Openside launches an open-source alternative to Riverside and Loom

Openside launched as an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Riverside and Loom for recording podcasts, interviews and calls in the browser.

Recording happens locally in each person's browser, so a bad connection doesn't lower the quality of what's already captured. The chunks upload later. You get a mixed recording plus separate audio and video tracks for each participant, with video as MP4 or WebM and audio as MP3 or WAV. There's also a screen recorder for demos. Each recording gets a share link that people can comment on, and you can disable or replace the link. Recordings stay private until you share them, and you can delete them.

Openside lists three plans. The Demo is free with no setup: 720p, 15 minutes of recording, up to 2 participants, 48-hour retention and a watermark. Pro is $8.99 a month on Openside's managed infrastructure, with up to 4K, 20 hours a month, up to 5 participants, 30-day retention, cloud backup and no watermark. Self-hosting has no Openside fee when you bring your own LiveKit and Cloudflare R2 keys. You pay those providers directly, and recording time, participants and retention are unlimited.

The code is MIT licensed on GitHub.