Evenings now supports Icecast streaming

Evenings now supports Icecast — stations using Icecast-based tools can broadcast to Evenings starting today.

Icecast vs RTMP

When we first started Evenings we had a choice to make. Do we build Evenings to run on RTMP or Icecast? Icecast is one of those protocols that if you know, you know. It's been a staple of the internet radio community and has been around for over 25 years. RTMP is a protocol owned and managed by Adobe that powered real-time media for the Flash era, and it just sort of stuck around. RTMP also powers a lot of streaming infrastructure today — it's how tools like OBS and Audio Hijack send a live stream to a server.

To us it was a tough choice. Do we pick Icecast, a technology that a lot of stations already use but maybe doesn't have a ton of outside support? Or do we pick RTMP, which is a more fleshed-out protocol and is used much more widely?

We chose to build everything off of RTMP. We were just getting started and the RTMP ecosystem was a lot more accessible. There were lots of RTMP server code examples to pull from. RTMP had a much larger ecosystem to learn from. Icecast by comparison was harder to get into and understand.

But this left a gap in our product. Lots of stations got set up originally on Icecast, using Icecast-based tools like BUTT, Mixxx, and Liquidsoap, so switching to an RTMP-based Evenings was off the table.

There are a lot of good things about Icecast. It is open source and a relatively simple protocol. We also love how it was built.

That's why I'm so happy to share that Evenings now supports Icecast. No longer do stations have to choose RTMP. Icecast and its ecosystem can be connected to Evenings.

Xiph.org

Icecast is maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to keeping the foundations of internet multimedia free and open. Tools like Icecast exist because of them. If you feel inclined, consider donating to Xiph.Org to support their work.

Start streaming with Icecast today

If you want to stream to your Evenings station with Icecast, you can try it today using BUTT. We wrote a guide on how to stream internet radio with BUTT to get you going.