Kinescope logoKinescope vs JW Player:
public prices, billed monthly

JW Player, now JWX, is built for publishers who earn from ads, but it publishes no prices, signs one-year terms billed in advance and needs a separate licence for DRM. Kinescope lists its prices and includes Widevine and FairPlay, per-viewer watermarks, 4K and EU storage from €10 a month, billed monthly.

Key differentiators

A price on the page, not a sales call

JWX, formerly JW Player, publishes no prices: every edition says “Contact Sales”, and Vendr puts the median buyer at about $21,700 a year. Kinescope lists its prices — plans from €10 a month, then delivery from €0.03/GB down to €0.01/GB.

Monthly, not a one-year term

JWX subscriptions start with a one-year term, renew automatically each year and are billed in advance; the Enterprise edition can’t be cancelled for convenience. Kinescope bills every plan monthly, with no minimum term.

DRM without a separate licence

JWX Studio DRM covers Widevine, FairPlay and PlayReady, but its price list marks it “License Required” and the docs label it Enterprise. Kinescope includes Widevine and FairPlay on every paid plan from €10 a month.

A watermark per viewer, not just a logo

The JWX player overlays your logo on the video. Kinescope adds a dynamic watermark with the viewer’s e-mail or ID, so a leaked recording points to the account it came from.

Live in 5–10 seconds, not 25

JWX Instant Live runs at about 25 seconds of latency by default and 10–15 seconds in reduced-latency mode. Kinescope keeps live streams at 5–10 seconds over RTMP, with an automatic recording.

Data in the EU by default

JWX terms say the data it processes is stored on servers in the United States, under New York law. Kinescope stores video in EU data centres by default and is a Dutch company, Kinescope B.V.

Comparison at a glance

Pricing
Public, from €10/month
Not published; contact sales (Vendr median ~$21,700/yr)
Contract
Monthly, no minimum term
One-year term, auto-renews, billed in advance
Free plan
100 min + 200 GB/month, no card
5,000 plays, 5 GB storage, 10 videos; no ads
DRM
Widevine + FairPlay from €10/month
Widevine, FairPlay, PlayReady; licence required
Watermarking
Dynamic, per viewer
Logo overlay
Maximum quality
Up to 4K
Up to 4K
Live latency
5–10 s over RTMP
~25 s by default; 10–15 s reduced
Live ingest
RTMP, RTMPS, SRT
RTMP, RTMPS, SRT, RTP, Zixi
Ads (VAST, SSAI, header bidding)
Not built in
VAST, VPAID, VMAP, IMA, FreeWheel, Prebid, SSAI
Player SDKs
iOS, Android, Flutter, React, React Native, Vue, Angular
Web, iOS, Android, React Native
Where data lives
Servers in the United States
Uptime SLA
99.98% target, financial SLA on Mega
No published figure; bespoke SLAs on VIP support

Moving off JW Player? Our team brings the library across

We bring your on-demand videos and recordings over at no cost on the Super and Mega plans, and your encoders only need a new RTMP, RTMPS or SRT address. Your JWX embeds stay live until the Kinescope embeds are tested. Hands-on EN/PT support throughout.

When to choose

Choose Kinescope if you need:

Public prices and monthly billing, Widevine and FairPlay DRM and per-viewer watermarks from the first paid plan, live at 5–10 seconds, adaptive streams up to 4K, the API on every paid plan and data in the EU by default.

Choose JWX if you need:

Ad monetization — VAST, VPAID and VMAP, Google IMA and FreeWheel, Prebid header bidding, server-side ad insertion — broadcast-grade ingest over SRT, RTP FEC or Zixi, 24/7 linear channels, PlayReady, or 24/7 enterprise support with a five-minute response.

Meet Kinescope: video hosting with protection built in

DRM from day one

Widevine and FairPlay on every paid plan from €10 a month — no separate licence and no per-license charge — plus dynamic per-viewer watermarking, signed links and domain restrictions.

API, SDKs and MCP

A REST API, 7 webhook event types, open-source SDKs for iOS, Android, Flutter, React, React Native, Vue and Angular, and an MCP server that lets AI agents search and edit videos and manage live streams.

Our own CDN

Our own infrastructure, not resold AWS or Cloudflare, covering Latin America, the US, Europe and the CIS, with a 99.98% monthly uptime target.

Live streaming

Go live over RTMP, RTMPS or SRT from OBS, vMix or a hardware encoder, keep an automatic recording, and let live-stream webhooks tell your backend when the encoder connects.

A video library for the whole team

Editors upload, organise and publish in the dashboard — projects, folders, playlists, player templates, AI subtitles and chapters — while your code works with the same videos over the API.

One predictable price

Plans from €10 a month with pay-as-you-go usage: delivery from €0.03/GB down to €0.01/GB, storage from €0.03/GB, processing €0.01 per minute once. No per-seat fees and no annual contract.

Trusted by more than 9,500 clients in 84 countries and counting.

Try Kinescope free — 100 minutes + 200 GB/month, no card required

FAQ

Can’t find the answer you need? Check out our Help Center.

JW Player, now JWX, doesn't publish prices. Its pricing page lists three editions — Express, Publishing and Broadcasting — each with “Contact Sales” (jwx.com, November 2026), and the older self-serve Starter, Premium and Business plans are now legacy. Vendr's buyer data puts the median at about $21,700 a year (Vendr). Subscriptions run for a one-year term, renew automatically and are billed in advance (JWX terms). Kinescope lists its prices: plans from €10 a month, billed monthly — see pricing.

For teams that host and protect their own video, Kinescope: public prices from €10 a month, monthly billing, Widevine and FairPlay DRM and per-viewer watermarks on every paid plan, live at 5–10 seconds, adaptive streams up to 4K and EU storage by default. If your business runs on ad revenue — VAST, header bidding, server-side ad insertion — JWX is built for that and Kinescope isn't.

Yes. jwplayer.com now redirects to jwx.com, and the company’s terms of service name it “JWP, Inc. d/b/a JWX”, after JW Player merged with Connatix. The player docs still live at docs.jwplayer.com. This page uses both names, because most people still search for JW Player.

JWX Studio DRM supports Widevine, FairPlay and PlayReady for on-demand and live video, but its price list marks it “License Required”, its docs label it Enterprise, and turning it on for a property can't be undone (JWX docs). Kinescope includes Widevine and FairPlay on every paid plan from €10 a month — see DRM video hosting.