwarding Process

The core forwarding process of Monibuca mainly includes the following key links:

Publisher

The publisher is an object that writes audio and video data to the server's RingBuffer, responsible for:

• Writing data via WriteVideo and WriteAudio methods
• Creating Tracks, parsing data, generating ICodecCtx
• Supporting multiple data sources:
  • Accepting stream pushing (RTMP, RTSP, and other protocols)
  • Pulling streams from remote sources (RTMP, RTSP, HTTP-FLV, etc.)
  • Pulling streams from local recording files

Subscriber

The subscriber is an object that reads audio and video data from the RingBuffer, with main functions including:

• Subscribing to specific streams, reading data, and processing
• Supporting multiple data outputs:
  • Accepting stream pulling requests (RTMP, RTSP, HTTP-FLV, HLS, etc.)
  • Pushing streams to remote destinations
  • Writing to local files (recording function)

On-Demand Stream Pulling Mechanism

Monibuca supports intelligent on-demand stream pulling:

• Triggered by subscribers, automatically pulls streams when no publisher is present
• Configured through regular expressions to prevent duplicate stream pulling
• Supports advanced scenarios like cascading, on-demand recording and playback

Plugin Lifecycle

Monibuca plugins have complete lifecycle management:

1. Registration Phase - Plugins register via the InstallPlugin function
2. Initialization Phase - Loading configuration, preparing resources
3. Startup Phase - Starting services, network listening
4. Stopping Phase - Stopping services, cleaning up resources
5. Destruction Phase - Completely releasing resources, preventing memory leaks

Stream Processing Mechanism

Monibuca employs efficient stream processing mechanisms:

• Publisher-Subscriber Pattern - Supports one-to-many distribution
• Forwarding Mechanism - Efficient data forwarding, reducing intermediate steps
• Alias Mechanism - Flexibly maps different streams, supports dynamic switching
• Authentication Mechanism - Customizable stream publishing and subscription authentication

Use Cases

Monibuca is suitable for multiple streaming media application scenarios:

1. Live Streaming Platforms

• Functional Support: Stream pushing, pulling, transcoding, recording, screenshots, delayed playback
• Feature Advantages: High concurrency, low latency, multi-protocol support
• Usage Examples: Video live streaming platforms, game streaming, event broadcasting

2. Video Conferencing

• Functional Support: WebRTC, multi-party calling, recording and playback
• Feature Advantages: End-to-end low latency, high-quality transmission, secure encryption
• Usage Examples: Remote meetings, online training, remote collaboration

3. Security Surveillance

• Functional Support: GB28181, ONVIF, NVR integration, cloud storage, intelligent analysis
• Feature Advantages: 24/7 stable operation, multi-device access, dynamic expansion
• Usage Examples: Safe city projects, smart campuses, surveillance centers

4. Online Education

• Functional Support: Course live streaming, recording and playback, interactive features
• Feature Advantages: Stable and reliable, low-latency interaction, recorded viewing
• Usage Examples: Online classrooms, remote education, training systems

5. AI Visual Analysis

• Functional Support: Video stream AI analysis, ONNX model integration, real-time processing
• Feature Advantages: Stream processing + AI integration, low-latency analysis, parallel multi-stream
• Usage Examples: Intelligent transportation, behavior recognition, industrial quality inspection

Community Support

• WeChat Official Account: Buka Technology
• QQ Group: 751639168
• QQ Channel: p0qq0crz08
• Official Website: https://monibuca.com

License

Monibuca uses the AGPL license. For commercial use, please contact the development team to obtain a commercial license.