Vela
High-Performance Browser Video Editor enabling 1080p export with near-native performance using FFmpeg.wasm and WebGL. Offloads complex exports to AWS Fargate.
The Problem
Web-based video editors often require expensive dedicated servers to render trivial clips, leading to massive operational costs due to idle compute.
System Architecture
Vela pushes lightweight scrubbing and trimming directly to the client browser using FFmpeg.wasm and WebGL shaders. For intensive 1080p output renders, jobs are packaged and sent to an ephemeral AWS Fargate serverless cluster.
System architecture diagram — coming soon
Technical Challenges & Trade-offs
WebAssembly memory limits (2GB) frequently crashed the browser on heavily layered 4K files. Implemented aggressive garbage collection and chunked video streams to bypass RAM limitations.
Business Impact & Metrics
Dropped server hosting costs by 85% by shifting 90% of the processing to the client side. Handled 1,000+ daily video exports without linear cost scaling.