Restream vs Wowza (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Restream if

• Fits if you go live on YouTube, Twitch and LinkedIn at the same time and want their comments in one place
• Works for streamers who already use OBS and want one feed sent to several channels

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you want 1080p from the browser studio without paying for Professional at $49 a month
• Pricey if you mostly want webinars: $99 a month for 100 attendees on top of the plan, or $299 for 500 on Business
• Tight if you're staying free, with Restream branding, only 2 channels and no cloud recording
• Watch out: recordings are kept 15 days (30 on Business), and extra seats are $25 a month each, sold only on Professional and Business
• Not for you if you want a desktop or phone app, since it's web only

Pick Wowza if

• Fits if your team builds its own streaming service
• Makes sense if you need a server you can run in your own setup

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you stream occasionally: $195 a month, or $295 for a single month
• Not for you if you want webinars with registration and polls
• Watch out: extra transcoded channels cost $25 each beyond the 10 per instance, and extra instances cost $195 each
• Watch out: Wowza Video, the managed cloud, is priced separately, and Perpetual and Enterprise licenses are quoted by sales

Restream

• Webinars cost extra: $99 a month for 100 attendees on Standard and Professional, and $299 a month for 500 on Business.
• The Free plan carries Restream branding, streams to only 2 channels and has no cloud recording.
• Studio streams at 720p on Free and Standard; 1080p needs Professional, and recordings are kept 15 days (30 on Business).
• Extra team seats cost $25 a seat a month and are sold only on Professional and Business.

Wowza

• It is infrastructure, not a webinar tool: there is no registration page, polls or attendee chat out of the box.
• Additional transcoded channels cost $25 each beyond the 10 included per instance.
• Wowza Video, the managed cloud product, is priced separately; this listing records the Streaming Engine plans shown on the pricing page.
• Perpetual and Enterprise licenses are quoted by sales, with no published price.

Restream

Multistreaming

Sends one stream to 30 or more platforms, from 2 at once on Free to 8 on Business, plus custom RTMP and SRT destinations and paired channels added by guests.

Restream Studio

A browser studio with up to 10 people on screen, scenes, overlays, logos, a scrolling ticker, QR codes and background music. Professional and up stream in 1080p and record in 4K.

Encoder support

Instead of Studio, you can stream from OBS, Zoom, mobile encoders or game consoles into Restream and let it fan the stream out to every channel.

Cross-platform chat and analytics

Comments from every channel arrive in one feed, and viewer and engagement stats from all channels are shown together, with a live health monitor during the stream.

Webinars add-on

One link handles registration, the live webinar and the replay. Attendees watch in a browser without an account, and the webinar can also be streamed into a Slack channel.

Upload & Stream and clips

Pre-recorded videos can be broadcast as live streams, and the Clips add-on cuts streams into short vertical clips for TikTok, Shorts and Reels.

Wowza

Self-hosted streaming server

Wowza Streaming Engine runs on premises, in a private or public cloud, behind a firewall or fully offline, and can be deployed as a Docker container.

Many protocols

It ingests and delivers WebRTC, SRT, RTMP, RTSP and HLS, and supports low-latency HLS and DASH.

APIs and SDKs

A REST API and a Java SDK let developers script the server and add custom modules.

Transcoding

Each paid Streaming Engine instance includes 10 concurrent transcoded channels; extra channels are $25 each.

Security options

DRM, watermarking and encryption are offered, and the company says it holds a SOC 2 Type II report.

Managed cloud option

Wowza Video is a separate cloud platform that handles ingest, transcoding, delivery, analytics and a player without running servers.

Restream

• Free$0

  Stream to 2 channels at once with Restream branding; Studio at 720p with 6 people on screen.

• Standard$19

  per month, billed monthly ($190 a year billed annually)

  3 channels, no Restream branding, guest channels, 10 people on screen, cloud recording of 6 hours per stream kept for 15 days, and transcription.

• Professional$49

  per month, billed monthly ($470 a year billed annually)

  5 channels, 1080p from Studio, 4K recording, horizontal and vertical streams at once, 10 hours recorded per stream and 2 team seats.

• Business$239

  per month, billed monthly ($2,390 a year billed annually)

  8 channels, a website player for 1,000 viewers, 2 seats, co-producer mode, team workspaces and 30 days of recording storage.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Custom channels and seats, SSO, multiple workspaces, SRT ingest, stream backup and an account manager.

Wowza

• One Month of Streaming$295

  one-time purchase for one month, first instance included

  Streaming Engine for occasional events: up to 10 concurrent transcoded channels on the first instance, extra instances $295 each.

• Basic Monthly$195

  per month, billed monthly, first instance included

  Streaming Engine for steady use: up to 10 concurrent transcoded channels on the first instance, extra instances $195 each per month.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Annual plans and discounted rates, hybrid cloud services (CDN, Flowplayer, analytics), offline keys and professional services.

• PerpetualCustom

  A license with no expiration for containerized, air-gapped or self-hosted deployments, scoped and quoted by Wowza.

Restream

• Annual discount

  Annual billing labelled Save 20%

  Restream's pricing page offers annual billing marked "Save 20%". Its price data gives $190 a year for Standard, $470 for Professional and $2,390 for Business, against $19, $49 and $239 a month.

Wowza

No public discounts listed.