--- title: Generate a minimal GStreamer build, tailored to your needs description: GStreamer now supports generating minimal, tailored builds via gst-build, thanks to a Collabora-Huawei partnership. Since GStreamer 1.18, all libraries and... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/generate-a-minimal-gstreamer-build-tailored-to-your-needs-3lddjdiso twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Generate a minimal GStreamer build, tailored to your needs | daily.dev og:description: GStreamer now supports generating minimal, tailored builds via gst-build, thanks to a Collabora-Huawei partnership. Since GStreamer 1.18, all libraries and... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/generate-a-minimal-gstreamer-build-tailored-to-your-needs-3lddjdiso og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/3LDDJdISo.png og:image:alt: Generate a minimal GStreamer build, tailored to your needs og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Generate a minimal GStreamer build, tailored to your needs **[Collabora Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/collabora)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary GStreamer now supports generating minimal, tailored builds via gst-build, thanks to a Collabora-Huawei partnership. Since GStreamer 1.18, all libraries and plugins can be compiled into a single shared library called gstreamer-full. New gst-build options allow selecting not just which plugins to include, but individual elements, typefinders, device providers, and dynamic types within each plugin. This is achieved by refactoring every GStreamer plugin to expose per-feature registration functions, enabling the linker to omit unused code. A practical example shows reducing the gstreamer-full library from 49.2 MB to 3.2 MB by including only three elements from the coreelements plugin. The feature is available upstream in GStreamer 1.19.1 and will ship in the 1.20 release. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I build a minimal GStreamer library that includes only specific plugins and elements? Use gst-build with Meson options to disable auto features and explicitly enable only what you need. Pass `-Dauto_features=disabled` to prevent automatic inclusion, then enable specific plugins and elements with `-Dgst-full-plugins=` and `-Dgst-full-elements=plugin:elt1,elt2` syntax. Using `--wrap-mode=forcefallback` bundles dependencies into gstreamer-full. This approach reduced a default 49.2 MB gstreamer-full library to 3.2 MB by including only three coreelements. _Developers shipping GStreamer on constrained hardware track build-size techniques like these on daily.dev._ ### What Meson flags do I need to build GStreamer as a single static library called gstreamer-full? Pass `-Ddefault_library=static -Dintrospection=disabled` to the Meson configure command. This builds all GStreamer libraries that support static linking and produces a shared library called gstreamer-full containing all of GStreamer. GObject introspection must be disabled because the static build does not yet support it. Available since GStreamer 1.18. _GStreamer packaging decisions like this one are regularly discussed by multimedia developers on daily.dev._ ### How does GStreamer's per-element registration work to allow fine-grained static builds? Each GStreamer element now has its own registration function declared via the `GST_ELEMENT_REGISTER_DEFINE(element, "name", RANK, GST_TYPE)` macro, placed in the same file as the element's implementation. A separate plugin initialization file calls all registrations when the plugin loads dynamically, but can be bypassed in static builds. This lets the linker omit object files for unselected elements entirely, since unused object files are never pulled in. _Developers optimizing binary size for embedded multimedia pipelines find relevant GStreamer coverage on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Introducing GstPipelineStudio 0.6.0](https://daily.dev/posts/introducing-gstpipelinestudio-0-6-0-ofhghxgo9) · Planet Igalia · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [GStreamer 1.28.1 Adds Whisper-Based Speech-To-Text, AV1 Stateful V4L2 Decoder Support](https://daily.dev/posts/gstreamer-1-28-1-adds-whisper-based-speech-to-text-av1-stateful-v4l2-decoder-support-njs5v7ce9) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [GStreamer 1.28 Released With More Rust Code](https://daily.dev/posts/gstreamer-1-28-released-with-more-rust-code-ukhdu9ibb) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#embedded](https://daily.dev/tags/embedded), [#gstreamer](https://daily.dev/tags/gstreamer) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/generate-a-minimal-gstreamer-build-tailored-to-your-needs-3lddjdiso) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Generate a minimal GStreamer build, tailored to your needs","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/generate-a-minimal-gstreamer-build-tailored-to-your-needs-3lddjdiso","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/generate-a-minimal-gstreamer-build-tailored-to-your-needs-3lddjdiso"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:56:11.031Z","dateModified":"2026-10-15T02:25:07.406Z","description":"GStreamer now supports generating minimal, tailored builds via gst-build, thanks to a Collabora-Huawei partnership. 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