6 Best Playout.video Alternatives for Scheduled Cloud Channels (2026)
For a 24/7 playlist, the best Playout.video alternative is Streamloop, which turns your recorded videos into a live stream from the cloud. If you need a weekly calendar grid, live guests or audience games, Playout.video itself is still the better fit.
Streamloop needs no OBS, and your computer can stay off. It suits lofi, music, sermon-replay and podcast-replay channels, and it has the lowest price on this list for one 24/7 stream to one platform. Because the stream stays live, new viewers can find your channel at any hour. Already on Playout.video? See how to switch.
Which tools can replace Playout.video, and when should you stay?
Each tool below can run a 24/7 video stream from the cloud, with no computer left on. Streamloop comes first, and its "Not a fit" line tells you when to skip it.
Streamloop
Try it for $1Streamloop sends a playlist of your videos to up to 5 platforms at once, as a 24/7 live stream at up to 4K 60fps. Streaming is billed by the minute, only while live: one 24/7 stream at 1080p is about $10 per 30 days. Start with a $1 trial week, which becomes a monthly plan unless you cancel, or top up and pay as you go.
For a branded channel up to 1080p60, Live Scenes adds layouts, web pages and live data from Google Sheets, CSV or JSON. It also takes live feeds from OBS or IP cameras, and an AI assistant builds each scene from your description. Choose Scene when you create a stream.
Best for: 24/7 playlists, multistreaming and branded channels with live data, at a clear price.
Not a fit: if you need a guest studio with screen share, polls or quizzes, a calendar grid, or two connected YouTube channels per stream.
LiveReacting
A full browser studio with guests, scenes and audience games, plus a separate 24/7 plan for video with repeating schedules. Paid plans include an API and an MCP server.
vs Streamloop →From: free; 24/7 from $39.99/mo, or $33 billed yearly
Best for: interactive live shows that also need a channel between them.
Upstream
A 24/7 channel with a visual Stream Designer for overlays, web pages and widgets, a guest studio, and multistreaming to up to 10 destinations.
vs Streamloop →From: $30/mo, or $24 billed yearly
Best for: a designed, overlay-heavy channel on many platforms.
OneStream Live
Mature multistreaming with playlists, a browser studio and scheduling up to 60 days ahead. Output stops at 1080p. Its 24/7 streams go to YouTube only, for up to 30 days at a time, and below Enterprise they need a $30 a month add-on.
vs Streamloop →From: free; 24/7 from about $42/mo with the add-on, at 720p
Best for: scheduled video broadcasts to many platforms.
Livepush
Wide distribution of a feed you send or it pulls, plus cloud playlists, loops and recurring broadcasts. The webcam input is basic, not a guest studio.
vs Streamloop →From: free; 24/7 from $39/mo on Creators, or $32.50 billed yearly
Best for: teams that already produce a feed and need wide delivery.
Castr
A broad live video platform: multistreaming, hosting, monetization, and TV Playout with schedules, live inputs and an EPG. Pre-recorded streams loop with no end from Premium up. TV Playout loops stop after 15 or 30 days.
vs Streamloop →From: 24/7 loops from $199.99/mo on Premium, or $166.67 billed yearly
Best for: businesses that want playout inside a full video stack.
Stay on Playout.video
Do you need a weekly calendar with fallback content, live guest takeovers over the channel, or live quizzes and polls for your viewers? None of the tools above replaces that set exactly.
Read the Playout.video review →
Which one should you choose?
| If you need | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A cheap 24/7 playlist, on one or two platforms | Streamloop | $10 a month at 1080p30 on one platform, $16 on two. From three platforms, Playout.video Creator at $19 billed yearly costs less, with 5 platforms included. Billed monthly at $29, it costs less from five |
| A branded channel with live data and a live feed from OBS (sports, news) | Streamloop | Live Scenes takes an OBS feed and a Google Sheet ticker, and the AI assistant builds the scene |
| A weekly service that starts and stops itself (church) | Streamloop, for one fixed window a week | About $0.10 of credits a month for 1 hour a week at 1080p30 to 2 platforms, from a $5 top-up; one time window per stream |
| Many different weekly slots on one channel | Playout.video Channel | A calendar grid with a fallback for each slot, $49 or $39 billed yearly |
| A podcast or show with live guests | Playout.video | Browser guests on every plan (8 on Creator) can take over the 24/7 channel. Upstream also has a guest studio; Streamloop has none |
| A 4K or 60fps channel | Streamloop | 4K60 for $45 a month with no add-ons; large playlists add storage (see the cost note). On Playout.video, 4K60 needs Business plus both add-ons: $199 a month, or about $161 a month billed yearly |
| Live quizzes and polls with a 24/7 channel | Playout.video or LiveReacting | Both run audience games; Streamloop has no built-in polls or quizzes |
| Already on Playout.video and want to pay less | Read the switching checklist first | No tool imports a Playout.video channel; the checklist covers media, destinations and schedules |
| A designer, a studio and a 24/7 channel | Upstream | Stream Designer and up to 10 destinations |
| Scheduled video to many platforms | OneStream Live | Up to 50 destinations by plan |
| Wide delivery of a feed you produce | Livepush | RTMP, SRT or pulled feeds, many destinations |
| Playout inside a full video stack | Castr | Hosting, players, APIs and an EPG |
Running a weekly service? Read how to live stream church services.
A Live Scene with a spreadsheet source. The lower third shows the first row of the table.
How do the seven tools compare, feature by feature?
Scroll the table sideways to see every tool. "Not documented" means that the vendor pages do not say, not that the feature is missing.
| Feature | Playout.video | Streamloop | LiveReacting | Upstream | OneStream Live | Livepush | Castr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | |||||||
| 24/7 from | Creator, $29/mo; $19 billed yearly | $4/mo at 720p24 | $39.99/mo, separate 24/7 plan | $30/mo; $24 billed yearly | $42 to $45/mo with the add-on, at 720p | $39/mo on Creators; $32.50 billed yearly | $199.99/mo on Premium; $166.67 billed yearly |
| 24/7 at 1080p30 | Creator, $29/mo; $19 billed yearly | $10/mo for one platform; +$6 each extra | $39.99/mo | $30/mo; $24 billed yearly | $62 to $69/mo with the add-on | $39/mo; $32.50 billed yearly | TV Playout: $349.99/mo on Ultra, $291.67 billed yearly; loops on Premium |
| 24/7 at 4K | Business and 4K add-on, $189/mo at 30fps; about $152 billed yearly | $30/mo; $45 at 60fps | $79.98/mo | $70/mo; 10% off yearly | Not offered; 1080p maximum | $39/mo on Creators; $32.50 billed yearly | TV Playout: 1080p maximum. Loops: not documented. |
| Free plan | 2-hour sessions, watermark | None; $1 for 7 days, then a monthly plan unless you cancel | 3 streams a month, 30 min, 720p, watermark | 24 hours a month, no watermark | 15-min videos, no 24/7 | 20 hours a month, no 24/7 | 7-day trial, watermark |
| Quality | |||||||
| 60fps | $10/mo add-on, Channel and up | Included | 1.5× the price | $40/mo at 1080p60 | Not on the pricing page | Creators and up | Ultra and Events |
| HDR | Not documented | To YouTube only | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Portrait output | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, in Studio and for uploaded 9:16 videos | Yes, with cloud transcoding on hosting plans | Not documented for playout |
| Media and playlists | |||||||
| Import from | Links from 11 sites | Google Drive, YouTube, link | Google Drive, Dropbox, YouTube | Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive | Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, pCloud, Zoom, Webex | Google Drive, Dropbox, link | Dropbox |
| Separate audio | Audio in compositions | Audio playlists | Audio playlists | Audio playlists | Not documented | Not documented | Split audio tracks on Ultra |
| Play order | Loop, shuffle, swaps | Shuffle without repeats, plain-word order | In order, shuffle, one video | Ordered or shuffled loop | Playlists and loops | Playlist loop | Timetable |
| Edit while live | Calendar edits at the next slot | After the current video, no restart | Yes | Yes | Not documented | Playlist updates; schedule edits on Business | Timetable edits |
| Destinations and inputs | |||||||
| Per stream | 2 to 10 by plan | Up to 5 | 1 to 20 by plan; 5 on 24/7 | 10 | 2 to 50 by plan | 3 to 45 by plan | 6 to 30 by plan |
| Live inputs | RTMP or WHIP, Business and up | RTMP, RTMPS, SRT, RTSP, HLS in Live Scenes | Guests by link | RTMP; 1080p30 on free, 60fps on paid | RTMP, SRT, WHIP | RTMP, SRT, webcam; pull from HLS, RTMP, SRT or RTSP | RTMP, SRT, RTSP, HLS, MPEG-TS, WHIP |
| Automation | |||||||
| Scheduling | Calendar, runs on Channel and up | Repeat daily or weekly, one time window | Repeats, up to four weeks ahead | Once, daily, weekly or in cycles | Up to 60 days ahead | Recurring 24/7 channel | TV timetables, EPG |
| API | Not documented | REST and GraphQL | Paid plans | All plans | Not documented | REST | Premium and up |
| AI | Assistant, 20 to 2,000 messages a month; graphics from a prompt on Channel and up | Scene assistant and MCP server | MCP server | MCP server | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented |
| Production | |||||||
| Scenes and overlays | Overlay templates; Studio layouts | Live Scenes, built by an AI assistant | Scenes with switch rules | Stream Designer | Studio scenes, overlays | Chat overlay only | Cloud Production |
| Live web pages | Not documented | Yes, in Live Scenes | Yes | Yes | Not documented | No | URL source |
| Guest studio | Yes, with takeover | None | Yes, by link | Up to 10 on stage | 4 to 16 guests | Webcam only | No guest invites; switcher only |
| Audience widgets | Quizzes, polls, cross-platform chat | No built-in polls or quizzes | Polls, trivia, giveaways | Chat box, web widgets | Unified chat | Unified chat | URL widgets |
| Reliability and trust | |||||||
| Auto-recovery | Yes | Yes | Yes | Restarts Twitch at 48 h; retries a failing platform 5 times | Not documented | Restarts for platform limits | Failover on Ultra and up |
| Sign-in security | Not documented | Passkeys; no two-factor | Not documented | Two-factor | Not documented | Not documented | Two-factor |
| Trustpilot | No reviews yet | 4.0 (3) | 4.2 (7) | 4.5 (243) | 4.7 (1,079) | 4.4 (19) | 3.3 (57) |
Competitor values come from each vendor's official pages. Each tool review lists its sources.
What does a 24/7 stream cost on Streamloop?
Streamloop bills by the minute, only while a stream is live. The table shows 30 days of nonstop streaming; the other tools' prices are in the feature table above.
| Quality | 30fps | 60fps | Each extra platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| 720p | $5 | $7.50 | $3.50 |
| 1080p | $10 | $15 | $6 |
| 1440p | $20 | $30 | $8 |
| 4K | $30 | $45 | $12.50 |
| Live Scene, 1080p (streaming included) | $20 | $35 | $6 |
You do not need a plan: top up from $5 and pay only while you stream. Encoding costs $0.005 per minute, only for files that need it. Playlist storage is free up to 30 GiB, then $0.35 per GiB a month while live. A card top-up can add a fee of up to 5%, at least $0.50, depending on the payment method. The top-up window shows the fee before you pay. Each file can be up to 15 GiB, and Twitch, Kick and Facebook take up to 1080p.
A Scene stream with three destinations: $32 a month, shown before you go live.
See your channel's price before you start.
Streaming is billed by the minute, only while live: one 24/7 stream at 1080p is about $10 per 30 days. Start with a $1 trial week, which becomes a monthly plan unless you cancel, or top up and pay as you go. See all prices.
How did we pick these tools?
Each tool here can run a video channel from the cloud with no computer left on, or combine a playlist with a live show. We left out studio-only and webinar tools, because they cannot replace a channel.
We read the pricing page, help center and changelog of each vendor, but we did not buy plans or run test streams on these tools.
Frequently asked questions
Which alternative has the closest calendar automation?
LiveReacting has repeating and multi-date schedules, and Livepush has recurring broadcasts. Neither documents the full Playout.video set: a fallback for each slot and a Studio takeover. Streamloop repeats a stream daily or weekly in one time window, at no extra cost.
Can Playout.video Creator run an automated calendar?
No. Creator can build a calendar, but it cannot run it. That starts on Channel, at $49 a month or $39 a month billed yearly.
Which alternative is best for a simple 24/7 playlist?
Streamloop. One 1080p30 playlist on one platform costs about $10 a month, with no yearly commitment. Each extra platform adds $6, up to 5 platforms in all. Playout.video Creator is $29 a month, or $19 billed yearly, with 5 platforms included, so billed yearly it costs less from three platforms. The other tools here start at $24 a month billed yearly (Upstream); the feature table has each price.
Which alternative supports a browser Studio and persistent channel?
Upstream and LiveReacting both combine a browser studio with a 24/7 channel. OneStream Live also has a studio, but its 24/7 streams go to YouTube only, and below Enterprise they need an add-on. Streamloop has no guest studio. Playout.video itself does both.
Is Castr a direct Playout.video replacement?
Only in part. Castr TV Playout has schedules, live inputs and an EPG, but its loops stop after 15 or 30 days. Castr also costs much more, and it fits teams that also need hosting, monetization or APIs.
What is the cheapest alternative for a 24/7 playlist?
Of the tools on this page, Streamloop has the lowest published price for one continuous stream: $4 a month at 720p24 and $10 at 1080p30. Check the 24/7 limit of each tool, not only its starting price.
Which alternative can add graphics with live data?
Streamloop Live Scenes reads Google Sheets, Excel or CSV files and JSON feeds, and an AI assistant builds the scene. Choose Scene when you create a stream. LiveReacting and Upstream can show a live web page. Playout.video Business shows Google Sheet rows on a Studio graphic.
Can I import my Playout.video channel?
None of these tools imports a Playout.video channel. Upload the media again, connect the destinations again and rebuild the schedules. What switching involves
More alternatives
Sources
Checked on October 14 and 15, 2026 against Playout.video pricing and Help, the official pages of each tool, and the Streamloop dashboard.
Questions or a correction? Contact us.