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riverside alternatives: when you have no guest to record
28 October 2026 · 10 min read
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the right riverside alternatives depend on who is in the recording. Riverside is a studio for recording people: you and a guest, or a panel, each captured in full quality, now with four AI agents that prepare the session, edit it, clip it and post it. if that's your show, Riverside is hard to beat and you probably don't need an alternative. if it's just you, with no guest and no plan for what to say, the hard part isn't the recording. it's having something to say, every time, and that's the job underway does.
underway interviews you. it asks the questions out loud, from what it knows about your business and what you actually worked on, and you answer. then it cuts a numbered episode, in the order you said things, with captions, Shorts and the words to post. we make underway, so this page says what each tool is for, from each one's own pages on 28 October 2026, and credits Riverside where it is better.
to judge the output rather than our description of it, a real series made with underway, every episode in order, is here.
key takeaways
- Riverside records people. you bring the guest and the conversation; it records each person in separate tracks, up to 4K, and its agents help with the rest.
- underway records you, by asking you questions. you bring nothing but the time; it brings the questions, from your business and your day.
- both now use AI before the recording. Riverside's Producer drafts questions for you to ask your guest. underway asks the questions itself, out loud, and you're the one answering.
- for a podcast with guests, a webinar or a live stream, choose Riverside. for one founder documenting a business, choose underway.
- Riverside starts at $29 a month ($24 billed yearly). underway starts at $29.99 a month. both have a free trial.
what Riverside does, agents included
Riverside started as a remote recording studio, and that is still its core. each person records on their own device, so a guest on a weak connection still arrives in full quality: separate tracks, up to 4K video, uncompressed audio. around that it has a text-based editor, one-click removal of silences and filler words, Magic Clips for short vertical clips, show notes, AI thumbnails on its Grow plan, live streaming and webinars.
on 26 October 2026 Riverside launched Riverside Agents, which it calls the first AI production team built for video. there are four. the Producer preps the session and supports you while you record: Riverside's press release says it drafts interview questions, talking points, scenes, layouts and branding, and its agents page shows an example of eight questions worth asking your guest. the Editor builds an editing plan for the whole episode and works through it with you, tightening the conversation, choosing the hook, adding layouts, B-roll and motion graphics. the Clipper finds the moments worth sharing and turns each into a clip. the Marketer writes captions and show notes and posts or schedules them across your channels once you approve.
Riverside says the agents are on every plan, with a 14-day free trial, and that some of what they do depends on the plan and uses AI credits. it's a strong release. it takes the work after a recording, which used to be the reason people looked for riverside alternatives, and hands most of it to the agents.
why people still look for riverside alternatives
with editing handled, what's left is the recording itself, and for one kind of person that's the hard part. Riverside is built around a conversation that's already going to happen: a guest booked, a topic agreed, a show with a format. the Producer helps you prepare that conversation. it still assumes you're the host and someone else is talking.
a founder who wants to document their business usually has none of that. no guest, no producer, no script. just a day of work and the feeling that someone should be filming it. sitting down in front of a camera with nobody asking anything usually produces a few awkward minutes and then nothing. the reasons people give for stopping are rarely about the editor. they're about not knowing what to say, and having to decide it again every time.
so the useful question when weighing riverside alternatives isn't which one records better. it's whether you're recording a conversation with someone, or whether you need something to be the other half of the conversation.
what underway does differently
underway starts before there's anything to record. it reads what you connect, read only: GitHub, your calendar, email you forward, Slack, your shop or payments, your website. before your first episode you film episode zero, a short interview about what you're building, who it's for and where it stands, which becomes standing context for every interview after it. so when you sit down, it already knows what you're working on and what happened today.
you pick what the episode is about from topics it suggests, or type your own. it asks one question out loud for each thing you picked, in that order, and the question stays on screen. you answer for as long as it takes; there's no countdown. on days you want to be pushed there's the AI co-host instead, a live conversation that reacts and follows up on what you say. both work on camera or by voice only, at any time of day that suits you.
then it cuts the episode itself: filler, restarts and dead air out, cut on full sentences, captioned, your episode card on the front, and always in the order you said things. underway never moves your best line to the front of an episode, because a diary that's been reordered stops being a diary. Shorts are cut separately, to advertise the episode, and those may open on any line. the episode is numbered, so episode 47 follows episode 46, and your page lists them in order for anyone who wants the whole story.
underway also has a team of helpers, and one of them is called a Producer too, so the difference is worth being clear about. underway's Producer researches what's getting views close to your business and helps you make a video meant to be found. its Director reads what you connect and suggests what to film, its Writer helps you get found in search and AI answers, and its Bookkeeper keeps track of money in and out from the tools you connect. they work for the founder between episodes. none of them changes what you said in the episode.
riverside alternatives side by side: Riverside and underway
the two tools, on the questions that decide between them. Riverside's side is from riverside.com, its pricing page and its agents launch on 26 and 27 October 2026.
| Riverside | underway | |
|---|---|---|
| built for | recording conversations with guests | one founder documenting a business |
| who asks the questions | you, the host; the Producer drafts them for your guest | underway, out loud, and you answer |
| what it reads first | your recordings and your session | your episode zero, your connected tools, your day |
| editing | the Editor plans it with you, hook included | cut for you, in the order you spoke; you review |
| guests | separate tracks, up to 4K, its core strength | a guest joins by link, both sides recorded |
| live and webinars | yes | no |
| a running series | episodes you organise | numbered episodes, a streak, a public page |
| from, per month | $24 yearly, $29 monthly | $29.99 monthly, $299.90 a year |
| free to try | 2 hours once, 720p, watermark; 14-day trial | 7 days, card needed, nothing charged until day 8 |
which is right for you
| choose | why | |
|---|---|---|
| a podcast with remote guests | Riverside | every voice recorded at full quality, on its own track |
| webinars or live streams | Riverside | underway doesn't do either |
| a regular episode about your business, alone | underway | it asks the questions and knows what you did |
| you never know what to say on camera | underway | you answer questions rather than present |
| a long back catalogue to clip | Riverside | its agents work through old recordings |
| a company story told in order, for investors and hires | underway | nothing reordered, every episode numbered |
some founders will want both: Riverside for the interviews they run with customers and guests, underway for the episodes that are just them. there's no reason they can't sit side by side.
the other riverside alternatives, briefly
if you do record guests and still want something other than Riverside, the usual names are worth a look. we haven't tested each one on the same day as this page, so this is what each is known for, not a ranking.
- Descript: recording and editing by the transcript in one app. a good fit if you like doing the edit yourself.
- Zencastr and SquadCast: remote recording studios with separate tracks for each guest, the closest like-for-like swaps for Riverside's recorder.
- StreamYard and Restream: live streaming first, recording second.
- Castmagic and Opus Clip: they start from a recording you already have and turn it into show notes, posts and Shorts.
every one of them starts from a recording, a guest or a stream that already exists. that's the line underway sits on the other side of.
what underway costs
every new account starts with a 7-day free trial of Founder, Series or Studio. you add a card at the start and nothing is charged until day 8; cancel before then and you pay nothing. Founder is $29.99 a month or $299.90 a year: the interview, the finished episode, Shorts when you press Find clips, the words for every platform, your page and every connection. Series is $79.99 a month or $799.90 a year and adds one tap to post to the networks you connect, the weekly round-up and the podcast feed. Studio is $129.99 a month and adds things like YouTube thumbnails with your face in them and motion graphics on your episodes. your raw recordings download on every plan.
what results look like
the clearest result we can show is our own. Rich Lovatt, who makes underway, films a numbered series about building it, with it: each episode an interview about that day's work, cut and captioned without opening an editor. they're on the series page in order, which is the point. a guest show is a set of conversations. a series like this is one story, told while it's still happening.
faqs
what are the best riverside alternatives?
for recording guests, Zencastr, SquadCast and Descript are the closest swaps. for live streams, StreamYard. for one founder with no guest who wants a regular episode about their business, underway, which interviews you instead of recording an interview you run.
does Riverside have AI agents?
yes. on 26 October 2026 Riverside launched four: a Producer that preps the session, an Editor that plans and makes the edit, a Clipper that makes clips and a Marketer that writes and schedules posts once you approve. Riverside says they're on every plan.
can Riverside interview me?
Riverside's pages describe its Producer drafting questions and talking points for you to use, with the example of questions worth asking your guest. they don't describe it asking you questions out loud. underway does that: it asks, and you answer.
is underway a podcast recorder?
it can be. an audio interview keeps the questions in, so it plays as a podcast, and Series adds a podcast feed. but it's built for one founder documenting a business, not for recording a show with guests, which is Riverside's strength.
do I need footage before I start?
not with underway. it starts from nothing and gets the footage by asking you questions. Riverside records the conversation you bring to it, and tools like Opus Clip and Castmagic start from a recording you already have.
is underway private until I post?
yes. every episode stays in your vault until you publish it, on every plan, and your raw recordings download whenever you want them.
try underway free for 7 days
if there's no guest and the hard part is knowing what to say, try a week of being asked. sign up, film episode zero about what you're building, and see a finished episode a few minutes after you stop talking. you add your card at the start and nothing is charged until day 8. everything stays private until you choose to post it.
start your 7 days and film episode zero today.
where to go next
if you're comparing editors as well, the shortlist ranked by how much editing each leaves you is the best descript alternatives.
why a founder's own story, told as it happens, works as marketing: founder-led content.
From the series
Founders’ episodes, written up.
Every public episode on underway has a page of its own: the video, then the same account in writing, checked against what the founder actually said.
Browse every series
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Building Underway
SaaS pricing for a higher tier, nearing 10 paying customers
I talked through how I'm pricing Underway's next tier while closing in on the goal of 10 paying customers I set when series one opened. There are somewhere around 15 to 20 people on trial and very few have cancelled, and most signups are now on the $129.99 plan with a seven day free trial, even though people close to me still say they don't quite grasp what Underway does. I'm also in the early stages of a higher-priced membership that acts like a director and producer in your pocket: it researches your niche, brings you video ideas when you say you're ready to film, and talks you through the recording section by section. I'm using it on myself while I build it.
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AI podcast host that interviews you: my build so far
Tonight was a hell of a long one. Continued build from the evening as well. GPT looked at my site and codebase and came back with some legit ideas. Both videos on the site are fine, it said, but nothing shows what being on the inside looks like. Especially the podcast path for founders who want to talk but don't want to be on camera. I thought working on the podcast would be simple compared to video. It wasn't. Far behind, and way more fiddly than I imagined. In my head it wasn't just rambling into a mic. You're speaking to something that knows your business, what you've said, what you've achieved. What I built is Just Chat. Tired, don't want the camera, you just talk like someone's in the room asking you questions. It remembers last night's lag, the interview scaffolding I stripped out, the patent lawyer, all of it. You can have the app host, or someone in the room, or send a link so they join without installing anything. I've also made topics simple. It suggests some, or I type "let's talk about hiring" and we go. Tonight I want to record another episode with Just Chat itself so you can hear how it comes out. The breakthrough for me is wanting that same tech on the video side. Right now video questions are still a bit robotic. You pick four, it asks, you tap done. Fine, but after Just Chat it feels different. Downside of all this is it ends up quite expensive. We will see. Episode 16 (1 of 2 filmed on 7 Sept).
Building Underway
Posting Is Hard Until an AI Agent Directs You
Underway Producer is the AI video director I built that picks up what I'm filming, sets me up and directs me through each take out loud. It connects to my email, GitHub, Linear and Vercel, so the agent speaking to me knows what my day held. Each take comes out as a fully edited long episode with captions, shorts and clips, thumbnails, the copywriting for every social post, an SEO article, and it posts to all my channels in the right format. I filmed alone for years with no plan and bad lighting, and most of that footage never left my camera phone.
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Making a launch video with AI in one shot: GPT-6 Astra
GPT-6 Astra dropped a few days ago. I kept seeing people on X say they'd one-shot a launch video with it, and the clips looked wild. So I gave it a go. Sent what came back to my fiancée. We both just sat there for a second. She said she was proud of me, because it finally looked like the thing I've been trying to build and the problem it solves. Also added two bits that feed into the patent application: a watcher that bumps you when you hit a milestone so you can record the feeling right then, and a habit former that learns how you like to film. Episode 12 done.
Building Underway
AI that suggests video topics from your past episodes
I said on the last episode I'd do the podcast next, but I lied. I had something else I wanted to show you first. It's a suggested topics tab. It reads everything I've said in every episode and picks up the things I never tied off, like when I say I've been thinking about something but haven't decided. The one it gave me was whether the videographer shoot still happens. I booked him for next weekend, then GPT-6 Astra one-shotted something I said I'd pay a lot for, and I never said on camera whether I kept the booking or cancelled. It quoted me back to myself, "I haven't made my mind up yet". So I can just do a whole episode on that and close it off. If it suggests an old topic I know I'm not going back to, I can remove it. That doesn't mean something like it won't come up again, it just gets replaced. Then I clicked stop sharing and the timer kept going. It didn't say I'd stopped. When I came back to the tab I think it had. We'll watch this back and see. Another bug. Episode 14 done.