Riverside review 2026

What is Riverside in 2026?

Riverside (formerly Riverside.fm) is an all-in-one platform to record, edit, stream and republish podcasts, video interviews and webinars. Its basic principle is local recording: each participant is captured on their own device, up to 4K and 48 kHz audio, then the files are uploaded as you go. Quality therefore does not depend on the connection during the conversation.

For a freelancer, the typical use is an interview or podcast with remote guests, recording content for LinkedIn or YouTube, or hosting webinars to find clients. It is a production tool, not a simple video call tool.

What Riverside does

Guests join with a simple link, from a browser, or record their part later in asynchronous mode. Each person has separate audio and video tracks, which simplifies editing. You can edit by editing the transcript, remove silences and filler words in one click, and transcribe in more than 100 languages. On the AI side, Riverside offers automatic clips (Magic Clips), audio enhancement (Magic Audio), episode notes, translation and an editing assistant, with differences depending on the plan. The higher plans add multi-platform streaming and webinars up to 10,000 participants.

Pricing

Here is what Riverside's pricing page shows (checked in October 2026, in dollars). The Free plan costs $0: 2 hours of multitrack recording, up to 720p, with the Riverside watermark. The paid plans, with annual billing, are Pro at $24 per month ($35 monthly, $288 billed per year), Live at $34 ($45 monthly), Webinar at $79 ($99 monthly), then Business on quote. Paid plans offer a 14-day trial.

The Free plan is for trying, not producing: the watermark and the 2-hour limit are enough to make that clear. The real entry point is the Pro plan, at $288 per year. For occasional use, monthly billing ($35) gives more flexibility, but costs more per use.

What users say

On Trustpilot, Riverside shows 3.7/5 ("Average") from 516 reviews as of October 7, 2026, including 151 in the last twelve months. We did not find a usable Google listing. According to Trustpilot, Riverside has not recently invited its customers to leave a review and has not replied to negative reviews.

We could not read the detail of the reviews when we checked: rather than inventing a summary, we invite you to browse the recent reviews directly on Trustpilot, in particular the one- and two-star reviews, before subscribing. The 14-day trial is there to test under your own recording conditions.

What we like less

Three reservations. First the free plan, very limited, which does not let you produce for real. Then the cost: at $288 per year for the Pro plan, and more with Live and Webinar, it is an investment that is only justified if you record regularly. Finally the follow-up on criticism: an average rating on a large volume, and no reply to negative reviews, which suggests checking the cancellation and billing terms before paying for a year.

Riverside or another solution?

If your need is mostly to turn existing videos into short clips, look at Opus Clip. To host and distribute a podcast, see Ausha, and all the options are in the Riverside alternatives.