Before a two person interview show has hosting, an audience, or even a name for the feed, it needs a way to record the conversation. That decision gets made early and often gets made on autopilot, by whichever tool a guest mentioned. It is worth treating as its own choice, separate from where the finished episodes will eventually live. Riverside and Zencastr both sell a free tier aimed at exactly this moment: two hosts talking into their own microphones, recording to also cut a few vertical clips for social, with nothing decided yet about hosting or distribution.
The decision this post is actually about
Recording software and podcast hosting are two different tools solving two different problems, and it is easy to conflate them when researching either one. The recorder captures the conversation, ideally with a separate audio and video track for each participant so a clip can be cropped or reframed later. The hosting platform is what turns a finished episode into an RSS feed and gets it onto Spotify or Apple Podcasts. That second decision does not need to be made yet.
The reader this post is for is a two person interview show being recorded for the first time, with a plan to cut some of it into short vertical clips for social. There is no hosting account, no audience, and no track record yet, just two people and a decision about which app to open before the call starts.
What Riverside’s free plan states, on its own pricing page
Riverside’s comparison table, checked on 2026-09-09, lists the free plan’s allowance for separate audio and video track downloads as “2 hours (one-off).” Every paid tier above it uses “per month” instead, and the free tier is the only one marked “one-off.” Read plainly, the two hours are not a monthly allotment that refreshes. Re-check Riverside’s page directly before relying on this for an ongoing weekly show, since a one-time allowance changes the math for a recurring series in a way a recurring cap would not.
The same table lists free plan video export quality as “Up to 720P,” for both the desktop and mobile columns, against “Up to 4K” starting on the Pro tier. Audio quality on the free plan is listed as “44.1 kHz,” while every paid tier above it lists “44.1 & 48 kHz.”
Riverside’s free plan does include local recording: each participant’s audio and video is captured on their own device and uploaded afterward, rather than streamed live to Riverside’s servers during the call. That is a separate property from the download allowance above it, and the reason a dropped connection mid interview does not automatically mean a lost session. The recording keeps writing to the local device even if the call itself disconnects.
What Zencastr’s free plan states, on its own pricing page
Zencastr’s current pricing page, checked on 2026-09-09, labels its free tier “Vibecastr Free.” Its recording section lists “Video Quality – Desktop/Mobile” as “4K” for that plan, the same figure shown for “Clips Export Quality.” This is worth stating plainly, because it does not match a commonly repeated assumption that Zencastr’s free recording resolution sits at 1080p. On the page as it currently reads, 1080p appears under a separate row, “Video Streaming Quality,” which governs live streaming output rather than the recorded file.
The free plan’s recording section does not publish a numeric monthly recording-minutes or session-length cap anywhere on the page. [EVIDENCE NEEDED: a Zencastr support page stating there is no per-session recording length limit on the free plan, since a pricing page’s silence on a figure is not the same as a documented policy]. What the page does state as a free-plan limit under Recording is “Number of Participants: 6” and a track storage figure.
That storage figure is listed as “Track Storage: Unlimited” on the free plan. This is worth flagging directly: it does not match a 90 day retention window, and no retention or archival time limit for master files appears anywhere on the fetched page. [EVIDENCE NEEDED: a Zencastr page or account setting stating a fixed number of days before a free-plan recording is archived or removed, since the pricing page shows no such figure].
Where Zencastr’s free plan does cap a number outright is on the hosting side, and only if the same account is used to publish the finished show. The page lists “Unlimited Video RSS: 6,000” and “Unlimited Video Views: 60,000” under the free plan’s hosting and publishing section. Those are hosting-side allowances, not recording limits, and apply only once a show is published through Zencastr’s own feed and player.
Riverside vs Zencastr free plan, side by side
| What it measures | Riverside free plan | Zencastr free plan (Vibecastr Free) |
|---|---|---|
| Video export quality | Up to 720P | 4K (per Video Quality – Desktop/Mobile row) |
| Audio quality | 44.1 kHz | 48KHZ WAV and 44KHZ MP3 recording, both listed as included |
| Recording download or session allowance | 2 hours (one-off) for separate audio and video track downloads | No numeric recording-minutes or session-length figure published on the pricing page |
| Storage or retention window | Not itemized as a separate figure on the comparison table | Track Storage listed as “Unlimited” on the fetched page; no retention window figure found |
| Local recording | Included on the free plan | Listed as included (“Local Recording”) on the fetched page |
| Hosting-side caps (if also hosting with the same vendor) | Not applicable; free plan has no podcast hosting | 6,000 for Video RSS, 60,000 for Video Views, both under the free plan |
Where each cap actually surfaces mid production
A 720P export ceiling matters most at the point a clip gets cropped again, from a widescreen interview frame down into a vertical social frame. Cropping a 720P source into a 9:16 frame throws away a large share of the original horizontal pixels, since the vertical crop keeps only a narrow strip of the frame’s width, and there is no more resolution to recover afterward. A source recorded at a higher ceiling gives the crop more pixels to work with before the same cut starts looking soft on a phone screen.
Riverside’s one-off framing on its free download allowance behaves differently depending on what the show actually is. For a single pilot episode, recorded once to test the format, a fixed two hour allowance that never needs to renew is not a constraint at all. For a running weekly show, the same allowance being one-time rather than recurring is a different proposition, and a reader planning more than one episode on the free plan should re-check Riverside’s current terms before treating that two hours as available every month.
Zencastr’s page shows no monthly recording-length limit and no retention window figure as of the date checked, but a reader recording several episodes ahead of a publishing schedule should still confirm current terms before relying on unlimited storage holding indefinitely, since pricing pages change and this point was not backed by anything beyond the page’s current wording.
Questions this decision actually raises
- Does Riverside’s free plan limit how long you can record? The comparison table lists “Recording hours” as unlimited on the free plan; the two hour figure applies to downloading separate audio and video tracks, and is marked one-off rather than recurring.
- What video quality does Riverside’s free plan actually export? Up to 720P, per the comparison table’s Free column, versus up to 4K starting on Pro.
- Does Zencastr’s free plan cap recording length? Not by any figure published on its pricing page as fetched for this post. The stated free-plan limits are 6 participants and a 4K video quality figure, with no documented monthly minutes cap.
- What resolution does Zencastr record at on the free plan? The page lists “Video Quality – Desktop/Mobile” as 4K under the free plan; 1080p appears only under the separate “Video Streaming Quality” row.
- Is Riverside’s or Zencastr’s free plan better for a two person interview show? Neither is a universal answer. Riverside’s export ceiling is lower; Zencastr’s page publishes no recording-length figure but also gives less clarity on how long a recording stays reachable. The right fit depends on whether the show is a one-off pilot or a recurring series.
- What happens to a Riverside free plan recording after the one time download allowance is used? [EVIDENCE NEEDED: Riverside’s own documentation on what happens once the free plan’s one-off two hour allowance is exhausted]. The comparison table states the allowance without describing the behavior once it runs out.
- Does Zencastr delete recordings after a set number of days on the free plan? Not according to anything on the fetched page, which lists Track Storage as unlimited on the free tier and states no retention window.
Before the first episode goes out
Once the recording itself is settled, the next production step for a show built around social clips is reformatting one long interview into the vertical crops each platform actually wants, covered in reformatting one recording for five feeds. Most two person interview shows also need a transcript soon after, whether for captions or for show notes, and what a finished minute of audio actually costs to transcribe covers that adjacent decision.
FAQ
Does Riverside’s free plan limit recording length or export length?
Riverside’s own comparison table lists “Recording hours” as unlimited on the free plan. What is limited is the separate audio and video track download allowance, listed as “2 hours (one-off),” which reads as a one-time allowance rather than a recurring monthly or per-session cap, checked on 2026-09-09.
What resolution does Zencastr’s free plan actually record at, and does it delete files after a set number of days?
Per the page fetched on 2026-09-09, Zencastr’s free plan lists video quality as up to 4K, and Track Storage as unlimited, with no numeric retention window or recording-length cap published anywhere on that page. A reader relying on either point for a show recorded weeks ahead of publishing should confirm current terms directly, since neither figure was framed on the page as a permanent guarantee.
Sources
- Riverside, Plans & Pricing, fetched 2026-09-09.
- Zencastr, Pricing, fetched 2026-09-09.