Castio.live – WordPress Streaming Plugin with Chat (HLS) vs UpdraftPlus

Castio.live is a WordPress streaming plugin with chat that lets you go live directly from your admin — no OBS, no RTMP, no external platforms. Stream video, chat with your audience in real time, and monetize your content with Stripe or PayPal — all from your own WordPress site. Perfect for creators, educators, events, and premium content platforms. Castio.live is one of the few WordPress plugins that enables browser-based live streaming without OBS or RTMP. At a Glance WordPress streaming plugin (HLS) Go live directly from WordPress Admin Built-in real-time chat No OBS, no RTMP, no external platform Paywall: Stripe & PayPal Gutenberg blocks for easy embedding Auto-generated viewer pages Works on shared hosting and VPS Start streaming in minutes Install the plugin, click “Start Streaming” in WordPress Admin, and instantly share your live viewer page with your audience. No streaming SaaS. No vendor lock-in. Full control over your content. Live Streaming from WordPress Admin Castio.live adds a dedicated streaming interface directly inside the WordPress Admin area. You can: – Select your camera and microphone – Preview your stream before going live – Start and stop streaming with a single click Supported capture technologies: – MediaDevices API – MediaRecorder – WebCodecs (when available, for lower latency) Supported streaming browsers: – Chrome or Edge (desktop) – Chrome (Android) Viewer playback works on all modern browsers, including mobile devices. Viewer Page (Auto-Generated) For each live stream, Castio.live can automatically generate a viewer page. Viewer page features: – HLS video playback (native HLS on Safari, hls.js on other browsers) – Clean and lightweight interface – Mobile-friendly layout – Optional live chat panel The viewer page URL can be: – Public – Shared privately – Embedded into other pages – Protected via access control options Monetize Your Live Streams Castio.live includes built-in monetization features so you can generate revenue from your content: Pay-per-view access Subscriptions via Stripe PayPal payments (no webhooks required) Secure access via signed cookies Perfect for: – Premium live events – Online courses – Private communities – Exclusive content No external SaaS required — you keep full control over your revenue. Built-in Real-Time Chat Each live stream includes a built-in real-time chat system. Chat features: – AJAX-based live message polling – Username display – Automatic refresh – Message history stored in the WordPress database Moderation tools: – View all messages – Delete individual messages – Ban users by username – Ban users by IP address No external chat service is required. Privacy, Ownership, and Compliance Castio.live is designed with privacy and data ownership as a core principle. No third-party streaming services No external chat providers No analytics or tracking scripts included by default No cloud-based video or message processing All streaming and chat data remains on your own server: – HLS video segments – Chat messages – Stream metadata – Viewer page configuration This design helps simplify compliance with GDPR and similar data protection regulations. Technical Architecture Castio.live is a fully WordPress-native plugin. No dependencies on: – FFmpeg – Node.js – RTMP servers – External streaming APIs Core components: – Browser-based HLS generation – PHP for stream lifecycle and data storage – JavaScript for capture, playback, and chat – WordPress custom post types and options The plugin works on shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers. Key Features Summary Live stream directly from WordPress Admin No OBS, no RTMP, no external streaming platform Browser-generated HLS (.m3u8 + .ts) Automatic viewer page creation Built-in live chat Chat moderation tools Mobile-friendly viewer experience All streaming and chat data stored locally Lightweight and efficient Compatible with most CDNs, including Cloudflare Who Is This Plugin For? Castio.live is ideal for: – Educators and online trainers – Content creators – Community websites – Event organizers – Developers and agencies – Anyone who wants full control over live streaming without SaaS platforms Source Code and Third-Party Libraries This plugin includes both original source code and third-party JavaScript libraries. Original plugin code – Unminified, human-readable JavaScript files are included directly in the plugin. – No obfuscated or encrypted code is used. Third-party libraries (vendored, unmodified) MediaBunny File: assets/js/vendor/mediabunny/mediabunny.esm.js Source: https://github.com/Vanilagy/mediabunny License: MIT Used for browser-based media processing. hls.js File: assets/js/vendor/hls/hls.min.js Source: https://github.com/video-dev/hls.js License: Apache License 2.0 Used for HLS playback on non-Safari browsers. These libraries are included for performance and compatibility reasons. All libraries retain their original licenses and copyright notices. External Services This plugin connects to external third-party services to provide optional monetization and licensing features. Stripe Payments Castio.live can integrate with Stripe to allow site owners to sell access to live or recorded streams, including pay-per-view content and subscriptions. What the service is used for: Stripe is used to create checkout sessions, process payments, manage subscriptions, and retrieve payment reports related to paid video access. What data is sent and when: When a visitor purchases paid content or when the site owner views payment reports, the plugin sends the following data to Stripe: – Email address provided during checkout – Payment and checkout session identifiers – Purchased content or pricing identifiers – Subscription and payment status metadata No video streams, chat messages, or media content are transmitted to Stripe. Service provider: Stripe, Inc. Terms of Service: https://stripe.com/legal Privacy Policy: https://stripe.com/privacy PayPal Payments Castio.live can integrate with PayPal to allow site owners to sell access to live or recorded streams via pay-per-view. What the service is used for: PayPal is used to create and capture payment orders for paid video access using the PayPal Orders API v2. What data is sent and when: When a visitor purchases paid content, the plugin sends the following data to PayPal: – Order amount and currency – Return and cancel URLs – Stream identifier (used as order description) No video streams, chat messages, or personal user data beyond the above are transmitted to PayPal. Service provider: PayPal Holdings, Inc. Terms of Service: https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/useragreement-full Privacy Policy: https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/privacy-full Castio.live Licensing Server This plugin connects to the Castio.live licensing server to validate premium licenses and enable optional premium features. What the service is used for: The licensing server is used to verify license validity and determine which premium features are available. What data is sent and when: During license validation (for example on activation, admin access, or periodic checks), the plugin sends: – License key – Site domain name – Plugin version – WordPress version No user-generated content, video streams, or personal data are transmitted. Service provider: Castio.live Terms of Service: https://castio.live/terms Privacy Policy: https://castio.live/privacy Demo and Additional Features A public demo, documentation, and optional commercial features are available at: https://castio.live Commercial offerings may include: – Advanced access control – Enhanced chat moderation – Extended streaming options – Priority support The core live streaming and chat functionality works without requiring any external service. Author and Support Developed by proxymis Website: https://proxymis.com Contact: [email protected]

The UpdraftPlus Backup & Migration Plugin is trusted by the WordPress community to backup, restore and migrate their WordPress websites. UpdraftPlus is actively installed on more than 3 million websites around the world. Backup with UpdraftPlus UpdraftPlus is the world’s highest ranking and most popular scheduled backup and migration plugin. Backup to your preferred storage location and restore in just three clicks. Backup to Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3 (or compatible), Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, Openstack Swift or email. The paid version also allows you to backup to Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Backblaze B2, SFTP, SCP, pCloud, WebDAV or UpdraftVault, our integrated storage option for UpdraftPlus. Backup manually or schedule to run every 2, 4, 8 or 12 hours, daily, weekly, monthly or fortnightly. Restore with UpdraftPlus Your WordPress website is vulnerable. Your site may get hacked. Something could go wrong with an update or your server could crash. You might need to reverse a change made or a mistake caused by human error. Whatever the reason, you can restore your WordPress website in just a few clicks with UpdraftPlus. Choose which components to restore (e.g. plugins, themes, database etc.), click again to restore, then click again to return to the main screen. Migrate with UpdraftPlus It’s easy to migrate your WordPress website to another web host, server or domain with this free version of UpdraftPlus. To migrate, simply download your database, plugins, themes etc. from the source site, then upload them into your destination site. When migrating, a built-in search-and-replace engine identifies old strings and replaces these to reflect the new location. UpdraftPlus saves you time and reduces the risk of broken links or missing files associated with manual migrations. Why UpdraftPlus? Writing a reliable backup and migration plugin that ‘just works’ consistently across millions of different WordPress deployments is hard. UpdraftPlus is relied upon to do exactly that. We’re trusted and actively deployed on more websites around the world than any other WordPress backup and migration plugin. UpdraftPlus: Backs up, migrates and restores Offers a huge number of remote storage locations Allows you to schedule backups, so you can ‘set and forget’ Is comprehensive and easy to use Is proven to work on over 3 million sites. UpdraftPlus Premium The free version of UpdraftPlus will back up and migrate your website perfectly well. However if you need more features and options you can purchase our Premium version. Backup and Migrate with UpdraftPlus Premium, and: Get automatic backups before updates. Restore the very latest version if a WordPress or plugin update breaks your site. Backup Incrementally. Changes are added to the master, saving server resources vs repeatedly backing up in full. Get more remote storage options including Microsoft OneDrive, SFTP, Microsoft Azure, WebDAV, Google Cloud, SCP, Backblaze and pCloud. Get 1GB of integrated storage with UpdraftVault for 99.999% reliability, redundancy and scalability. Get more control over how many backups are stored in a specified interval. Restore from other backup plugins including BackWPup, BackupWordPress, Simple Backups and more. Run backups at set times e.g. during periods of low traffic. Backup to more than one location for added protection. Get detailed reports. Includes cryptographic checksums so you can verify the integrity of the backup files and more. Get Premium migration. Migrating to the destination site is more direct and can be done from the source site. Get Multisite / multi-network compatibility. Backup non-WP files and databases e.g. tables belonging to your e-commerce store or customisations to WordPress core. Get database encryption. Manage your backups and migrations from the WP-CLI. Get Premium Support. Find out more on our comparison page. UpdraftPlus Premium is available for purchase here. Managing multiple websites? UpdraftCentral is a powerful remote control dashboard for WordPress that allows you to manage your backups, as well as updates, users, pages, posts, plugins and themes from one central location. Choose between: UpdraftCentral (free, self-hosted) UpdraftCentral Premium (paid-for, self-hosted) UpdraftCentral Cloud (paid-for, fully-hosted) Optimize your sites centrally by combining the power of WP-Optimize and UpdraftCentral or manage your backups centrally by combining the power of UpdraftPlus with UpdraftCentral. Need to create a temporary clone of your site? UpdraftClone makes it quick and easy to create a temporary sandbox for changes you want to try out. Simply select the versions of WordPress and PHP that you want, and we’ll do the rest. More about UpdraftClone The full suite of plugins from Team Updraft and friends UpdraftPlus. Backup, migrate and restore. Rated 5* on the plugin directory and trusted by more than 3 million WordPress website owner WP-Optimize. Clean the database, compress images and caching. Optimize your WordPress website. 5* user rating. 1 million + active installs. All-In-One Security (AIOS). Secure your WordPress website. Comprehensive, feature rich and easy to use. 5* user rating and 1 million + active installs. WP Overnight. Quality Extensions for your WooCommerce store. 5* rated invoicing, order and product management, customer management solutions and more. Easy Updates Manager. Take control of updates. Lots of features for free, and a Premium version with even more – over 300,000 users. Internal Link Juicer.Boost your SEO. Automate internal links within your WordPress website. Save time and rank higher in the search engines. For other useful, free plugins see our lead developer’s profile, here. Are you multilingual? Can you translate? Do you want to help people that speak your language to backup, migrate and restore their WordPress websites? The UpdraftPlus backup, migration and restoration plugin is ready and waiting. The translation process is easy, and web-based – please go here for instructions: https://updraftplus.com/translate/. Or, if you’re already an expert WordPress translator, just pick out the .pot file from the wp-content/plugins/updraftplus/languages/ directory – if you scan for translatable strings manually, then you need to get these functions: _x(), __(), _e(), _ex(), log_e(). Many thanks to our existing translators. License Copyright 2011-24 David Anderson This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA Non-English translators are provided by volunteers, and wordpress.org does not give plugin developers control over their translations; thus relying on them is at your own risk; UpdraftPlus cannot guarantee that translations from the original English are accurate. We recognise and thank those mentioned at https://updraftplus.com/acknowledgements/ for code and/or libraries used and/or modified under the terms of their open source licences.