Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover live streaming. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Dacast | Wirecast | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $39 | From $495 |
| Pricing model | Free trial, then paid | One-time purchase |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | 14 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | macOS, Windows |
| Covers | Video Hosting, Live Streaming | Live Streaming, Video Editing |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | YouTube, Twitch, Facebook |
| 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.
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Desktop live production bought once, not rented
Wirecast has been Telestream's live production software for long enough that the broadcast world treats it as furniture: unlimited inputs, scoreboards, instant replay, and streaming to several destinations at once. It is sold as a licence rather than a subscription, in two tiers where the dearer one adds replay and higher-end output. Against free software like OBS the case is support, stability and the features a paid crew expects to find.
Our note
The honest comparison is OBS Studio, which is free and does most of this. Pay for Wirecast when somebody needs to call support during a live event, or when replay and scoreboards are part of the job.
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.
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