Churches looking for an affordable, reliable way to livestream services will find a kindred spirit in Hai-End Streaming — an open source project built specifically for congregations by a team of volunteer developers, AV specialists, and supporters.^1
At its heart, Hai-End Streaming turns a Raspberry Pi 4 into a full-featured streaming server. It sends high-quality RTMP streams to platforms like YouTube or custom servers and can receive HLS streams for local display. A clean web-based admin panel makes operation simple enough for any volunteer — no technical expertise required — while physical hardware buttons offer a one-touch fallback. For larger deployments, a REST API, Saltstack remote management, and Prometheus/Grafana monitoring keep everything running smoothly across dozens or hundreds of locations.^2
The project was born out of a desire to make the Gospel accessible to everyone who can't physically attend church. Built with Python, GStreamer, Janus, and Vue.js, the entire codebase is open source on GitLab and free to use under the GNU AGPL v3.^3 As of late 2024, over 790 New Apostolic Church congregations across Europe rely on Hai-End Streaming to broadcast their services — with plans to surpass 1,000 locations.^4 A rack-mountable Mark II hardware version is currently rolling out for more permanent installations.^2
Development has continued steadily through 2025 and into 2026, with releases adding overlay editing for hymns and liturgy, on-screen end cards, improved video grabber support, and QoS monitoring metrics.^5
Notable- Over 790 congregations actively streaming as of December 2024^4
- First stable release shipped December 2024 after four years of volunteer development^4
- Featured at the South German Church Day (SKT) of the New Apostolic Church in Karlsruhe, 2024^6
- Entirely open source on GitLab with regular releases and active development^3
- Runs on cost-effective Raspberry Pi 4 hardware with pre-built images available^2
- Supports multiple languages including English, German, French, Dutch, and Croatian^5
