Castr vs Wowza
The Wowza alternative that runs your broadcasts for you.
Castr is the Wowza alternative for teams that would rather run broadcasts than servers. Multi-CDN failover (Akamai, Fastly, CloudFront), a 99.9% uptime SLA, failover ingest, and 24/7 human support keep the stream up — with ingest, delivery, a branded player, hosting, and monetization in one managed platform, not a stack you assemble.
7-day trial, no credit card — keep Wowza running while you test. Month-to-month after.
Where the two differ, at a glance
Wowza
- CDN
- Akamai, Fastly, CloudFront
- Wowza CDN on Fastly
- Player
- White-label, included
- Bring your own
- Monetization
- Paywall, ads, OTT
- Not native
- Ingest
- RTMP, SRT, WHIP, plus pull
- RTMP, SRT, WebRTC, RTSP
- Deployment
- Managed cloud
- Cloud or self-hosted
- Low latency
- LL-HLS
- Sub-second WebRTC
Wowza column from Wowza product and developer documentation, checked July 2026, and sourced in the comparison below.
Quick verdict
Reviewed July 2026Both cover professional live streaming with broad protocol support. Castr is a fully managed platform with a turnkey player, multi-CDN delivery, and built-in monetization, while Wowza is streaming infrastructure offering a managed cloud service and self-hosted software with deep API and SDK control.
Castr may fit if…
- You want a managed platform with an included white-label player, hosting, and OTT, not infrastructure to operate.
- You need multistreaming, cloud playout for 24/7 channels, and built-in paywall/ads monetization.
- You prefer predictable plans over assembling delivery and players yourself.
Wowza may fit if…
- You need self-hosted or on-prem control via Wowza Streaming Engine.
- You are building a custom app on a low-level API/SDK and want to own the player and delivery stack.
- You need sub-second WebRTC or highly customized transcoding at the infrastructure layer.
Castr vs Wowza
A side-by-side comparison.
Feature-by-feature, focused on where the products differ. Sourced Wowza details are dated and numbered to match the list under the table. Unconfirmed cells read “Confirm with vendor.” Prices reflect the date they were checked, not a savings claim.
| Criteria | | Wowza |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery & protocols | ||
| Ingest protocols | Publish over RTMP, RTMPS, SRT, and WHIP, and pull from RTMP, HLS, RTSP, or MPEG-TS. | RTMP, SRT, WebRTC, and RTSP ingest. 1 |
| Playback formats | HLS, LL-HLS, MPEG-DASH, and SRT output. | HLS, LL-HLS, MPEG-DASH, WebRTC, and RTMP output. 2 |
| Content delivery network | Multi-CDN delivery across Akamai, Fastly, and CloudFront, managed for you. | Wowza CDN on Fastly, with custom targets (e.g. Akamai) configurable via API. 2 |
| Low latency | Low-latency HLS (LL-HLS) options. | Sub-second WebRTC and reduced-latency HLS. 1 |
| Architecture | ||
| Deployment model | Fully managed cloud platform. | Managed cloud (Wowza Video) plus self-hosted software (Wowza Streaming Engine). 3 |
| Developer API | Video API for delivery and integration. | API-first with an extensive REST API and SDKs. 4 |
| Player & workflow | ||
| Player | White-label HTML5 player plus Dynamic Player (live + VOD in one embed) included. | Bring-your-own player / SDK integration. 5 Turnkey hosted player, confirm with vendor. |
| Cloud playout / 24/7 channels | Cloud playout to run 24/7 channels from live and recorded content. | Confirm with vendor |
| Streaming hours | No streaming-hour limits on any plan. | Confirm with vendor Usage terms vary by product and plan. |
| Security & access | ||
| Content protection | multi-DRM, plus password protection, geo-blocking, geo-whitelisting, and domain control. | DRM, geo-blocking, token authentication, and SSL/TLS. 2 |
| Monetization | ||
| Built-in monetization | Pay-per-view paywall, in-stream ads (your VAST tag), and white-label OTT (SVOD/TVOD). | No native monetization, so integrate third-party tools. 5 Confirm current capabilities with vendor. |
| Commercial & support | ||
| Support & onboarding | 24/7 support scoped to the selected plan, with guided onboarding. | Support tiers vary by product and plan, confirm with vendor. 5 |
Wowza sources · checked Jul 2026
- Wowza, lower-latency streaming guide Cited for Ingest protocols, Low latency.
- Wowza, Fastly CDN stream targets (API docs) Cited for Playback formats, Content delivery network, Content protection.
- Wowza, Streaming Engine (self-hosted) Cited for Deployment model.
- Wowza, product documentation Cited for Developer API.
- Wowza, products overview Cited for Player, Built-in monetization, Support & onboarding.
Wowza's features and plans change often, confirm current details on Wowza's website. See Castr plans and pricing and the full feature list.
Seen enough? Start the trial and prove it on your own broadcast, or have the Castr video team check your setup against this table first.
In their words
Teams already running on Castr.
Castr handles the harder parts of live motorsport for us: reliable streams from remote tracks, replays online right after the race, and watermarking to protect our premium events. Having all of that in one platform, with a team on the line during live events, makes a real difference.
Jason Gutteridge
CEO, The Pits TV
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.
Bill Sanford
Director of Engineering, Lakeland PBS
We are using Castr 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.
Timothy Ross
VP, Esport Battlefield International
Adding your platforms to Castr is easy as 1, 2, 3. Their no fuss way of adding platforms makes it so easy that I had it done within 3 minutes.
Jake Bradley
Creative Director, Heartland Worship Center
We use Castr to deliver our content 24/7 to different platforms. It makes our workflow much simpler, we save internet bandwidth and hardware stress.
Mauricio Junior
IT Director, Rede TVT
The ability to have an uploaded pre-recorded video scheduled to stream live with just 3 minutes notice is really useful as a failsafe option. Internet gremlins can always get in the way during a live event.
Daniel Herrera
CEO, Dream Factory
Pricing and commitment
The real cost is operating it
With Wowza, the license or cloud line is only part of the spend. Running it yourself also means servers, transcoding, delivery, players, and the engineering time to keep all of it up. Castr moves that work onto one managed plan.
What you actually run
Castr
Nothing to self-host. Ingest, cloud transcoding, multi-CDN delivery, a white-label player, hosting, and monetization are all operated for you on one platform.
Wowza
Wowza Streaming Engine is self-hosted software you install, scale, and maintain on your own servers. Wowza Video is the managed cloud alternative, sold as a separate product.
How it is priced
Castr
One predictable plan. Live streaming starts at $19.99 per month on monthly billing, or $16.67 per month billed annually ($199.99 for the year), with the allowance and features listed for every plan before you pay.
Wowza
Wowza Streaming Engine and Wowza Video are quoted separately, so the total depends on which product you run, how far you scale it, and the terms in your proposal. Check Wowza's current pricing pages for figures.
Commitment and trial
Castr
Month-to-month or annual billing with no long-term contract required, and the 7-day trial needs no credit card, so the first test costs nothing but your time.
Wowza
Terms vary by product and plan. Confirm the commitment and any minimums in your Wowza proposal.
Support and help moving
Castr
24/7 support on every plan, dedicated support on annual Ultra and on Events, plus guided migration planning with the Castr video team.
Wowza
Support tiers vary by product and plan. Confirm what is included with Wowza.
Run your next broadcast on Castr while Wowza stays live.
Start the 7-day trial with no credit card, leave your Wowza setup exactly as it is, and send the same encoder feed to Castr. Check ingest, multi-CDN delivery, the player on your own site, recording, and monetization before anything in production changes.
No credit card. Month to month after the trial, with no long-term contract required.
What changes when you stop operating it
Six things that stop being your problem.
Reliability that isn't yours to keep alive
Multi-CDN delivery across Akamai, Fastly, and CloudFront with automatic failover between them, behind a 99.9% uptime SLA. There is no server of your own to patch, scale, or watch during a broadcast.
One platform, not a stack to assemble
Ingest, cloud transcoding, delivery, a white-label player, hosting, and monetization are already wired together, so you are not integrating delivery and players yourself.
Nothing to self-host
No Streaming Engine to install, license, or maintain. Castr operates the infrastructure so your team runs broadcasts instead of servers.
24/7 humans on every plan
Round-the-clock support is included on every Castr plan, and the Castr video team maps your ingest, delivery, players, and integrations with you before anything switches over.
Failover ingest for feeds that can't drop
Failover ingest on broadcast-critical plans keeps a backup path ready, so one dropped connection does not end the event.
Monetization built in
Pay-per-view paywall, in-stream ads from your own VAST tag, and white-label OTT are part of the platform, not third-party tools you bolt on.
Migration checklist
Moving from Wowza to Castr
- Inventory what you run today: self-hosted Streaming Engine configurations, encoder and ingest settings, custom API and SDK integrations, players, and every place a stream is embedded.
- Map each piece to the Castr equivalent — managed ingest over RTMP, RTMPS, SRT, or WHIP, multi-CDN delivery, the white-label player, and the Video API for anything you built against Wowza's API and SDKs.
- Recreate ingest and destinations in Castr, then confirm access controls, recording, and any paywall or ads behave the way they do today.
- Run a parallel broadcast with Wowza still live. Check desktop and mobile playback, delivery health, and latency against what you get now.
- Cut over with the Castr video team once the parallel test passes, so nothing in production moves until a full event has run end to end on Castr.
Questions before you switch
Common questions about moving to Castr.
What is Wowza used for?
Wowza is streaming infrastructure. Teams run Wowza Video as a managed cloud service or Wowza Streaming Engine as self-hosted software, with RTMP, SRT, WebRTC, and RTSP ingest, HLS, LL-HLS, MPEG-DASH, WebRTC, and RTMP output, and a REST API and SDKs for custom applications, checked July 2026.
How much does Wowza cost?
Wowza sells its self-hosted Streaming Engine and its managed Wowza Video cloud as two separate products, each quoted on its own terms, so the real cost depends on which one you run, how far you scale it, and what your proposal says. Castr is one transparent plan instead: live streaming starts at $19.99 per month on monthly billing, or $16.67 per month billed annually, with a 7-day trial that needs no credit card, month-to-month billing, and no long-term contract required. You can see the allowance and features for every plan before you pay.
Is Castr managed, or do I run my own servers?
Castr is fully managed. You get ingest, cloud transcoding, multi-CDN delivery, and a white-label player without operating streaming infrastructure yourself.
What ingest and playback protocols does Castr support?
You can publish over RTMP, RTMPS, SRT, or WHIP (WebRTC) and pull from RTMP, HLS, RTSP, or MPEG-TS. Playback is delivered as HLS, LL-HLS, MPEG-DASH, or SRT.
Does Castr deliver over multiple CDNs?
Yes. Content is delivered over a multi-CDN backbone spanning Akamai, Fastly, and CloudFront.
Can I run a 24/7 channel?
Yes. Castr's cloud playout lets you schedule live and recorded content into a continuous channel with no streaming-hour limits.
Can I get an HLS URL for my video?
Yes. Castr provides HLS URLs for your videos for streaming across devices and platforms.
How does the Dynamic Player help?
The Dynamic Player switches between on-demand and live content using a single embed code, simplifying updates on your site.
Is Castr a good Wowza alternative?
Castr is a strong Wowza alternative for teams that want a fully managed platform with a white-label player, multi-CDN delivery, hosting, and built-in monetization rather than infrastructure to operate. Wowza still fits when self-hosting or low-level API and SDK control is essential.
Customer workflows
See how video teams put the platform to work.
Sports · ClipMyHorse.TV
How ClipMyHorse.TV Made Equestrian Event Distribution More Repeatable
With more than 1,000 live events a year to cover, ClipMyHorse.TV uses Castr to manage recurring channels, event streams, commentary versions, and partner delivery through one consistent workflow.
Read the storyEducation · Samford University
How Samford Brings High-Profile Campus Livestreams to Its Own Website
Samford’s media team uses Castr to manage public event streams and give families, alumni, students, and guests a consistent place to watch on the university’s website.
Read the storyFitness · FressiTV
How FressiTV Runs Live Classes and a Workout Library as One Service
Since 2020, FressiTV has used Castr to run its live class schedule and workout library as one experience, whether a member joins a class, picks a recording, or casts a session to the TV.
Read the storyEvents · DanceBUG
How DanceBUG Streams Hundreds of Dance Competitions with Castr
Each season, DanceBUG creates hundreds of competition streams through Castr’s developer API and delivers them as HLS inside the app families are already using.
Read the storyReady to stop operating infrastructure?
Run your broadcasts on a managed platform, not on servers you maintain.
Start the 7-day trial, keep Wowza running in parallel, and compare the two on a real broadcast. The Castr video team can map your ingest, delivery, players, and API integrations with you before you cut over.
No credit card to start. 24/7 support on every plan. Month to month, with no long-term contract required.
Build the complete workflow
Explore the rest of the Castr platform.
Compare other platforms
See how Castr stacks up elsewhere.
For larger teams
Evaluating Castr for an organization?
Castr vs Wowza · 7-day trial, no credit card