Migrating from SHOUTcast

Rocket Streaming Audio Server (RSAS) is an alternative to SHOUTcast, and provides many of the same features. Although RSAS is inspired by Icecast, it's straightforward to convert a SHOUTcast installation over to RSAS.

Advantages of RSAS over SHOUTcast

  • MP3, AAC, and AAC+ are supported even in our Free Edition, at any bitrate. (SHOUTcast 2.6 silently removed AAC support and restricted MP3 to only 128 kbps, forcing users to pay to have these previously free features.)
  • No confusing authhash setup
  • Higher performance - Lower CPU usage and higher listener capacity
  • RSAS can scale up to 1 million listeners on a single server
  • Memory usage for fallback files doesn't grow with your listener count. SHOUTcast 2.6 loads a copy of "backup files" for every listener, so memory usage skyrockets and can crash it if an encoder disconnects (as of August 2019).
  • Compatible with any Icecast2 source encoder
  • Logs are written in the Icecast2 format, so RSAS should work with any listener statistics package that parses Icecast logs.
  • HLS support, for reliable playback on mobile devices
  • Ogg FLAC is supported (with ICY metadata too!)
  • Realtime metadata is easily accessible to players via JavaScript
  • Plays nicely with the modern web and HTML5 audio players
  • Low latency relaying
  • Modern HTTPS with TLS 1.2 and 1.3 support
  • A Metadata History API, which makes it easier to display recently played tracks in your player.
  • RSAS is commercially supported by a dedicated development team.

Differences with SHOUTcast

  • Listing in the SHOUTcast directory is not supported.

Terminology

RSAS uses slightly different terminology for certain concepts, so here's a quick comparison to help get you oriented:

SHOUTcast Rocket Streaming Audio Server
Stream ID Mount (or stream)
Backup File Fallback File
Source Source, or Streaming Audio Encoder

Migration Steps

To migrate from SHOUTcast to RSAS, you'll need to:

  1. Download and install RSAS.

  2. Convert your SHOUTcast configuration over to an RSAS configuration. For each stream you have configured for SHOUTcast, you'll want to create a <mount> section in your RSAS configuration. The fastest way to get started is to copy one of our config file examples and customize it to your needs.

Questions or Suggestions?

Have a question or a suggestion for how we can improve RSAS? Send us an email!