Gumlet vs Mux Comparison 2026
Gumlet gives you a dashboard, your own player and DRM as a $99-a-month add-on, aimed at video that must stay behind a paywall. Free for 100GB of bandwidth, then paid plans start at $6 a month billed annually. Mux skips the dashboard: you post to an API and get back encoding, storage and delivery billed by the minute, free for 100,000 delivery minutes a month, then Launch at $20 for $100 of usage credit. Pick Gumlet if DRM and a dashboard matter more than writing code. Pick Mux if an engineer is building the player from scratch.
At a glance
- Gumlet starts cheaper, at $6.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Gumlet | Mux | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $6 | From $20 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | Usage-based |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
Gumlet
Video hosting priced by bandwidth, with DRM on top
Gumlet is video infrastructure for somebody who wants their own player on their own site rather than a channel on somebody else's. It transcodes, delivers, and will lock a video down with DRM if the content is worth stealing, which is the feature that usually forces a jump to enterprise pricing elsewhere. Image optimisation runs on the same account. The dashboard assumes you know what a bitrate ladder is, and does not apologise for it.
Our note
Price this on bandwidth rather than on the plan name, because a single popular video can move you two tiers in a month. If the content does not need protecting, the cheaper video hosts do the same delivery job without the DRM machinery you are partly paying for.
Only on this side
- Covers media storage & review
Mux
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.
Why people weigh these two
- Mux instead of Gumlet
- Mux offers the same developer-grade video infrastructure as an API, freemium with paid plans from $20 a month.
- Gumlet instead of Mux
- Gumlet prices by bandwidth and adds DRM on top, useful when the video needs copy protection that Mux's API does not focus on.
Which one should you pick
Pick Gumlet if the video needs to stay locked down or look entirely like your own product. The free plan covers 100GB of bandwidth and 60 minutes of live streaming a month with an ad-free player, and paid plans start at $6 a month billed annually, rising to $19 and $99 as bandwidth grows. DRM costs $99 a month on top of any plan, still cheaper than the enterprise conversation it usually takes elsewhere.
Pick Mux if an engineer is building the product and the player needs to be exactly theirs. The free plan carries 100,000 delivery minutes a month for on-demand video, a real allowance rather than a trial, and Launch is $20 a month for $100 of usage credit with every API feature available. There is no dashboard for uploading a single marketing video, and that absence is the point.
Common questions
- Does Gumlet or Mux have the bigger free tier?
- They are measured differently, so it is not a direct comparison. Gumlet's free plan gives 100GB of bandwidth and 60 minutes of live streaming a month. Mux's free plan gives 100,000 delivery minutes a month for on-demand video, with no live-streaming allowance stated.
- Do I need to write code to use Gumlet?
- No. It has a dashboard for managing video and a player you embed, no API key required to get started, though one is available. Mux has no dashboard for casual uploads: everything runs through its API, which is the whole design.
- Which one offers DRM?
- Gumlet, as a priced add-on at $99 a month on top of any plan. Mux is not described as offering DRM in its own features, focusing instead on encoding, delivery and playback-quality analytics.
- Which is cheaper to start with?
- Gumlet's entry paid plan is $6 a month billed annually, against Mux's Launch plan at $20 a month. Both also have a free tier first, 100GB of bandwidth on Gumlet and 100,000 delivery minutes on Mux, so neither requires payment just to test the basics.
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.