BoxCast vs Owncast Comparison 2026
Both cover live streaming and video hosting. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Live streaming for places that stream every week
Your own live streaming server, free
At a glance
- Only Owncast has a free tier.
Side by side
BoxCast | Owncast | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $109 | Free |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | None |
| Runs on (they differ) | Web, iOS, Android | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Covers |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
BoxCast
Live streaming for places that stream every week
BoxCast is built around a recurring broadcast rather than an occasional one, which is why its customers are churches, schools and local sport. Streams go out from a phone, a browser or a hardware encoder, and the same subscription covers the player, the hosting and a website to put it on. Branded television and mobile apps are sold as a separate product. Nothing about the pricing rewards streaming once a quarter.
Our note
Compare this against a platform plus a video host rather than against streaming software, because the bundling is the argument and it only wins when you would have bought both. For an organisation streaming weekly with volunteers running it, the thirty-day refund is the cheapest way to find out whether the reliability claim holds on your own connection.
Owncast
Your own live streaming server, free
Owncast is a self-hosted live video server with chat built in, so a streamer can broadcast to their own site instead of to somebody else's platform. Any encoder that speaks RTMP points at it, which means the software already on a streaming desktop works unchanged. There is no account, no cut and nobody able to demonetise you. What replaces those things is a server bill and the job of keeping it alive.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.