Owncast vs StreamElements Comparison 2026
Both cover live streaming. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Owncast | StreamElements | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | Free |
| Pricing model | Free | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | Not stated | None |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | Not stated |
| Runs on (they differ) | macOS, Windows, Linux | Web |
| 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.
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.
Our note
Estimate your bandwidth before assuming free software means a free stream, because a few hundred concurrent viewers is where self-hosting stops being cheap. For a small, loyal audience and a creator who dislikes depending on a platform, this is the only tool here that removes the platform entirely.
Only on this side
- Covers video hosting
StreamElements
Overlays, alerts and a chatbot, all free
StreamElements is the layer over a stream: alerts when somebody follows, overlays built in a visual editor, a chat bot with commands and loyalty points, and a tipping page. All of it is free with no tier above it, because the business is sponsorships rather than subscriptions. Most streams running something other than plain OBS are running this or its one real rival.
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.