Bye Bye RTMP
5 hours ago
- #Open Source
- #curl
- #RTMP
- In May 2010, curl added support for the RTMP protocol suite to support various internet transfer protocols.
- RTMP is a proprietary protocol by Adobe, used by Flash applications, and not widely used in Open Source.
- The Open Source implementation of RTMP is handled by the rtmpdump project's librtmp library, which curl uses.
- curl's RTMP support was identified as needing improvement due to lack of tests and potential security issues.
- Both curl and librtmp lack tests for RTMP, and librtmp has not had a release in years.
- A 2025 user survey showed only 2.2% of respondents used RTMP in the last year.
- Due to few users and untested code, curl announced the removal of RTMP support unless improvements were made.
- curl will remove RTMP support in version 8.20.0, planned for release on April 29, 2026.
- The removal of RTMP does not break API/ABI compatibility as it is unlikely to affect users.
- curl now officially supports 27 URL schemes, down from 28 after RTMP's removal.