Best Live Streaming and Webinar Software for Small Businesses in 2026

Last verified: November 8, 2026

These four solve two different jobs, not one. Restream and StreamYard are multistreaming tools built to send one live feed to several platforms at once; Livestorm and WebinarJam are dedicated webinar platforms built around registration pages and attendee management for longer, structured sessions. The two multistreaming tools sell webinar hosting as a bolt-on add-on; the two webinar platforms sell it as the entire product, and that difference matters more than any single feature on a comparison chart.

ToolsGavel's top pick: Restream (4.4/5, from $19/mo) — Restream is the one tool in this comparison where Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra all agree, 4.5 to 4.6 out of 5 across the board, with no large cross-platform gap to explain away. Its free plan allows 2 simultaneous channels with no card, and Standard starts at $19/mo for 3 channels and 10 hours of recording per stream. The catch: webinar hosting and clip generation are both separate paid add-ons, from $99/mo and $19/mo respectively, on top of any plan, not bundled features.

Independent review. If you buy through links on this page we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. Tools we partner with are listed first, but that never changes a score — how we test.

Tool Score Advertised price Real $/mo, billed annually Month-to-month premium
1
Restream Best for Multistreaming
4.4/5 $19/mo (Standard, billed monthly or annually) $19/mo Same Visit
2
Livestorm Best for B2B Webinars
3.9/5 $1,200/yr for 400 attendee credits (Pro, $3.00 per credit, about $100/mo equivalent, annual only) $100/mo — Visit
3
StreamYard Best Browser Studio
4.1/5 $18.99/mo (Essential, billed monthly), $14.99/mo billed annually $14.99/mo +27% Review
4
WebinarJam Most Webinar Automation
3.5/5 $39/mo (Starter, billed annually) $39/mo +26% Review

Audited prices verified against live vendor pricing pages — full dataset in the Pricing Gap Index.

1
Restream Best for Multistreaming
4.4

Restream is the one tool in this comparison where Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra all agree, 4.5 to 4.6 out of 5 across the board, with no large cross-platform gap to explain away. Its free plan allows 2 simultaneous channels with no card, and Standard starts at $19/mo for 3 channels and 10 hours of recording per stream. The catch: webinar hosting and clip generation are both separate paid add-ons, from $99/mo and $19/mo respectively, on top of any plan, not bundled features.

Best for: Small businesses and creators who want to go live to several platforms at once from a usable free plan, and who don't mind paying separately if they also want webinar hosting or clip generation · from $19/mo

2
Livestorm Best for B2B Webinars
3.9

Livestorm is the strongest pick for structured, higher-attendance corporate webinars: up to 3,000 attendees, 25 on-screen speakers, and unlimited team members at no extra seat charge, backed by a 4.4 G2 and 4.7 Capterra score. Pricing is credit-based and annual-only, starting around $1,200 a year for 400 attendee credits, with no monthly option. The catch is serious: a Trustpilot score of 2.7 from 26 reviews, tied to a repeated forced-auto-renewal complaint, and an unconfirmed free tier on the live pricing page.

Best for: Teams running structured, higher-attendance webinars on an annual budget who need unlimited team seats and don't need to test on a monthly plan first · from $3.00/attendee credit (annual packs from $1,200/yr)

3
StreamYard Best Browser Studio
4.1

StreamYard runs its entire live production studio in the browser, no software install, and backs that up with large G2 (4.5/5) and Capterra (4.6/5) scores at four-figure review counts. Essential starts at $18.99/mo for 2 destinations, and an On-Air webinar mode for up to 100 viewers sits on the $88.99/mo Advanced tier. The catch: Trustpilot's rating is genuinely disputed between a 4.1-out-of-5 reading and a far worse one, and the free plan can stream to only one destination at a time.

Best for: Creators and small teams who want one browser tab for going live to multiple platforms and recording the session, rather than a dedicated recording tool or a dedicated streaming tool separately · from $18.99/mo

4
WebinarJam Most Webinar Automation
3.5

WebinarJam bundles registration pages, automated reminder emails and follow-up sequences into every tier, the deepest marketing-automation feature set in this comparison, and it's the only tool here where every plan, Enterprise included, checks out self-serve with no sales call. Pricing runs $49 to $499 a month, with a $1, 14-day trial ahead of the first paid tier. The catch: a 10-day advance-cancellation requirement and reports of cancellation auto-extending to the end of the billing month are the loudest complaints in this category.

Best for: Marketers running registration-driven sales webinars who want self-serve checkout at every tier, including the top one, and automated reminder and follow-up sequences built in · from $49/mo

Two jobs, four tools

Restream and StreamYard both start as multistreaming tools, one live feed sent to several platforms at once, with webinar hosting sold as a separate paid add-on rather than a core feature. Livestorm and WebinarJam flip that around: webinar hosting, registration pages, attendee caps, follow-up sequences, is the entire product, and neither sells generic multistreaming as its main job. Picking between them starts with which job you actually have, not which tool scores higher on a review site.

Restream answers “I want to go live on several platforms with the least friction.” It’s the one tool here where Trustpilot (4.6/5, 504 reviews) actually matches G2 (4.5/5) and Capterra (4.6/5) instead of trailing behind them, a pattern none of its peers in this comparison share. The catch: webinar hosting costs $99/mo extra on top of a base plan, so a buyer who wants both ends up paying for two things, not one.

StreamYard answers “I want a polished browser studio, and I’ll record or run a light webinar from the same tool too.” Essential’s $18.99/mo entry price undercuts a dedicated webinar platform’s cheapest tier, and the On-Air webinar mode covers up to 100 viewers on the $88.99/mo Advanced plan. The catch: Trustpilot’s rating is unresolved between two readings that don’t reconcile, one near 4.1 out of 5, another describing the opposite picture entirely.

Livestorm answers “I run structured, registered webinars for a real audience, and I have the budget to commit annually.” Unlimited team seats and unlimited recording are real differentiators, and the G2/Capterra scores back up a capable core product. The catch: Trustpilot’s 2.7 out of 5 is the widest gap below G2 and Capterra found anywhere in this research, built on a small sample but a specific, repeated complaint about forced subscription renewal.

WebinarJam answers “I run sales or marketing webinars and want registration, reminders and follow-up handled automatically.” It’s the only tool in this guide sold entirely self-serve, top tier included, and the $1 trial is a cheap way to test real capacity first. The catch: cancellation requires 10 days’ notice, and the most consistent complaint in this comparison is being charged for a cycle reviewers believed they’d already cancelled.

What each tool charges for

ToolFree planCheapest paid (mo / annual-mo)Destinations / attendeesRegistration pagesRecording
Restream$0, no card, 2 channels$19 / $19 (Standard)3 simultaneous destinations; webinar add-on from +$99/mo (100 attendees)Only via paid webinar add-on10 hrs/stream, 15-day storage (Standard)
StreamYard$0, no card, 1 destination, 6 participants$18.99 / $14.99 (Essential)2 destinations (Essential) up to 8 (Advanced)On-Air webinar mode, up to 100 viewers, Advanced only ($88.99/$68.99)2 hrs/mo local (Free); 50 hrs cloud (Core)
LivestormUnconfirmed on live pricing page$3.00/attendee credit (€2.50 if you pick EUR), annual packs from $1,200/yrUp to 3,000 attendees/eventYes, core feature, unlimited eventsUnlimited; metering is per-attendee, not per-hour
WebinarJamNo standing free plan; $1/14-day trial$49 / $39 (Starter)100 attendees (Starter) up to 5,000 (Enterprise)Yes, core feature with reminder/follow-up automationNot separately metered from the attendee cap

Restream and StreamYard both bill multistreaming by destination count; Livestorm and WebinarJam both bill by attendee instead, just on different units, attendee credits for Livestorm, a flat monthly tier for WebinarJam. That’s the real reason a side-by-side price comparison across all four doesn’t reduce to one number: you’re comparing destinations against attendees, not the same thing twice.

How we picked

Every price, limit and review score in this guide came from each vendor’s own pricing page, checked directly on 2026-10-30, cross-referenced against G2, Capterra and Trustpilot. Where sources disagreed, Livestorm’s free-tier existence, StreamYard’s and WebinarJam’s Trustpilot ratings, we reported the range or flagged the discrepancy rather than citing a single flattering number.

Our pick

Pick based on the job, not the review score. Restream is the steadiest all-around pick for simple multistreaming, with review scores that hold up across every platform checked. StreamYard fits a buyer who wants production polish and light recording in the same subscription. Livestorm is the strongest fit for structured B2B webinars at real scale, as long as the annual-only billing and the forced-renewal complaints are acceptable tradeoffs. WebinarJam wins on self-serve flexibility and built-in marketing automation, with cancellation terms worth reading closely before you sign up. If recording quality for a podcast or interview series is the actual priority instead of live streaming, see Best Podcast and Video Recording Software, and if a webinar needs a synthetic voiceover or multilingual dub, Best AI Voice Generators covers that separately.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between a multistreaming tool and a webinar platform?

A multistreaming tool like Restream or StreamYard takes one live source and sends it to several destinations, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, at once; webinar hosting is a paid add-on bolted onto that core job, not the main feature. A dedicated webinar platform like Livestorm or WebinarJam builds the whole product around a registration page, attendee caps and (in WebinarJam's case) automated follow-up sequences. A buyer who wants to go live casually on several platforms wants the first type; a buyer running registered, structured sessions wants the second.

Which of these is cheapest for simple multistreaming?

Restream and StreamYard price within a few cents of each other at entry: Restream's Standard runs $19/mo, StreamYard's Essential runs $18.99/mo. Restream's free plan allows one more simultaneous channel (2 vs. 1), while StreamYard's paid tiers add more live-production polish, overlays, custom layouts and On-Air webinar mode, at the higher tiers.

Which has the best free plan?

Restream's free plan is the most straightforwardly useful for multistreaming: 2 simultaneous channels, no card. StreamYard's free plan only streams to 1 destination at a time. Livestorm's free tier couldn't be confirmed live on its pricing page during this check, and WebinarJam doesn't offer a standing free plan at all, only a $1, 14-day trial.

Do any of these let me record isolated audio tracks for later editing, like a podcast?

Only StreamYard, and only on its $88.99/mo Advanced tier, which adds cloud-based separate audio tracks per participant. If separate-track recording from a lower-priced entry tier is the real priority, a dedicated recording tool is the better fit; see Best Podcast and Video Recording Software for Riverside, Descript and Zencastr instead.