Bunny Stream Alternative: StreamVault vs Bunny Stream
Bunny Stream is excellent infrastructure and this page will not pretend otherwise: free encoding, storage from $0.01/GB, delivery from $0.005/GB, a $1 monthly minimum and an API developers like. If you are building a video product and want to assemble it from parts, Bunny is a very good set of parts. The gap is what happens when the video is something people pay for. Bunny's free MediaCage Basic protection is clear-key encryption — the key reaches the page, where a stream ripper can read it. Real DRM is MediaCage Enterprise: $99 a month before the first licence, Widevine and FairPlay only, an Apple FairPlay package you obtain yourself, and multi-key licensing that can bill several licences for one playback. StreamVault puts Widevine, PlayReady and FairPlay on the $12 plan, counts one protected play per lesson start, and ships the pieces Bunny leaves to you: a viewer-identifying watermark, member gating, and step-by-step guides for the course platforms. Prices checked 22 September 2026.
DRM at $12, not $99 before the first licence
Bunny's Enterprise DRM is a $99/month base plus $0.005 per licence. StreamVault's Starter is $12/month with 1,000 protected plays included, and plays are counted once per start, not once per key.
Three DRM systems, no paperwork
Widevine, PlayReady and FairPlay on every plan. Bunny's Enterprise tier does Widevine and FairPlay, and its docs ask you to request the FairPlay deployment package from Apple yourself.
The parts Bunny leaves to you
A moving, viewer-identifying watermark, member accounts with self-signup, and per-platform guides for Teachable, Kajabi, Thinkific, Podia and Circle. On Bunny you get a player and an API; the rest is your build.
Feature comparison
Competitor details based on publicly listed plans and reviews as of August 2026 — verify current terms on their site.
| Capability | StreamVault | Bunny Stream |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $12/mo ($9.60 billed yearly) | Pay as you go, $1/mo minimum |
| Studio DRM (Widevine + PlayReady + FairPlay) | Every plan; 1,000 protected plays/mo on Starter | Enterprise tier: $99/mo base + $0.005/licence; Widevine + FairPlay, no PlayReady |
| Free protection tier | DRM included — there is no lesser tier | MediaCage Basic: clear-key encryption, browser only, key readable by the page |
| How a play is counted | One protected play per lesson start | Multi-key licensing: video, each audio track and renewals can each bill a licence |
| FairPlay setup | Included — no Apple paperwork | You obtain the FPS deployment package from Apple |
| Viewer-identifying watermark | Every plan | Static image watermark only |
| Member accounts / self-signup gating | Included | Not offered — token auth and referrer rules; you build the login |
| Course-platform guides | Teachable, Kajabi, Thinkific, Podia, Circle | Generic embed; you work out each platform |
| Delivery beyond the allowance | $8 per TB | From $0.005/GB ($5 per TB) — cheaper |
| Storage beyond the allowance | Plan-based (250 GB on Starter) | From $0.01/GB — cheaper at scale |
| Wider platform | Video hosting only | CDN, storage, edge scripting, image optimizer, DNS — a full platform |
| Auto captions | Included, every plan | Transcribe AI add-on |
| Free trial | 7 days, no card, DRM works in the trial | 14 days, no card |
The short version
Choose Bunny Stream if you are building a video product from parts and want the cheapest, fastest infrastructure to build it on — or if your videos are free to watch and you simply want them served well for a dollar a month. Choose StreamVault if the videos are what people pay you for and you would rather not assemble the protection yourself: studio DRM from $12 rather than a $99 base, one protected play per start rather than per key, a viewer-identifying watermark, member gating, and guides for the platform you sell on.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bunny's free MediaCage Basic DRM real DRM?
Not in the sense that matters for paid content. Bunny's own documentation describes MediaCage Basic as clear-key encryption with session keys, browser support only, no native-platform support, no secure key management and no screen-grab protection. Clear-key means the browser fetches the key and decrypts in JavaScript, so a tool that can act as the browser can save the key and the segments and rebuild the file. Bunny itself recommends the Enterprise tier for premium and pay-per-view content. That tier uses Widevine and FairPlay with hardware-backed key exchange — which is what StreamVault does on every plan, with PlayReady as well. Neither vendor's DRM stops a phone camera pointed at the screen; that is what the watermark is for.
How does the DRM cost compare for a course?
Bunny's Enterprise DRM is $99 a month before any licences, then $0.005 per licence up to 20,000 a month, and a single playback can bill more than one licence — video, each audio track and renewals during a long video are licensed separately; Bunny's docs give an example of six licences for one playback. A course with 100 students each starting 20 lessons a month is 2,000 starts: on Bunny, $99 plus roughly $10 to $60 depending on how many licences each start consumes, on top of storage and delivery; on StreamVault it fits the Plus plan at $29 with 3,000 protected plays included, or Starter at $12 with 1,000 if the cohort is smaller. Figures checked 22 September 2026.
Where is Bunny Stream better?
In several places, honestly. Its delivery price from $0.005 per GB is lower than our $8 per TB overage, and its storage from $0.01 per GB is lower at scale. It is a whole platform — CDN, object storage, edge scripting, image optimisation, DNS — where we do one thing. Its $1 monthly minimum is the cheapest way to host a few unprotected videos anywhere. And if you are a developer building your own video product with your own login, watermarking and player, Bunny's API is the better toolkit. Choose Bunny for that.
Do I need PlayReady?
Mostly for Windows and living-room devices. Chrome, Firefox and Edge use Widevine; Safari and iOS use FairPlay; PlayReady covers older Edge, Xbox and many smart TVs. A course watched on laptops and phones will rarely miss it, which is why Bunny's Widevine-plus-FairPlay covers most viewers. It is on every StreamVault plan anyway, so nobody has to think about it.
Can I move from Bunny Stream to StreamVault?
Yes. Download your originals from Bunny — or point a CSV of URLs at us — and each video is encoded to an adaptive ladder and, if the project has DRM on, packaged for Widevine, PlayReady and FairPlay in the same pass. Captions can be regenerated automatically. The embed code changes, so plan a short window to swap it in your site or LMS. Videos already uploaded here can be protected in place later without re-uploading.
Try StreamVault free
7-day trial, no credit card. Bring one video and test the protection stack yourself.