Riverside records every participant locally in up to 4K on separate tracks, so quality never depends on the connection, then turns the session into edits, clips and published episodes with AI.
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Riverside is a remote recording and content production platform built around a single technical decision that shapes everything else about it: instead of capturing what travels across the internet, it records each participant locally on their own device. Every person in a session is captured at up to 4K video and uncompressed audio on separate tracks, unaffected by internet connection quality. That is the whole argument for the product. A video call compresses aggressively in real time to keep the conversation flowing, and while nobody notices during the call, the compression shows up afterward as pixelated video and muddy audio that no amount of editing can recover. Riverside sidesteps that by never treating the live stream as the master recording.
One important thing to establish up front, because it affects how you find the product: the company has moved domains. Riverside announced on 20 May 2026 that it had formally adopted the Riverside name and relocated from riverside.fm to riverside.com, having acquired the .com domain in 2025. The old domain redirects, so existing links still work, but riverside.com is the current address. The operating entity is unchanged — RiversideFM, Inc., founded in 2020 by brothers Nadav and Gideon Keyson. The chief executive's stated reasoning for the change was that the company was built for video podcasters when the .fm made sense, and that the .com now matches what the company has actually become.
What it has become is broader than a recording tool. The platform now spans five stages that its own site presents as one flow: record, edit, repurpose, stream and publish. You record a session, edit it in a transcript-based editor, let AI cut it into clips and promotional assets, stream live to multiple destinations, and publish straight to Spotify, Apple and YouTube — without leaving the product. Whether that breadth is an advantage depends entirely on whether you would otherwise be assembling three or four separate subscriptions to cover the same ground.
Riverside is primarily browser-based, which is a deliberate product decision rather than a limitation — guests join by clicking a link, with no software to install and no setup to troubleshoot before an interview. For hosts who prefer a native environment, a Mac desktop application and mobile apps are available, both listed as separate products on the site.
Publishing destinations are extensive: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn for content distribution, plus livestreaming to YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, X and Twitch simultaneously, with custom RTMP for platforms not natively supported. Business integrations are tiered rather than universal. HubSpot integration for webinar lead sync appears at the webinar tier. Salesforce and Marketo integrations, API access, SSO through Okta and Azure, and SOC2 and ISO27001 compliance are listed specifically as business-tier features — which means organisations with a compliance requirement should treat the business tier as their starting point rather than expecting to grow into it.
One practical note on finding the product: the domain move from riverside.fm to riverside.com completed in 2026, and third-party articles, directory listings and older bookmarks frequently still point at the old domain. Those links redirect rather than break, but if you are checking pricing or documentation, go to riverside.com directly to be sure you are seeing the current site.
Riverside offers five tiers. Before the numbers, two caveats worth stating plainly. First, at the time of writing the pricing page carried a notice stating that it was being viewed in a staging environment and that information shown may not be up to date, directing readers to the official pricing page for the most accurate version — the vendor's own disclaimer on its own pricing page. The figures below were cross-checked through two independent retrieval channels and were identical in both, but treat them as a snapshot and confirm on the live page. Second, one figure on that page does not add up, discussed below.
Free costs nothing and requires no credit card, but its limits are on output rather than duration: up to 720p video, 44.1 kHz audio, a Riverside watermark on everything, and a one-off two hours of multi-track recording. Single-track recording and editing are unlimited, and video calls have no time limit. Pro is $24 per month billed annually at $288, or $29 monthly, and unlocks the actual product: up to 4K video, 48 kHz audio, no watermark, unlimited text-based editing, unlimited transcriptions, the AI editing suite, podcast hosting with analytics, one studio and 15 hours of separate-track downloads per month. Grow is $34 per month billed annually at $408, or $39 monthly, adding audience growth tools — social scheduling, newsletter, creator website, video hosting, AI thumbnails — plus Full HD livestreaming, multistreaming, custom RTMP, two studios and 20 hours of separate-track downloads. Webinar is $79 per month annually or $99 monthly, adding webinars for up to 100 registrants, lead capture, branded registration, Q&A and polls, webinar analytics, HubSpot integration, three studios and 25 hours of downloads. Business is custom-priced with unlimited studios and downloads, up to 10,000 webinar registrants, producer mode, collaborative editing, SSO, SOC2 and ISO27001 compliance, API access and a dedicated CSM.
Now the arithmetic problem. Pro's annual figure is internally consistent: $24 × 12 = $288. Grow's is too: $34 × 12 = $408. But Webinar shows $79 per month annually alongside "Billed $408 annually" — and $79 × 12 is $948, not $408. The $408 figure is simply Grow's number repeated. Both retrieval channels returned this identically, so it is not a scraping artefact; it is an error on the published page. Neither number is reported here as correct, because there is no way to tell from the outside which one reflects the actual charge. If you are considering the webinar tier, confirm the annual price at checkout before committing.
Two further mechanics shape real cost. Separate-track downloads, not recording, are the metered resource — recording is unlimited on paid plans, and exceeding the download cap means you retain access to content but cannot pull new separate tracks until the next cycle. And on Pro, Grow and Webinar, additional editor seats are a paid add-on; collaborative editing and custom roles are built in only on Business. All paid plans include a 14-day free trial.
The right comparison depends on which part of Riverside you actually need. Against video conferencing tools used for recording — Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams — the difference is architectural rather than featural: those tools compress in real time to sustain a live call, and that compression is baked into the recording permanently. If you publish the result, you will see it. Against dedicated remote recording platforms such as SquadCast, Zencastr and Descript's recording features, the local-recording approach is shared, and the comparison comes down to editing depth, hosting inclusion and price. Against editing-first tools, principally Descript, independent review comparisons put Riverside ahead on video quality but behind on editing depth — a trade-off worth taking seriously if heavy post-production is your bottleneck rather than capture quality. Against streaming-first platforms like StreamYard and Restream, Riverside's livestreaming is competitive but arrives bundled with recording and editing you may not need, whereas those tools are more specialised. Against webinar platforms such as Zoom Webinars, Livestorm and Demio, Riverside's webinar tier covers registration, reminders and CRM sync but caps at 100 registrants below the business tier, which rules it out for larger events. The honest framing is that Riverside is rarely the best tool at any single one of these jobs, and is frequently the best value when you need most of them at once.
The domain has changed and third-party references lag. The move from riverside.fm to riverside.com completed in 2026. Old links redirect, so nothing breaks, but directory listings, articles and bookmarks across the web still point at the old address, and some show outdated information as a result. Verify pricing and features on riverside.com rather than trusting a cached third-party page.
The vendor's own pricing page carried a staging-environment disclaimer. At the time of writing, the pricing page displayed a notice saying the information shown may not be up to date and directing readers to the official pricing page. Prices retrieved through two independent channels matched, but a vendor disclaiming its own pricing page is a reason to confirm at checkout rather than plan a budget from the page alone.
One published annual price does not reconcile. Webinar is listed at $79 per month on annual billing but "Billed $408 annually," which would require $34 per month, not $79. The $408 figure duplicates Grow's annual total. Pro and Grow are internally consistent. This is reported as found without guessing which figure is correct.
Local recording protects quality, not delivery. This is the most important thing to understand about the product's failure modes. Recording quality is genuinely insulated from connection quality. Getting those files off the participant's device is not. Independent reviews consistently report incomplete uploads when a guest has a weak connection or leaves the session too quickly, with at least one reported case of an entire session being lost when a panellist lost internet. Progressive uploading exists to mitigate exactly this, but the risk is not eliminated, and it lands hardest on the participant you control least — the guest.
Editing depth is a recognised weakness. Reviewers describe the editing tools as limited compared with more advanced software, and direct comparisons place Riverside ahead of Descript and Camtasia on video quality but behind on editing capability. Transcript-based editing is fast and accessible precisely because it abstracts away timeline control, which is exactly what you lose.
Independent ratings are strong but complaints are specific. Riverside holds 4.8 out of 5 on Capterra across 278 reviews, with 4.7 for ease of use and 4.6 for customer service — a sample large enough to be meaningful. The recurring negatives are consistent: incomplete uploads from weak guest connections, occasional glitches syncing audio and video or uploading recordings, temporary freezes during sessions, delayed uploads for large files, limited editing tools, a large price jump between the basic tiers and enterprise, and interface changes that relocate familiar controls after updates.
The G2 score displayed on the homepage could not be independently verified. Riverside's homepage advertises 4.8 on G2 across 1,582 reviews. G2 blocked retrieval through both available channels during research, so that figure is reproduced here only as a vendor claim, not as a verified rating. The Capterra figures above are cited instead because they were retrievable and carry a sufficient sample.
Parts of the official site are out of date. The About page still describes the company as "founded in 2020 by two brothers Gideon and Nadav" with no mention of the 2026 renaming or domain move, and the footer copyright line still reads © 2024 RiversideFM, Inc. Neither is consequential on its own, but both are worth knowing when treating site copy as current.
Tier boundaries are structural rather than gradual. Several capabilities are hard-gated in ways that can force an upgrade unrelated to usage volume. Webinar registration, Q&A, polls, automated reminders, HubSpot integration and webinar analytics are unavailable below the webinar tier even though livestreaming exists on Grow. Webinars cap at 100 registrants until business. Collaborative editing and custom roles exist only on business. SOC2 and ISO27001 compliance are listed as business-tier features. And a second show requires a second studio, which alone can move you up a tier.
The free plan cannot demonstrate the product's core value. Free output is 720p, 44.1 kHz and watermarked — meaning the one thing the product is actually built for, recording quality, is the thing the free tier does not show. Evaluating fidelity requires the 14-day trial on a paid plan.
Data-handling specifics are lightly documented. The privacy policy sets no fixed retention period, committing only to retain information as long as needed to provide the services and meet legal obligations unless instructed otherwise. It states that information is shared with business partners including storage and analytics providers, and that payment data is handled by payment processors rather than collected directly. A GDPR section sets out EU residents' rights. Beyond that, the public documentation does not specify recording storage locations or encryption implementation, and this page does not infer them.
Yes. The company announced on 20 May 2026 that it had formally adopted the Riverside name and moved from riverside.fm to riverside.com, having acquired the .com domain in 2025. The old domain redirects to the new one, so existing links and bookmarks still work and no action is required from customers. The operating entity is unchanged. If you find pricing or feature information on a page still using the old domain, verify it against riverside.com, since third-party references have not all caught up.
It means each participant is recorded on their own device rather than the platform capturing the compressed call stream. You get up to 4K video and uncompressed audio in separate per-person tracks, with recording quality unaffected by connection quality. It matters because video calls compress aggressively in real time to keep the conversation flowing — imperceptible live, but permanently visible afterward as pixelated video and muddy audio in anything you publish.
Yes, and this is the distinction that matters most. Local recording protects quality from the network; it does not protect delivery. The files still have to reach the cloud, which Riverside handles through progressive uploading during the session rather than one transfer at the end. Independent reviews nonetheless report incomplete uploads when guests have weak connections or leave too quickly, including at least one report of a whole session lost. Confirm uploads have completed before anyone leaves.
Recording is unlimited on paid plans. The metered resource is separate-track downloads — the individual per-participant studio-quality files — capped at 15 hours monthly on Pro, 20 on Grow and 25 on Webinar, unlimited on Business. Exceeding the cap means you keep access to your content but cannot download new separate tracks until the next billing cycle. Studios are the other constraint: one on Pro, two on Grow, three on Webinar, unlimited on Business, with each show needing its own.
It is enough to evaluate the workflow but not the quality, which is a meaningful distinction for this particular product. Free gives 720p video, 44.1 kHz audio, a watermark on all output and a one-off two hours of multi-track recording. Since recording fidelity is the product's entire premise, judging it requires a paid tier — every paid plan includes a 14-day free trial for that purpose.
Pro is $24 per month billed annually at $288, or $29 monthly. Grow is $34 per month annually at $408, or $39 monthly. Webinar is $79 per month annually or $99 monthly. Business is custom-priced. One caution: the published page lists Webinar's annual total as $408, which matches Grow rather than $79 × 12, so that figure does not reconcile — confirm at checkout. The pricing page also carried a staging-environment notice at the time of writing, so verify current figures on the live site.
Most do, but not all are metered the same way. Magic Clips, Magic Audio and the AI Co-Creator do not consume credits. AI Translation, AI B-Roll and Animated Clips draw on AI Credits, with Pro and Grow starting at 20 and Business at 60, and more available for purchase once exhausted. If AI translation into the supported 30-plus languages is central to your workflow, factor credit consumption into the cost rather than assuming the subscription covers it.
Yes, from the webinar tier upward. That tier supports up to 100 registrants with branded registration forms, automated email reminders, Q&A, polls, live call-ins, webinar analytics and HubSpot integration for CRM lead sync. The Grow tier includes livestreaming and multistreaming but none of the registration, engagement or analytics features, so it cannot substitute. Beyond 100 registrants, and up to 10,000, you need the business tier.
They solve different problems. Zoom optimises for a stable live conversation and compresses accordingly, which is the correct trade-off for a meeting and the wrong one for published content. Riverside treats the live stream as incidental and the local per-device capture as the real recording. If your output is internal notes, a call recording is fine. If it will be published, edited or repurposed, the quality difference is the reason this category of tool exists.
Three stand out. Editing depth is limited relative to dedicated editors — comparisons place it ahead of Descript on video quality but behind on editing capability. Upload reliability, particularly with guests on weak connections, is the most frequently reported operational problem. And tier boundaries are structural rather than gradual: webinar features, larger registrant caps, collaborative editing, compliance certifications and additional studios each sit behind specific tiers, so requirements unrelated to usage volume can force an upgrade.
