Caching within MistServer

We're working on quite a significant improvement for MistServer: caching.

With this we mean the ability for MistServer to store more than just its buffer in a designated folder to easily use & share with viewers. This can be especially handy when only parts of a stream are expected to be populair, keeping stream in storage only while the viewers are active or storing an additionally encoded track for easier playback.

You should see the caching folder as more of a long(er) term storage, while not necessarily true long term storage or permanent storage. Sometimes you will want to pull a stream from cold storage, keep it a few days and then remove it again without needing to direct this all yourself. Or simply keeping the last "X" of streams within memory if you're suspecting that more viewers will have the same viewing pattern. All in all this is part of some bigger plans we have where MistServer can be smarter about sharing streams between servers and plan loads both for incoming streams and viewers. We're also expecting some great improvements in reading in HLS playlists with this.

This is still very much in a design phase and we're slowly working on it. Though it is a feature we're hoping to release earlier rather than later going into 2026. We'll be sure to provide more information when we have it.

Are you interested or do you want to help design the feature? Contact us.