Castr - The Best Dacast Alternative
Castr vs. Dacast 2024 comparison
With Castr, you get
twice the bandwidth and storage
at a lower price
Plus more additional features. No contract to start.
Have a lot of content in Vimeo? We'll help you migrate.
No yearly commitment. Try and cancel anytime.
24/7 Tech Support with no extra cost
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Plan type: Starter
- HTML5 Player bandwidth: 2.4 TB per year
- Video Hosting Storage: 100 GB
- Unlimited Concurrent Viewers
- 4K quality streams
- 24/7 Dedicated Tech Support
- Akamai / Fastly CDN
- Ad-free streaming
- No contract
- Paywall on all plans
- In-stream ads on player
- Multistream to 30+ social platforms at once
- Blackmagic Atem streaming XML file provided
$12.5/month
Dacast
Plan type: Starter
- HTML5 Player bandwidth: 1.2 TB per year
- Video Hosting Storage: 50 GB
- Unlimited Concurrent Viewers
- Full 1080p HD streams
- 24/7 Customer Support
- Limelight CDN
- Ad-free streaming
- 3 months contract
- No paywall for starter plan
- No In-stream ads for starter plan
- No multistream feature
- No Blackmagic Atem streaming XML file provided
$39/month
Trusted by 50,000+ amazing companies
Trusted by 50,000+ amazing companies
Castr vs. Dacast: Similarities and Differences
Similarities:
Both Castr and Dacast let you host livestreams on your website using HTML5 player, together with monetization tools like paywall and in-stream ads.
Differences:
With Castr, you get 4k quality streams, more bandwidth, plus the multistreaming feature which makes it easier to multiply the number of people watching your stream.
And the best part – all these things come at a lower price!
Castr is the best Dacast alternative for video streaming
A Live Streaming Platform without Contract
The thought of signing up for yet another service or commitment can send anxiety and panic through your veins. We get it, which is why we’re different from any video streaming service.
You don’t need a contract to get started with us. Sign up and cancel anytime if you’re not happy – there won’t be any commitment involved in the process.
24/7 dedicated tech support via Slack, Skype and Whatsapp
We know how stressful it can be to plan a big live event. Let our dedicated team of experts take care of everything to make sure that your live event goes smoothly on its way in and out. Other companies may charge additional fee for tech support, but we don’t. We’re committed to offer our customers 24/7 high-quality tech support without any extra fee for a live video streaming solution.
Monetization Models with Paywall & in-stream ads
Castr’s monetization tools with paywall and in-stream ads are available for all plans.
You can now benefit from a range of monetization options including pay-per-view, subscription and in-stream advertising.
Stable and
high-quality streams
Castr is Dacast’s best alternative that offers a seamless video streaming service with Akamai and Fastly CDN, delivering 4k quality content for any time or occasion.
Stream online video to your own website and 30+ social channels at once
You can host livestreams on your website using our HTML5 player, but why stop there if you can also multistream to 30+ social channels at the same time? Which is like multiplying how many viewers you get to 10.
Your own brand on your videos
Leave lasting impressions with your awesome videos because your viewers know exactly who is behind these fantastic content.
You get full control of what your viewers will see when they’re watching, whether it’s your brand, website URL or messages.
SRT support
Castr supports streaming through the Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) protocol – offering a more optimized viewing experience over unstable networks, so your viewers can enjoy your live streams anytime and anywhere without interruption.
Castr vs. Dacast:
Features Comparison
Dacast
Embeddable HTML5 Player
Dacast
Stream Quality
4K
Dacast
Full HD
Bandwidth
From 2.4 TB/year (Starter plan)
Dacast
From 1.2 TB/year (Starter plan)
VOD storage
From 100 GB (Starter plan)
Dacast
From 50 GB (Starter plan)
Paywall
All plans
Dacast
Only in premium plans
In-stream Ads
All plans
Dacast
Only in premium plans
Multi-stream
Dacast
Pricing
from $12.5/mo
Dacast
from $39/mo
24/7 dedicated tech support via
slack, skype, whatsapp
Dacast
CDN Delivery
Akamai / Fastly
Dacast
Limelight
Contracts
No Contract
Dacast
3 months contract
Adaptive bitrate (ABR)
transcoding
Dacast
Time-shifting
Dacast
Multi Ingest (RTMP, RTSP, SRT,
HLS, DASH)
Dacast
Multi Output (HLS, DASH, RTMP)
Dacast
Only HLS
HLS URL
Dacast
Only in premium plan
Live to VOD
Dacast
Live Rewind
4+ Hours (Customizable)
Dacast
Live Guest Chat
Dacast
Geo-restriction, domain control
Dacast
Geo-restriction, domain control
Dacast
Password protection
Dacast
Livestream Analytics
Dacast
Bandwidth Charges
Dacast
"The Castr restreaming product was very easy to set up and works flawlessly. We use it every night to live stream our 10pm newscast on YouTube and Facebook. In addition, the low cost of the service was a big bonus for what is a very robust and mature product."
"We are using castr.com for our live stream productions without any problems, the latency is great and the fact they have servers around the globe allows for stable streams even from the US to Europe, etc. For our usage, castr.com is perfect as it offers everything we need and nothing more on a stable, easy to use platform."
"Adding your platforms to Castr is easy as 1, 2, 3. Their no fuse way of adding platforms makes it so easy to do that I had it done within 3 minutes. When looking for a solutions to livestream to both Facebook and YouTube, we came across Castr and it solved all of our issues. We love the fact that it doesn't required you to put any of their branding in the descriptions."
"We use this service daily and this is already part of our workflow! It offers a clever alternative to slow internet connection when one need to stream to various channels and is very easy to use. We user Castr to deliver our content 24/7 to different platforms, it makes our workflow much simpler, we save internet bandwidth and hardware stress"
"The ability to have an uploaded pre-recorded video scheduled to stream live with just 3 mins notice is really useful for failsafe option. Internet gremlins can always get in the way during a live event, so I find this quick scheduling option to be really useful and the main reason I stuck to Castr and not their competition."
Frequently asked questions
Can’t find it here? Check out our Help Center
Using Castr Simulcast, you can stream to multiple social platforms. You can also enable and disable platforms on the fly.
Castr Live Streaming CDN feature provides a fully white-label player that you can embed on your website.
Castr Simulcast is the easiest way for you to live stream to 30+ channels at once. Stream to YouTube, Facebook, and others— at the same time. Don’t worry about where you have the biggest audience, just stream everywhere.
There are no limits on streaming, and you can stream 24x7 without any restrictions on any of our plans.
Yes, you can stream to a custom RTMP Destination by configuring a custom platform in the Castr dashboard.
Yes, you can upload video files in Castr and get an embeddable player and HLS URL for the uploaded video file.
Castr Simulcast is the easiest way for you to live stream to 30+ channels at once. Stream to YouTube, Facebook, and others— at the same time. Don’t worry about where you have the biggest audience, just stream everywhere.
Yes, all live video streams get delivered via Akamai CDN. We bet there won’t be any buffering.
We transcode the streams in the cloud and you have the option to enable and disable adaptive bitrate streaming options for your live streams.
Yes, we do, when you upload a video, you will get the option to choose the resolutions to which the videos need to be encoded.
If you are on All in one Entry, your streams will shut off when you run out of bandwidth.
If you are on All in One Plus plan or above, overage protection will be enabled when you run out of bandwidth. It will be charged at $0.25 per GB for each that you go over, and billed per 1TB.
Overage protection is a feature that keeps your live streams up and running in case you are out of bandwidth. It will only be enabled when you go over your total bandwidth limit for your subscription plan and don’t have any rollover bandwidth remaining. In this instance, your overage protection will kick in and the selected payment method, such as a credit card, will be drawn from for the specific amount automatically.