About Us

We are international team. We develop simple and easy to use product for all people. Our goal is to implement a simple solution without difficult setup, because usually people do not have free time to learn and understand settings in each app. Our team has 4 developers.

The alfacast team was founded by Roman Shpuntov. Roman Shpuntov is a software engineer with 10+ years experience in different areas: networking protocols, video streaming and software development for embedded devices. He worked in various international IT companies. Roman is the founder and main author of the alfacast project.

History

At the end of 2018, there was not simple and universal solution for broadcasting an audio / video data stream from a desktop and splitting it to several devices simultaneously. The main idea of peer-to-many technology was introduced by Roman Shpuntov several years ago before the first version of alfacast app release.

The alfacast application is implemented on proprietary Netstream technology. The creation of this technology was based on the idea of the possibility of data transmission using peer-to-peer (p2p) technology and, as a consequence, the evolution of p2p technology to the next level. Netstream technology is developed on the basis of low-level UDP broadcast / unicast protocols. Netstream does discovery of network nodes, broadcasts, splits and playbacks of audio / video streams.

The first release of the alfacast application was published in the Apple Store for Apple macOS in April 2019. This app version allowed broadcasting a video stream from one device to another.

Smartphones with Google Android were able to download our application by May 2019. As soon as we implemented the basic functionality of the application, we immediately posted it on Google Play Market.

After that in June 2019 we published and released the first version of alfacast app for Apple iOS in the Apple Store. Apple released ReplayKit framework and we implemented alfacast app with streaming and viewing video features.

Later (September 2019), in version 2.1 of the alfacast application for Apple macOS, the support of peer-to-many broadcasting technology was added. This was the world’s first implementation of such technology.

Then we decided to implement alfacast app for Apple TV. Alfacast app uses GStreamer framework, but there was not GStreamer for Apple TV devices. We decided to port GStreamer for Apple tvOS. In February 2020 we already published our app in the Apple Store for Apple TV. GStreamer framework was ready for usage. Previously we provided various bug fixes for GStreamer project, we have good relations with GStreamer team. We support only viewing mode on Apple TV, because it does not support streaming video from desktop for 3rd party apps. Apple TV supports streaming video mode from its own app content.

In June 2020 we published alfacast app in the Microsoft Store. The app was built for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and was available for regular desktop PCs and Xbox devices. We later abandoned UWP because it imposes a lot of restrictions on the software. In addition, the UWP API has many abstraction’s layers and it is not the best choice for Netstream technology.

Linux has been on our minds since the beginning of development. In August 2020 the regular version of alfacast app for Linux was released. We used Snapcraft Store to distribute alfacast app. We released the extended version of the alfacast app in August 2024, 4 years after the release of the regular version. We also have good relations with Canonical / Ubuntu and Snapcraft team.

Just a few years ago, it was very difficult for us to imagine that it was possible to have a smart watch and to view video stream on it in real time. Of course we wanted to develop app for Google Wear OS. Wear OS devices typically have low speed CPU. We used Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 with Exynos W920 dual core CPU for development and debug. This slow CPU was enough for our technology. We implemented and published the alfacast app for Google Wear OS by July 2022. It was first in the world app for Google Wear OS with real time video viewing feature. It was a kind of technological miracle.

Since UWP did not meet our needs, we made a native desktop application for Microsoft Windows. In November 2022 the native desktop version of app was ready and published on this website. It supports Microsoft Windows 7 / 8.1 / 10 / 11. We use GTKMM GUI framework for Microsoft Windows application as well as for Linux application.

Since March 2025, we use our website to distribute alfacast app for Google Android.

Since April 2025, we use our website to distribute alfacast app for Google Wear OS. We also introduced streaming mode by that date. The app supports audio / video real time streaming feature and the stream’s splitting feature as usual mobile app. It was first in the world real time screen streamer app for Google Wear OS.

We always listen and try to fulfill the requirements and wishes of our users. The wishes and opinions of each user are important to us!

To download alfacast app please visit Downloads page.