The BEST Podcast Recording Software | SquadCast vs Welder vs Riverside vs Zencastr Overview! 

Ryan, did you ever find out why your video recorded in a lower setting considering you were DSLR? And, yes (as a Riverside user I can confirm) the video quality you see live is a streaming lower quality version to reduce resource issues of the platform, the focus being on the final recording. Certainly worth downloading the backup video, which is the live stream, and comparing the final product, it's so much clearer.

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Thanks Ryan!! Really appreciate you making this video and we will have some more to share with SquadCast v5 in Q1. Happy Holidays!!

SquadCast has the ability to easily upload your audio to Descript to generate a transcript. Its a quick click. Riverside also features upload to Descript, but I find it more complicated to figure out how to get there, versus the simple click right in the audio dashboard on SQ.

Ryan, Thank you! very efficient presentation. You covered a lot. I had just signed up for Riverside a couple of days before seeing this. I'm redoing my first interview tomorrow since my guest could not get Zoom to work on his iPhone for some reason. Odd, but I expect to deal with some of these issues because my guests are going to be low tech savvy in most cases. I'd love to see a comparison where your guest is using an iPhone and/or Android. You may already have one. I'll search now. I will also update after my interview tomorrow where they guest will be on an iPhone.

Fantastic Video with so much valuable information. Also the comments are extremely helpful. Thank YOU RYAN! x

This is an awesome video thanks Ryan - RU-vid just offered it to me on my home page because I've been looking at Riverside but I've seen lots of comments that a recent update has made the video and audio drift from each other. Also - I feel like I need a free tier to get used to the UI and workflow before committing to monthly subscription, so all in I really like the look of Welder and had no idea that platform even exists. Thanks again great job!

You just saved me like 5 hours of research lol thanks!

Great video, Ryan! Thanks for sharing your opinion about SquadCast :)

Thanks Ryan - did a bunch of research and ended up doing my first Podcast interview with Riverside right before the Holidays - my guest used their iPhone and a wired earbud headset - I use a new 2021 MacBook Pro M1Max 16" along with Shure 7B mic with Focusrite 18i8 and Sony 6400 DSLR with 20mm lens for camera - I am located on East coast US and guest was on Maui in HI. Guest had no trouble downloading app and logging in - live steam during recording looked great on both ends as well as audio - However; something happened after session ended and though my video and audio uploaded fine, my guests did not upload (well it uploaded, but there were no files there for me to download) - BUT; Riverside's tech chat was VERY quick and responsive (even over the Christmas Holiday which was cool) - they were able to connect directly to the developer and troubleshoot the problem and provided up to date responsive followup - Unfortunately in my case, they were unable to recover my guests files, BUT; the backup complete side by side interview was still in the cloud (as it is uploaded in realtime while the podcast is recording) so I didn't loose the interview - I was able to download that and the audio (though now I don't have separate tracks to adjust post editing) is pretty clean to use for the audio podcast - However; the video on my end in the internet backup file is much lower grade than the uploaded finished files of my side of the podcast - as this is a fairly well known guest and would suck to ask them to do the episode all over again (and we would miss some of the better spontaneous content from the first interview) I will edit and upload as best I can and drop it to my RU-vid later this month - It was not all a loss as Riverside was able to determine what occurred with my issue and already developed a patch to correct it so it wont happen again to me or anyone else (ya'll are welcome lol) - Riverside also did some corrections to compensate me for the issue, which was also very cool - Overall I am going to stay with Riverside for now as I have some more interviews scheduled this month and will see if there any other issues - PS: I did use the sound board cheers etc a little in the interview which was cool and the guest enjoyed as well) - I will update after the next recordings to let you know how it is going - from looking again at your review (Huge Mahalo for that by the way) I would probably go to Squadcast if any issues continue with Riverside - NOTE: A LOT of people and companies use Riverside and I still feel my issue was a one off that apparently they now corrected

This was a great walkthrough of the options. Thank you

Awesome video, just subbed!

GREAT video. Thanks for dipping into the details. It was very helpful. Did I see (it was very brief) that only one of them allowed you to have a video conversation but only record the audio? I'm hyper-focused on the audio part (want to remain anonymous); but having a face-to-face with trusted guests would make for more intimate/friendly/dynamic conversations feeding off of each other's body language. Know what I mean? Do you happen to have a similar video on hosting solutions? Thanks again.

Hey Ryan great episode, do these brands switch camera of speakers automatically when someone speaks like zoom? Thanks 😁👍

I've been using riverside. I nearly dropped them but then they brought out 2.0 and it's been WAY better. I don't think it's ideal for live streaming, since the quality is an issue and is only HD after recording. Still occasional bugs and upload problems, especially if guest has slow wifi or closes before upload is complete. I'm mostly happy with it now although I don't care for the transcription service and find the accuracy poor. I've moved away from livestreaming my show due to regular logistical issues but restreaming riverside recordings afterwards works pretty well.

Thank you for this. Do you use laptop camera to record these videos because the quality isn't good.

Thanks for the comparison!

Thanks you gave me a lot to think about. I think I'll try my new Podcast with Welder. I need it to look good in recording but also look good in live streaming. Welder seems to do well in both. Thanks for your work.

Complex request here, btw, loved the video: What u recommend for a 3ppl remote video podcast? Details we like are custom logo, sounds and background music, admin controls for all of us and able to switch the view to who is speaking.

Good job Ryan!

I'm not a fan of Riverside.. it's still buggy in my opinion and through my experiance. 1/3 of my recordings are great. 1/3 of the recording have issues and 1/3 of the recordings are so bad they aren't usable. I don't recommend it right now. They really need to iron out the issues with the basic functionality before adding additional features. What do you guys think about Welder? It seemed interesting..

Riverside FM looks great - but in my case it just never really worked. Sometimes the Framerates are different, than it loses the Data, than it doesn't work at all, that it never finishes the Edits or just shows one Person, than it has a digital Noisefloor, than it takes them forever to answer. They would be great if they would deliver what they promise, but they constantly don't.

Thank you so much for this video, I am SUPER NEW to this and I want to try doing this here and there on my gardening channel, this might be a stupid question BUT, When you download the finished files, I get that you get both video + audio, but do you get 2 files for each? I have watched video podcasts where the host is able to take the full screen on each individual or one with all people included, I wonder if the files allow for this on the post side of things (I use premiere pro)... All this time I have been thinking this type of editing for video podcast was done by using cameras/audio individually by each participant but I noticed you did this when you shared the final video... Hopefully I make sense.

I'm Team Squadcast. Great product, wonderful user community.

Good review. Squadcast looked best during streaming. Playback/output were all similar too me. Riverside media studio was a pretty cool addition, however it had horrible host video quality during the recording. IMO, ranking. 1. sqaudcast 2. Welder, 3 riverside and 4 zencastr which needs a better UI, but not horrible. They’re all better than Zoom, hands down.

Amazing tutorial. Everything about Welder is better to me accept the actual video quality. It's not terrible, but it's slightly not as good. On the flip side, zencastr is the worst in my opinion for everything except the actual video quality. Squadcast does seem good but that pricing boy. I just can't understand why they would charge that much with all this new competition out there. BTW... would you mind telling me which DSLR you use? Thanks!

Just went to check out Welder, but it's merging with a way more expensive company that doesn't really seem to be for podcasting.. bummed because that seemed like the best one for me. I'll try Riverside for now.

While they all had good resolution it seemed welder and zencast might have been a little choppy. Not sure if that's just my connection or something from yt. Also difficult to tell with just head movements. The hand wave made it easier. Thanks for the shootout!

I felt like B and D looked the best, but it was hard to decide which sounded the best to me

Fantastic video bro... I think Riverside might be the one for me but question... how do you incorporate an audio intro track into the podcast?

I was a guest of Podcast that used Squad Cast and I had to go into the internal settings of my computer and try and get the camera to work. It started and then stopped after 5 minutes. In the end I spent 25 minutes trying to make it work and in the end it still didn't. I think I am going to try Riverside and hopefully I have a better overal experience.

really good review. considering zencastr for my podcast!

Ryan, great video, you just got a new subscriber! Any thoughts on Boomcaster?

Just curious what kind of camera you're using for this video?

All the videos look great but for me it's Welder! SquadCast is also great!

Do any of these platforms allow for you to upload video/audio to the platform?

But what about final sound quality? I watched the whole video just for that 😂 I’ve used Zencastr and was curious about the others.

What about Restream?

I like WELDER. Thanks

August 2023: I can't decide if I prefer Riverside or Zencastr. Both are good.

I have to say my impression of the Riverside pitch sold me but after having real problems with audio WAV files lost, bad video quality even with the upload and finally audio that sounded worse than Zoom, I'm looking for something else.

Curious which one had the best quality video while recording?

To me, pound for pound Welder was better and I was shocked. The pricing was good and adding the transcription is making me lean that way. You had the backgrounds and branding along with separate video and audio files. Zencastr was disappointing.

I've heard nightmares about Riverside drifting and total loss of podcasts. Any updates????

Riverside is my choice except no way to change screen layout for doing a new podcast.

Welder looks great. I just did a couple recordings with Squadcast, and the video did not synch well with the audio at all.

I have had such a bad experience with riverside - dropped calls - ruined recordings - terrible customer service.

D looked good

Riverside only uses chrome and Edge? I couldn't get to people on phones, computers who don't have chrome- super problem 't create

34 minute video to say basically that they’re all the same (I skipped forward). 👍🏻 And thanks. I might just stick to zoom. We’ll see… ☺️🤷🏻‍♂️

Opinions about Descript?

What about streamyard?

Today I learned the word "whatch".

Riverside looks like the one for me

I'm surprised your guest was using a Webcam instead of a good 📷

The time stamps for each section are pretty wrong, also the audio was out of sync

B & D

Why is your video titled best podcast recording software when you focus on the video.

RIP Welder :///

*UPDATE* Welder actually removed the whole local recording studio that was used in this video. They now only have the “live studio” which is very similar to Zoom.

Looks like welder has changed and doesnt have the same good features for free

this says 2023 but all of the information is out of date

b

I mainly use SquadCast, but 've used all platforms at least on a trial basis to test them all out, and I loved this overview video. One other platform I've tried is iris.fm