# how many individual streams can be run through Wowza on an EC2 instance?
**URL:** https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839
**Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine
**Created:** [May 20, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839 "2010-05-20T15:57:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ben\_Matson](https://community.wowza.com/u/Ben_Matson)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/1 "2010-05-20T15:57:28Z")
I’m currently streaming twenty webcams through FMS (480 x 360 @ 250K each). Each webcam “pushes” a permanent stream to FMS, which is routed to the client after they request the stream from a website.
Can I replicate this on Wowza/EC2? If so, what kind of instance would be required? (small, medium, large).
Maximum usage at any one time would be twenty consecutive inbound streams (all at 250K, ie 5K inbound), and up to 300 outbound streams, being any configuration of the twenty inbound streams - so around 75MB outbound (although it’s usually much lower than this). Additionally, I’d like to transcode the inbound H.264 stream in real time for rtmp and http delivery.
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2010, 10:58am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/2 "2010-05-20T10:58:03Z")
A small instance should be able to handle this. The latest AMI running Wowza Server 2 will stream out to RTMP clients and HTTP Apple (Cupertino) and Silverlight clients (it’s not actually transcoding). Wowza does not handle progressive download over http (but the Wowza EC2 instances do have an apache server on them used for Cacti)
Richard
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dobrushin](https://community.wowza.com/u/Alex_Dobrushin)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2011, 2:17pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/3 "2011-11-04T14:17:32Z")
The current pricing posted [https://www.wowza.com/ec2-streaming.html](https://www.wowza.com/ec2-streaming.html) is correct. There are not charges for inbound data transfer.
Alex
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/4 "2010-05-20T21:01:29Z")
The license is unlimited connections. The real limit is bandwidth, about 150mbs on a small instance
Richard
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2010, 12:55pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/5 "2010-07-02T12:55:33Z")
Yes, bandwidth charges apply also.
For RTMP streaming Wowza does not shutdown incoming stream if no client is connected. So if you have a rtmp stream running 24/7 with no clients, it will rack-up charges.
For re-streaming rtsp streams it should be true that if no clients are connected that there will not be bandwidth charges for incoming rtsp stream.
You really have to test your use case on small instance or any instance type.
Richard
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Lanham](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Lanham)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2013, 6:09pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/6 "2013-08-19T18:09:44Z")
There isn’t updated info. Running the Wowza load test tool is the best way to get a real idea what the capacity is on any server.
[https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-get-flash-rtmp-load-test-tool](https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-get-flash-rtmp-load-test-tool)
Richard
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### Author:  [@Richard\_Huckaby](https://community.wowza.com/u/Richard_Huckaby)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2010, 8:01pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/7 "2010-07-01T20:01:30Z")
Along this same line, if a small instance is adequate for the example in this thread and it is expected to be available 24/7, the cost would be around $110/month for that small instance on EC2 as I understand it, correct?
Could you explain in this case of live streaming, must the cost of Data Transfer In at $0.10/GB and Data Transfer Out at $0.15/GB be added to this monthly total since the live streaming is data coming in and immediately going back out each time a connection (client) is made, unlike VOD that is stored? So overall would it be a true assumption that live streaming is more costly per GB than VOD streaming?
Also I assume that EC2 for Wowza reacts the same as Wowza Server does otherwise, in that if no client is requesting a connection then Wowza kills the data stream coming in also correct?
Just attempting to characterize monthly costs for live video streaming utilizing a small instance similar to described above.
Thanks for any info.
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### Author:  [@Ben\_Matson](https://community.wowza.com/u/Ben_Matson)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/8 "2010-05-21T06:55:41Z")
Thanks Richard. How many streams can each license of Wowza handle? Is there a fixed number, or is the number dependent on the combined bandwidth throughput?
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### Author:  [@Ben\_Matson](https://community.wowza.com/u/Ben_Matson)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2010, 7:03am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/9 "2010-05-21T07:03:44Z")
Great… thanks Richard.
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### Author:  [@paul\_tidwell](https://community.wowza.com/u/paul_tidwell)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/10 "2011-11-04T16:59:09Z")
Has the pricing changed since this post? Currently it indicates no charge for inbound data.
[https://www.wowza.com/ec2-streaming.html](https://www.wowza.com/ec2-streaming.html)
I am about to go live with a solution that would publish a live stream 24/7, and this thread had me a bit scared, but seems no longer relevant.
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### Author:  [@Ezbon\_Jacob](https://community.wowza.com/u/Ezbon_Jacob)
#### Post date: [August 19, 2013, 12:32pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/11 "2013-08-19T12:32:02Z")
Just wanted to bump this thread real quick. I’m creating live streams on wowza using VOD content. Do you have a specs on how many streams can be ran concurrently on a wowza server depending on what kind of EC2 instance i’m running?
Right now i have 9 Applications running each with individual stream on a m1.medium instance and the CPU usage is through the roof (100%). Just wanted to get more understanding to launch a proper PROD stack. Thanks again for the help
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### Author:  [@Naga\_Yerramsetti](https://community.wowza.com/u/Naga_Yerramsetti)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2014, 8:18am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/how-many-individual-streams-can-be-run-through-wowza-on-an-ec2-instance/34839/12 "2014-05-09T08:18:00Z")
We are trying to estimate cost for our application. If there is 1 viewer per input stream, how many streams (N input +N output) a wowza instance on c3.large instance can support?
Thank you!