9 Best Webcasting Services for High-Quality Video (2024)

Webcasts are hugely scalable live virtual events that can reach thousands of viewers. They take a lot of coordination and require specialized webcasting platforms that can cater to your needs.  

Finding a webcasting service that runs smoothly, is easy to use, and fits into your setup is often easier said than done. Luckily, we’ve done the hard work for you.  

In this article, you’ll find the best webcasting services and platforms for creating high-quality broadcasts.

What is a webcasting service?

Webcasting refers to a live video broadcast over the internet. And, a “webcasting service” is a platform that facilitates this kind of broadcast. Webcasting services often double up as webinar software.

Webinar vs Webcast  

Though webinars and webcasts are very similar – both involving live video broadcasts – they usually differ in format, purpose, and audience experience. Here’s a quick breakdown of the key differences:

Webinars

• Smaller audience: webinars usually target a smaller group of people, typically under 1000 people at a maximum.
• Purpose: Usually intended to demonstrate a product, share information or educate the audience in an engaging and interactive way.
• Audience interaction: webinars typically include a lot of audience interaction either through the live chat box or in a dedicated audience Q&A segment, for example.

Webcasts

• Larger audience: you could reach up to 50,000 viewers, depending on the software you’re using and the platforms you’re broadcasting to.
• Little to no direct engagement and interaction. Webcasts can be likened to a TV broadcast because the audience are passive viewers, rather than active participants like in a webinar.

One similarity between webinars and webcasts is that both can either consist of pre-recorded video or livestream content.

9 Best webcasting services for high-quality video

Bear in mind that a lot of webcasting services offer webinar style broadcasting, too, and vice-versa.

Riverside

Price:

Riverside has four pricing tiers that include streaming:

• Standard - $15/month
• Pro - $24/month
• Business - get in touch for a demo and pricing information

Riverside is a video creation and live-streaming platform.

You can broadcast to all major platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, and more. Alternatively, you can livestream directly in Riverside.

On Riverside, you can host up to 10 speakers and 1000 audience members. You can also invite your webcast audience to call in live and interact with you directly. Alternatively, you could pre-record your video and audio, and then broadcast it at a later date.

Everything records in up to 4K video and 48kHz audio. We use local recording so no matter your internet connection, you’ll get high-definition content. Plus, every person’s video and audio record on a separate track to give you maximum control during editing.

After your live webcast, you’ll find a whole array of AI-powered features for editing and sharing your recordings. You can trim and customize your recording, fix up the audio, and even download AI summaries and transcriptions.

Key features:

• Remote guests: Include up to 7 remote guests from anywhere in the world in your recording.
• Browser-based and mobile app: No need to download your webcast software, just log-in and get started.
• Live screen and presentation recording: Share your screen, certain tabs or upload presentation slides and record them onto a separate track.
• Local recording: Riverside captures each participant on their own device rather than over the internet.
• Multitrack recording: Each participant’s audio and video records on separate tracks for more flexible editing control.
• High-resolution: Live stream in HD and record your recordings in up to 4K resolution and audio in up to 48kHz.
• Progressive uploads: Your recordings upload live to reduce the risk of data loss and to save you time when you’ve wrapped your livestream.
• Livestream to major platforms easily:  Stream to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and more.
• Livestream directly on Riverside:  Invite up to 1000 audience members. If you want to keep your webcast smaller, you could opt for Riverside’s native webcast capabilities.
• Media board: Edit live and add sound effects and other media clips.
• Producer mode: Your technical team can control your recording sessions from behind the scenes.
• Text-based editor: Simply make edits to your video transcript and Riverside will make the same changes in your video.
• Magic Clips: Turn your recordings’ highlights into short shareable videos at the tap of a button.
• Brand your livestream: Adding your logo, a background and customizing your webcast video layout.
• AI generated shownotes:  Download summaries of your webcast with chapters, titles, and key takeaways

Pros of Riverside:

• Versatile tool that lets you HD stream, record in high-quality and edit your content
• Easy to use regardless of your background or experience
• Pricing for every budget
• Constantly being updated with new AI tools to optimize your experience
• More budget-friendly than a lot of other webcast services

Cons of Riverside:

• No webcast attendees analytics

Best for: Creators who value adaptability and high-quality recording and broadcasting

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Demio

Price:

There are three subscription tiers:

• Starter -  $42/month
• Growth - $75 month
• Premium - $184/month

Bear in mind that if you want to increase the number of attendees you can include, this will add to your monthly fee.

Demio is a data-driven webinar and webcast platform. Its target audience is “data-driven” marketers, and they place a lot of emphasis on insights and analytics about your webinars. They cite their biggest selling point as being able to track and manage your revenue and conversions.

Key features:

• Polls lets you gather real-time feedback from your attendees
• Presentations or screenshare for sharing materials with your audience
• Easy to include guest presenters or moderators
• Audience can participate in the webcast by joining the stage
• Customizable webcast experience. Include your logo and color palette and even create a custom domain for your webcast.
• Audience engagement analytics gives you detailed stats about your audience’s activity
• Automated and customizable email notifications for communicating with your audience
• Real time chats for direct interaction with your attendees
• In-built promotion and marketing materials that help you reach as many potential audience members as possible. You can even incentivize your promoters with rewards or gifts.
• Insights & people reports that collect all the crucial data about audience engagement
• Data export lets you easily identify qualified leads from your most engaged audience members
• Demio AI is an automated chat bot that answers all attendees’s questions and queries
• Browser based so no need to download any software to get started
• No limit on concurrent live events, perfect for creators running multiple at once
• Maximum webcast duration of 10 hours for stress-free webcasting
• Automatically records your webcasts in up to 1080p

Pros of Demio:

• Data driven with a diverse set of insights and stats to help you get the most ROI and conversions possible
• Software specifically for webinars and webcasts
• Good range of audience interactivity tools

Cons of Demio:

• Recording quality is maximum of 1080p
• Not super budget friendly

Best for: Results-oriented, data-driven creators and marketers. Anyone who likes to have access to granular data and engagement stats.

Cisco Webex

Price:

• Webex Webinars - $275/license/month
• Webex Events - Get in touch for pricing

Webex by Cisco is a well-known platform for running interactive webinars or webcasts. Depending on which subscription tier you choose, you’ll be able to reach between 1000 and 100,000 people, making Webex a seriously scalable tool. You’ll get access to all kinds of audience interactivity tools and other features aimed at branding and professionalizing your webcast experience.

Key features:

• Up to 1000 attendees on Webex Webinars and up to 100,000 on Webex Events subscription
• 24 hours per session maximum length
• Webex AI Assistant for automatically generated transcription, notes and highlights
• Unlimited webinars with your subscription
• Customizable registration and events pages for your attendees to sign up and check key information
• Flexible types of events: live, simulive, and on-demand streaming
• Ability to run practice sessions so you and your co-hosts get it just right on the day
• Breakout rooms allow your audience to break off into smaller groups for discussion
• CRM integrations with major platforms like Salesforce
• Closed captions and real-time translation of your events to ensure accessibility for all audience members
• Monetization with ticketing and sponsorship (Webex Events only)
• Audience interaction tools with chat, live polling, emoji reactions and gesture recognition, breakout rooms
• Stream via browser and to major platforms like YouTube and Facebook Live

Pros of Webex

• Interactive features to elevate the audience experience
• Flexibility of types of event
• Accessibility tools such as closed captions and real-time translation
• Management tools that help you oversee the whole webcast workflow from set up and promotion through to running it and follow up

Cons of Webex

• Price of subscription could exclude some budgets
• Features might be excessive or overkill for creators who want a more simple setup

Best for: Enterprise level events at a big scale. Or creators who are looking for the space and scalability to grow the caliber of their events and the size of audience.

Vimeo

Price:

• Advanced - $65/month
• Enterprise - get in touch for pricing

You might be more familiar with Vimeo as a video hosting and viewing platform.  But you can actually use Vimeo to host and stream your webcasts.

Key features:

• Stream multiple events so you’re not limited to just one at a time
• Attendee registration management system
• Audience interaction tools such as live Q&As, polls, and chats
• Branded invite and reminder emails to help you market your webcast
• CRM integrations to fit into your existing workflow and tech stack
• Up to 7 remote guest speakers to include co-hosts and remote participants in your webcast
• Access to Vimeo’s Livestream studio which is its encoding software
• Live automated closed captions for maximum accessibility
• Ability to livestream variety of content: virtual events, webinars, interactive classes, live broadcasts, and more.
• Live editing lets you color-correct your broadcast, add several camera angles and more
• Teleprompter and AI tools make it easy to perfect your live events

Pros of Vimeo webinar

• Simple and easy to use: A beginner-friendly platform with a familiar interface.
• Convenient if you already host your content with Vimeo.

Cons of Vimeo webinar

• Limited audience so you can only stream to more than 100 audience members if you get an Enterprise subscription
• Not a dedicated webcast service as such. It’s more of a video hosting platform with a webinar add-on

Best for: Creators who already use Vimeo or are familiar with it.

Global Meet

Price:

• Webcast Professional subscriptions - get in touch for pricing
• Webcast Enterprise Subscription - get in touch for pricing

GlobalMeet calls itself “the most secure and reliable virtual events platform.” Its target audience is businesses and enterprises that prioritize data and cyber security and are looking to be able to confidently host large-scale webcasts easily. According to their website, 50% of the US’ largest banks use GlobalMeet as their webcasting service.

Key features:

• Ability to host webcasts with 100,000 audience members
• Enterprise-grade security
• Ability to record your webcast to use for on-demand content
• Post-event reporting and analytics that help you track the performance of your events
• Brand and customize your webcast experience
• Audience interaction tools with audience chat and Q&As
• Multi-language captions and live interpreters
• Professional event assistance if you go for the Enterprise subscription

Pros of GlobalMeet

• Security and reliability
• Professionally-oriented
• Big audience scope and capabilities

Cons of GlobalMeet

• May not capture all kinds of creators
• Oriented towards big-scale events

Best for: People looking to host large-scale, corporate webcasts.

ON24

Price:

• You need to get in touch to find out about pricing

ON24 will suit anyone that’s keen to integrate AI into their webcasting workflows. You’ll find a whole range of AI-powered webcasting tools that help you personalize the content you show to your audience and repurpose your recording into new types of assets.

Key features:

• AI-powered analytics and content engine helps you to personalize the way that you engage your audience
• Create webcast audience segments to deliver dynamic CTAs, content and tailored messaging throughout the customer journey
• AI assistant copywriter “SmartText” that helps you generate all your webcast adjacent and related written content. You can also repurpose your recordings into written content.
• Instantly create short-form promotional clips for social media
• Media player for in-event streaming of audio and video
• Engage your audience with live Q&As, actionable CTAs like “request demo” or “start free trial”, and surveys
• Customizable interface that lets you brand your entire experience
• Create a hub for your content that lets your audience browse in a personalized way that prioritizes the content they’re interested in
• Data and audience analytics to measure your webcast performance
• Translation into over 20 languages

Pros of ON24

• Data-focused and driven
• AI plays a central part of your ON24 workflow
• Personalized audience experience for maximum satisfaction and high-potential lead generation  

Cons of ON24

• Pricing is unclear
• Limited to webcast workflow so creators that are looking for flexibility might not be satisfied

Best for: Creators with a specific focus on conversions, nurturing leads and ROI

WorkCast

Price:

• Business - Get in touch for pricing information
• Business Pro - Get in touch for pricing information
• Enterprise - Get in touch for pricing information

WorkCast is a webinar and webcasting service. It’s a platform that supports all kind of users: from total beginners to well-seasoned webcasters. With the pre-made webinar templates and 55 webcast features designed to enhance the kinds of events you can run, WorkCast makes running live online events easy.

Key features:

• Pre-made and ready-to-use webinar templates (number is limited by your subscription tier)
• Live captioning for maximum accessibility
• Interact with your webcast with audience chat and Q&A
• Host on-demand webinars, lives and simulives
• Real-time data and analytics that deliver key insights about your webcast performance to your sales team
• Integrations with your tech stack so that you can immediately action your webinar insights and audience data
• Brand your webcasts
• Event management if you want to offload your event planning to a professional third-party
• Automatically records all broadcasts
• A content library of all your webinars and webcasts

Pros of WorkCast

• Flexibility of type of events you can host
• Easy to use and beginner-friendly

Cons of Workcast

• Webcast and webinar oriented. If you want to create other types of content you might feel limited.

Best for: Creators looking for a straightforward and focussed webcast service

Panopto

Price:

You need to get in touch for pricing:

• Panopto Basic
• Panopto Pro
• Panopto Enterprise

Panopto emphasizes its “one-click” webcasting service. It aims to make the whole webcasting experience as easy and straightforward as possible. The biggest draw is the unlimited audience numbers and the slick viewer experience offered by the ability to pause, rewind, and replay your live feed.

Key features:

• Records as you’re broadcasting so you can reuse your webcast as on-demand content
• Stream to Facebook Live, Periscope by Twitter and YouTube Live Streaming
• Maintain control over who is watching your streams. This gives you the ability to run completely private and secure webcasts.
• Enterprise-level security with integrates with single sign-on ID management solutions
• Virtually unlimited audience numbers
• Stream from multiple sources – cameras, computers and screen shares
• Live captioning of your webcast
• Viewers can pause, rewind and replay your live feed so even if they join late they can catch up at their own pace
• Interactive tools that let you engage with your audience directly but only with typed questions
• Customize your event “waiting room” for a fully branded experience  
• Viewer and event analytics that help you to understand how effective your webcast was
• Online Panopto video editor lets you edit your webcast recording in-platform

Pros of Panopto:

• Scalable to accommodate all sizes of webcasts
• Easy to use with a very straightforward and simple interface
• Automatic recording with an in-built editor

Cons of Panopto:

• Limited video storage unless you opt for the Enterprise subscription
• Limited audience interaction tools
• Some users report bugs with the recording software
• Others also mention that the analytics are limited

Best for: Users looking for effective, but functional webcasting service. Ideal especially for creators who want to webcast to big audiences.

CrowdComms

Price:

You need to get in touch for more information about pricing.

CrowdComms is a platform that brings everything you need to run in-person, hybrid, and virtual events together. This makes it a unique all-in-one platform that covers both your online and in-person events. They offer ample customer service – with both remote and on-site specialists –  to help support you in using their platform and troubleshooting when something goes wrong.  

Key features:

• Custom font, color palette, and imagery to customize every step of the audience workflow
• Ready-to-use design templates to help you customize your webcast experience
• Simple platform with user workflow that’s designed to be as straightforward as possible
• Integrations with popular tools such as Zoom, Eventbrite, and more
• Easy to incorporate event sponsorships with branded pages, sessions, alerts, and banner displays
• Interactive tools such as breakout rooms live polling, vote-up questions, notes, and networking

Pros of CrowdComms:

• Simple and easy to use
• Makes monetizing and sponsorship of your webcast easy

Cons of CrowdComms:

• Limited features compared to other similar platforms

Best for: Creators who want a simple webcast service that lets them integrate sponsors and accommodates all kinds of events – in person, hybrid and online.

How to choose a webcasting platform for a seamless experience

There are a number of factors to consider when you’re picking a webcasting service. Here’s what to keep in mind:

Price

Your budget will be a big determiner when choosing a webcasting software. You should take a close look at what pricing tiers or subscription types a platform offers and consider how much value you’re getting for your money.

Audience capacity

It’s important to think about at what scale your events will be. Your webcasting service needs to support this. Some only cater to a few hundred viewers whereas others have better capabilities for hosting thousands.

Versatility

The versatility of a platform is an important factor — especially when it comes to getting a good bang for your buck. Ideally, you should look for a service that offers more than just webcasting. If you can record, livestream, and edit your content all using one platform, then you know you’ll get a lot of use out of it beyond webcasting.

Usability

You need a platform that makes your webcasting workflow as seamless as possible. The less complicated it is, the better.

Other features

It’s easy to overlook the extras and add-ons that make a big difference to your overall user experience and content quality. Look beyond the fundamental webcasting offering and explore the other features. Keep an eye out especially for any tools that are designed to enhance the quality of your webcasts or make it super easy to edit them together.  

Analytics

Analyzing and monitoring your webcast performance and overall audience experience should be easy. Ideally, your webcast software will collect all the relevant data and stats for you.

Platforms

Being able to broadcast to all the major platforms that you want to reach is imperative and non-negotiable.

Best practices for webcasting in high-quality

To maximize the quality of your webcast, here are a few tips that you can keep in mind. Remember, high quality refers to the actual quality of your broadcast as well as your audience experience.

• Invest in equipment that can capture video and audio in high-quality
• Thorough preparation and planning with a script or well-written  structure
• Easy-to-use platform that makes webcasting simple and straightforward, with no catches
• Record your content so that you can reuse and repurpose it
• Captions for maximum accessibility. This also means you can reach multilingual audiences.

FAQs on Webcasting services

What are examples of webcasting?

Webcasts can be public events, branded events, or internal company events. For example, if you host a town hall meeting or an all-hands, then this is an example of a webcast. You can also find branded webcasts that include product demonstrations or walkthroughs.  

What is the difference between webcasting and streaming?

There’s basically no difference between webcasting and streaming. So, the two terms can be used interchangeably.

What is the difference between a podcast and a webcast?

A podcast is typically audio only, though they can be video too. They’re also almost always pre-recorded content and can be about any topic. Podcasts also don’t necessarily need to have the goal of conveying information or educating the audience.

Webcasts are typically live broadcast videos and audio that are intended to demonstrate a product or educate the viewers about a certain topic.