Using video in your No-Code Apps

Recently, there has been a surge in demand for captivating video content on digital platforms. No-code app development, which allows people and businesses to create applications without coding knowledge, has become increasingly popular. To add functionalities and user engagement in no-code apps, incorporating videos has become crucial. Videos are powerful tools that can captivate audiences and simplify complex concepts. 

As the popularity of no-code platforms like WeWeb and Bubble.io grows, the need to integrate video content becomes more evident. 

To ensure reliable video streaming and deliver a seamless user experience, developers should consider exploring solutions like Mux Videos and Bunny CDN. These two services provide excellent options for enhancing your app’s video capabilities. Let’s dive into these services and discover how they can help you create a seamless user experience.

Mux Videos

Mux Videos is a great choice for no-code developers because it’s easy to integrate. Their documentation and support resources make the integration process straightforward and hassle-free. 

Mux APIs

Mux offers a comprehensive set of APIs that provide developers with a wide range of functionalities to enhance their video streaming and management capabilities. Some of the key things that can be achieved using Mux APIs include:

1. Video Upload and Encoding: Mux APIs allow you to programmatically upload videos and have them automatically encoded into various formats suitable for different devices and network conditions. This creates smooth playback across a wide range of devices and internet speeds.

2. Video Playback: You can embed Mux-hosted videos in your applications or websites, providing a seamless and high-quality playback experience for your users.

3. Live Streaming: Mux APIs enable the integration of live streaming into your applications, allowing you to broadcast events, webinars, or live shows to a global audience.

4. Adaptive Streaming: Mux provides adaptive streaming support, which means that the quality of the video adjusts based on the viewer’s internet speed, ensuring uninterrupted playback.

5. Analytics and Insights: Mux APIs offer robust analytics that provide insights into viewer engagement, video performance, and user behavior. This data helps you make informed decisions to optimize your content and improve the user experience.

6. Video Manipulation: With Mux APIs, you can trim, clip, or stitch videos together programmatically. This is useful for creating highlights, trailers, or customized video content.

7. Quality Control: Mux APIs allow you to set up automated quality control checks to ensure that your videos meet certain standards before they are published.

8. Real-Time Data: Mux APIs provide real-time data, which is particularly valuable for live streaming events. You can monitor viewer counts, engagement, and other metrics in real-time.

9. Notifications: You can set up notifications for specific events, such as when a video finishes processing or when a live stream goes live.

10. Custom Workflows: Mux APIs enable the creation of custom workflows tailored to your specific needs, including integration with other tools. This integration can be achieved in the no-code space using platforms like Bubble and WeWeb.

In essence, Mux APIs empower developers to create a seamless, high-quality video experience for their users while gaining valuable insights into video performance and engagement. The flexibility and range of functionalities offered by Mux APIs make them a powerful tool for anyone looking to enhance their video streaming capabilities.

Mux Pricing

Mux offers a flexible and transparent pricing model for their video streaming and analytics services. Designed to accommodate various usage levels and needs, their pricing follows a pay-as-you-go model. They categorize their video services into encoding, storage, and streaming, each with affordable pricing per minute. 

You can check their online calculator to estimate your monthly cost. 

Bunny Stream

Bunny Stream is part of Bunny CDN which is known for its efficient content delivery solutions that prioritize speed, reliability, and seamless performance. Their streaming service is very affordable and is based on technology that has already been proven to be top quality. 

Bunny Stream allows uploading videos via API or through a very user-friendly dashboard where we can handle all the technical and visual configurations for our player and video thumbnails.

Unlike Mux, Bunny Stream focuses more on video storage and delivery. In fact, they don’t charge anything for video encoding, and you can select different regions for video replication, which enables faster loading speeds for end users.

The video player can be customized in many ways. This makes the user experience very similar to what they are already accustomed to on other platforms like YouTube. For example, you can add chapters to the video to make the content easy to navigate. You can also include a retention graph to highlight the most important or most-played moments of each video.

Pricing

The pricing system is very straightforward as they only charge for storage, traffic, and replication points. Having such a robust infrastructure enables them to provide unlimited storage. 

They offer two storage options, one called the standard tier and the other volume tier. The difference is not only in the price but also in where they are stored; the standard tier is on HDD while the volume tier is on SSD. 

You can perform cost calculations here.

What about Youtube?

You may ask why not use YouTube or Vimeo for video hosting, they offer free video hosting. 

While YouTube serves as an excellent platform for video sharing and consumption, it may not provide the ideal solution for no-code custom apps. Here are some of the top reasons why it is not ideal to use YouTube as a no-code app.

1. Limited Control and Data Ownership: Using YouTube as the primary video hosting platform for a no-code custom app means giving up control over data ownership and access to user analytics. This lack of control limits the ability to gather insights, make data-driven decisions, and implement customized features based on user behavior.

2. Lack of Branding Control: YouTube’s strong emphasis on its own branding limits customization options for businesses or individuals creating no-code custom apps. YouTube’s logo, recommended videos, and related content can distract users from the intended app focus.

3. Limited Customization: YouTube’s focus is on sharing and consuming video content, not custom app development. Its features are not designed for full customization, making it difficult to tailor the user experience to specific app needs.

4. Advertisements and Monetization: YouTube relies on ads for revenue, leading to potential disruptions in the user experience and app aesthetics. Monetization options may not align with the goals of a no-code custom app, which may have different revenue models.