Getting started

What is Smelter?

Smelter is a toolkit for real-time video processing built by Software Mansion.

With Smelter you can:

• Combine multimedia from different sources into a single video or live stream.
• Enrich your content with text, custom shaders, and embedded websites.
• Do it all effortlessly with React components or directly via HTTP API.

Quick start

You can use Smelter in a few ways, however we recommend the TypeScript SDK as the best option to get started.

Typescript SDK

TypeScript SDK is a set of libraries that provide React components you can use to control how Smelter manipulates videos. Currently, we support running TypeScript SDK in Node.js environment and browser.

You can generate a new starter project using the following commands:

npm

npx create-smelter-app

pnpm

pnpx create-smelter-app

yarn

yarn create smelter-app

bun

bunx create-smelter-app

To learn more, explore TypeScript SDK documentation or check out step-by-step guides.

Standalone

You can use Smelter as a standalone multimedia server. The server can be started by:

• Building from sources github.com/software-mansion/smelter.
• Using binaries from GitHub releases.
• Using Docker ghcr.io/software-mansion/smelter.

Membrane Framework plugin

Membrane is a multimedia processing framework written in Elixir. You can use it with Smelter via membrane_live_compositor_plugin. It integrates a Smelter server into the Membrane pipeline.

• See membrane.stream/learn to learn how to get started with Membrane.
• Plugin documentation - membrane_live_compositor_plugin
• Core membrane documentation - membrane_core