--- title: "Shipping Media Over QUIC at Meta Scale for Instagram Live Ingest" description: "Meta deployed Media over QUIC (MoQ), an emerging IETF standard built on QUIC, as the transport for live video ingest on Instagram Live across iOS and Android. MoQ provides independent streams that avoid head-of-line blocking, native relay-based fan-out and caching, tunable per-subscription latency from about 100 ms to several seconds, and track-aware delivery where relays can drop or prioritize objects. To replace the in-house RUSH protocol without disrupting production, Meta integrated the open-source moxygen library, placed a translation layer at edge endpoints to convert MoQ frames to RUSH, and used server-side routing for rapid experiment ramp-up and rollback. After months of experimentation, the MoQ path matched RUSH across all streaming-quality indicators and reliability measures, achieving metric parity as the rollout target. This production-tested foundation enables Meta to extend MoQ to end-to-end live delivery and real-time interactive AI services, simplifying multiple protocol stacks into one." --- # Shipping Media Over QUIC at Meta Scale for Instagram Live Ingest [Meta](https://yomu.fyi/company/meta) · By Konstantin Tsoy, Aman Sharma, Hari Anil Kumar, Alan Frindell, Sandarsh Srivastava · Oct 12, 2026 **Type:** Announcement ## Summary Meta deployed Media over QUIC (MoQ), an emerging IETF standard built on QUIC, as the transport for live video ingest on Instagram Live across iOS and Android. MoQ provides independent streams that avoid head-of-line blocking, native relay-based fan-out and caching, tunable per-subscription latency from about 100 ms to several seconds, and track-aware delivery where relays can drop or prioritize objects. To replace the in-house RUSH protocol without disrupting production, Meta integrated the open-source moxygen library, placed a translation layer at edge endpoints to convert MoQ frames to RUSH, and used server-side routing for rapid experiment ramp-up and rollback. After months of experimentation, the MoQ path matched RUSH across all streaming-quality indicators and reliability measures, achieving metric parity as the rollout target. This production-tested foundation enables Meta to extend MoQ to end-to-end live delivery and real-time interactive AI services, simplifying multiple protocol stacks into one. ## Context The internet has accumulated a set of specialized media protocols for ingest (RTMP), playback (HLS/DASH), and real-time calls (WebRTC), each with its own infrastructure and operational model. Meta’s in-house RUSH protocol, while performant at scale for nearly a decade, was falling behind the open ecosystem. MoQ is an IETF standard that unifies these use cases on a single QUIC-based transport, simplifying engineering and enabling future live and interactive experiences. ## Approach / What changed Meta integrated the open-source moxygen MoQ library into Instagram apps on iOS and Android, providing publisher, subscriber, and relay roles with hooks for custom media handlers. A translation layer at edge endpoints converts MoQ frames to the RUSH format the existing backend expects, leaving downstream systems unchanged. Server-side stream URL routing enables experiment enrollment independent of app version, allowing rapid ramp-up and rollback. The translator is temporary; once MoQ is the sole ingest path, the backend will consume MoQ natively. ## Takeaways - MoQ provides a single QUIC-based transport with built-in relay fan-out, tunable per-subscription latency (e.g., ~100 ms interactive vs. seconds for archival), and track-aware delivery that can drop or prioritize objects under loss, enabling both low latency and high scalability. - Meta replaced the Instagram Live ingest protocol by integrating the moxygen library client-side, placing a translation layer at the edge to convert MoQ frames to RUSH without backend changes, and using server-side routing for experiment management in minutes. - After months of testing, MoQ achieved parity with RUSH across all streaming-quality and reliability indicators, providing a production-tested baseline to extend MoQ to end-to-end live delivery, real-time AI, and other interactive experiences at Meta. ## FAQ ### How does MoQ differ from Meta's RUSH protocol? RUSH is Meta's internal QUIC-based protocol, while MoQ is an IETF standard developed collaboratively with industry partners. MoQ allows multiple implementers to contribute and improve the specification, whereas RUSH was maintained primarily by Meta. MoQ also provides a common foundation for both ingest and playback. ### What happens when QUIC is blocked on a network? MoQ can fall back to TCP. For this deployment, Meta used RUSH's existing TCP fallback as an expediency. Future plans include standardizing on the emerging QMUX mapping so that a blocked QUIC network does not require a second protocol, enabling full MoQ connectivity. ### How did Meta validate MoQ on Instagram Live? After months of experimentation on iOS and Android, the MoQ path matched RUSH across streaming-quality indicators and reliability measures used for the rollout, achieving metric parity without regressions visible to creators or viewers. This clean baseline enables further exploration into end-to-end live delivery. **Tags:** [Instagram](https://yomu.fyi/topic/instagram), [Live Streaming](https://yomu.fyi/topic/live-streaming), [MoQ](https://yomu.fyi/topic/moq), [QUIC](https://yomu.fyi/topic/quic) - Source: [Meta](https://engineering.fb.com/2026/10/12/video-engineering/shipping-media-over-quic-at-meta-scale-for-instagram-live-ingest) - Source URL: https://engineering.fb.com/2026/10/12/video-engineering/shipping-media-over-quic-at-meta-scale-for-instagram-live-ingest - Ingested by Yomu: 2026-10-12T18:00:16.327Z [Read original post](https://engineering.fb.com/2026/10/12/video-engineering/shipping-media-over-quic-at-meta-scale-for-instagram-live-ingest)