Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover video hosting. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Dacast | Mux | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $39 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Usage-based |
| Free trial | 14 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | Web |
| Covers | Video Hosting, Live Streaming | Video Hosting |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Live streaming and hosting sold by the terabyte
Dacast is a broadcaster's video platform: live channels, a paywall, white-label playback and a bandwidth allowance measured in terabytes a year. Unused bandwidth rolls forward, which suits anybody whose schedule is a season rather than a week. It sells to events and businesses rather than to social creators, and the interface has never pretended otherwise.
Our note
The three-month minimum on monthly billing is the term to notice, because it makes a single event cost three payments. Buy this when you are selling access to the stream itself; for hosting recordings, SproutVideo or Vimeo is simpler and cheaper.
Only on this side
Video hosting and streaming as an API
Mux is the video layer for somebody building their own product: you post a file or a stream to the API and get back encoding, storage, delivery and a player, billed by the minute. There is no dashboard for uploading a marketing video, and that is the point. Its analytics product measures playback quality for people who already have video working and want to know why it buffers.
Our note
Model your delivery minutes before committing, because delivery rather than storage is what moves the bill on a video anyone watches. api.video and Cloudflare Stream are the direct comparisons, and the choice usually comes down to which player and analytics you want.
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.