Castr vs Restream Comparison 2026
Castr and Restream land at almost the same monthly price, $19.99 against $19, but they solve different problems. Castr hosts the recording afterward, runs 24/7 playout channels and puts a paywall on the stream. Restream pushes one broadcast out to up to eight platforms at once and pulls every chat back into a single window. Castr's own guidance is direct: a solo creator going live weekly will find Restream cheaper and simpler for the same broadcast.
At a glance
- Restream starts cheaper, at $19.
- Only Restream has a free tier.
Side by side
Castr | Restream | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $19.99 | From $19 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial (they differ) | 7 days | None |
Castr
Live streaming with hosting and a paywall
Castr covers the parts of streaming that sit either side of the broadcast: hosting the recording afterwards, running a 24/7 playout channel, and putting a paywall in front of either. Bandwidth is sold as a pool rather than metered per viewer. It is priced for a business running channels, not for somebody going live on a Sunday.
Restream
Stream to eight platforms from one encoder
Restream takes one video feed and pushes it to YouTube, Twitch, TikTok and the rest at once, then pulls every chat back into one window so a host can read them all. The free tier does two destinations, which is enough to test whether multistreaming suits your show. Recording storage clears after fifteen days on the cheaper plans.
Only on this side
- Works with TikTok
- Works with Podcast
Why people weigh these two
- Restream instead of Castr
- Restream pushes one stream to eight platforms from $19 with a free tier, the cheaper and simpler pick for a solo creator going live weekly.
- Castr instead of Restream
- Castr adds a paywall to gate the stream behind a payment, a monetization feature Restream's own multistreaming and chat tools do not include.
Which one should you pick
Castr is for a business or publisher running scheduled channels and charging for access, where hosting, a paywall and 24/7 playout matter more than reaching every platform simultaneously. The 6 destinations on Starter cover multistreaming too, but that is not the reason to choose it.
Restream is the simpler, and by Castr's own comparison cheaper, choice for a creator building an audience across more than one platform at once, or a podcaster recording video with remote guests. The free plan covers two channels to test whether multistreaming changes your numbers, and Standard at $19 a month removes the branding once it does. Cloud recordings clear after 15 days on the cheaper plans, so anybody wanting a permanent archive should look at Castr instead.
Common questions
- Which is cheaper for one person streaming weekly?
- Restream, and Castr's own comparison says so directly: a solo creator going live once a week will find Restream cheaper and simpler for the same broadcast.
- Which one hosts a permanent VOD archive of past streams?
- Castr. Restream's cloud recordings clear after 15 or 30 days depending on plan, where Castr turns a broadcast into a hosted recording automatically with no expiry mentioned.
- Can both stream to more than one platform at once?
- Yes. Castr's Starter plan covers 6 destinations, and Restream reaches up to eight, with a unified chat window pulling comments from every platform into one place.
- Which one supports a paywall on the stream?
- Castr. It charges for access to streams and recordings without a separate membership site. Restream's listing does not mention a paywall feature.
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.