Kaltura Webinars vs Opencast

Kaltura Webinars is a platform for building, managing, tracking, and automating webinar programs, particularly focused single-session presentations such as seminars, company town halls, and executive presentations. Each webinar can have a branded attendee site for registration and live viewing, with an on-demand recording available afterward at the live event URL. Webinar mode supports up to 300 participants, including up to 10 presenters on stage, though capacity can vary by account configuration and licensing. Depending on the session and setup, engagement tools may include chat, Q&A, polls, reactions, and attendee interactions. Analytics cover attendance and activity such as minutes viewed, reactions, chat messages, poll participation, and Q&A. Registration forms can be customized, and webhook registration is supported. The product is listed for Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows. Attendees can join Kaltura Rooms through supported mobile browsers without installing a separate app, although some room tools are unavailable in mobile browsers. Kaltura describes security controls that include HTTPS delivery, AES encryption for HLS, encryption at rest using AWS KMS, and access restrictions.

Opencast is a free, open-source video management system for academic institutions, designed to capture and distribute video at scale. Administrators can schedule recordings and live streams, with classroom recording also possible depending on hardware. Opencast Studio captures video in a browser without requiring an Opencast installation. Configurable workflows can generate captions, add branding and thumbnails, and deliver media at chosen resolutions and bitrates. The integrated editor handles multiple streams, subtitles, and cover thumbnails. Fine-grained permissions control viewing and editing; learning platform integrations can provide single sign-on and video delivery. Opencast uses the Paella Player by default, while the separate Tobira portal can keep videos online during Opencast maintenance. Integrations include Brightspace, Canvas, ILIAS, Moodle, Sakai, Stud.IP, BigBlueButton, Zoom recording, Matomo, WordPress, Whisper, and YouTube. It runs on one Linux server or can scale across distributed Linux servers. Demo instances are available to explore the administrative interface and portal.