Building Scalable Live Streams: The Hybrid WebRTC and LL-HLS Approach

The WebRTC vs. LL-HLS debate misses the point—production systems need both protocols. This guide demonstrates how to route presenters through WebRTC for sub-second interaction while serving audiences through LL-HLS and CDN infrastructure, solving the fundamental tradeoff between latency and scalability that neither protocol handles alone. The article includes a decision tree based on concurrent viewer projections and real-world configurations that account for production failure modes.