How I Built Videly Ei8, Video Hosting Platform on a Shoestring Budget

Hey everyone! 👋 Today I want to share my journey of building Videly Ei8 , a video hosting and sharing platform I recently launched on Google Play. As a solo developer with limited funds, building a video platform is a massive challenge. Server processing and storage costs can skyrocket quickly. However, I found an architectural "hack" that allows the platform to run incredibly fast, efficiently, and support uploads of up to 2GB per file . Here’s a breakdown of what I built and the tech behind it. 🛠️ The Tech Stack The project essentially consists of a Web platform and an Android app (Native Webview): Web Frontend & Backend: Pure PHP scripts, HTML/CSS, and vanilla JavaScript. Android App: Native Android app utilizing an optimized webview. Video Processing: FFmpeg (embedded directly inside the APK). Storage & Delivery: AWS S3. 💡 The Architecture Challenge: Web vs. App If you try our web version at ei8.net , you can use it completely for free. However, this web version has a deliberate li