Sharpy vs Riverside: a Riverside alternative for editing on Mac

A Riverside alternative for editing: Sharpy turns your podcast and interview recordings into a finished edit on your Mac, with no uploads or credits.

· Founder of Sharpy and Threadify18 October 2026 · updated 26 October 2026 · 8 min read
A bearded man in a cap and headphones smiles as he talks into a microphone at his desk, a laptop beside him, under wooden roof beams hung with plants.
Photo by Jeremy Enns on Pexels

The short answer

Riverside records remote guests; Sharpy edits what you recorded, on your Mac. As a Riverside alternative for the editing, Sharpy does what Riverside's editor is known for, editing by the transcript, removing fillers, cleaning up voices, laying out speakers and cutting clips, then makes the whole edit itself, with a reason for every cut, no uploads and no credits. It does not record calls with remote guests, which is Riverside's real edge, so the two can work together: record in Riverside, edit in Sharpy.

Riverside's details here were checked on 18 October 2026 against its own website, pricing page and help centre. Its pages do not always agree on recording hours; where they differ, this post says which page it follows. The sources are listed at the end.

How do Sharpy and Riverside compare?

Sharpy Riverside
What it is An agentic editor that makes the whole edit, with a reason for every cut, and a full editor by hand A remote recording studio with a browser editor and AI tools
Recording Your own screen, microphone and camera on the Mac; any recording you bring Up to 10 people, each recorded on their own device, in up to 4K video and 48 kHz WAV sound
Editing Sharpy cuts the episode itself; you overrule in plain words, by the words or on a timeline You edit by the transcript in the browser
Several cameras Synced by their sound, cut by who is speaking, angles you can switch after the cut Smart layouts switch to the main speaker
Fillers and pauses Ums, repeats and restarts listed with reasons; dead air brought down to the speaker's own rhythm Filler words highlighted in the transcript; silence removal on paid plans
Sound Dialogue levelled to −23 LUFS, voice clean-up that keeps the words, loudness landed on your target Magic Audio on paid plans
Clips Ranged markers export as separate files; moments found by meaning Magic Clips, 30 to 90 seconds
Where it runs On your Mac; nothing uploads Recordings upload to Riverside's cloud as you record; editing in the browser or its Mac app
Limits None: no hours, credits or download caps Separate-track downloads by the hour, and credits for AI translation, voice and B-roll
Price $20 a month or $200 a year at launch, unlimited edits Free plan; Pro $24 a month billed yearly

What is Riverside used for?

Riverside is used to record podcasts, interviews and video calls with guests in other places, at studio quality. Each person is recorded on their own device and the files upload in the background, so a weak connection does not spoil the recording. Its help pages say it records up to 10 people, 9 guests and a host, on separate audio and video tracks, in up to 4K and uncompressed 48 kHz WAV where the equipment allows. It also live streams in up to 1080p on its Grow plan and above, and has apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and the Mac.

Then it edits. Riverside's editor works through the transcript in the browser, with AI tools for fillers, audio, clips, show notes, translation and an AI Co-Creator.

Can you edit in Riverside?

Yes. Riverside's FAQ says you edit by deleting or moving text in the transcript and the video follows, right in your browser, without downloading anything. It finds filler words, lays out speakers automatically with smart layouts, makes Magic Clips from recordings longer than three minutes, and on paid plans cleans up audio with Magic Audio and translates into 30 languages. On the Business plan it exports XML for other editors.

What does Sharpy do better than Riverside's editor?

Here is each thing Riverside's editor is known for, where it stops, and what Sharpy does with the same recordings.

Text-based editing. Riverside lets you cut an episode by its transcript. Where it falls short: you are still the editor, line by line. Sharpy has the same words view, where deleting words cuts them from picture and sound together, but you start from a finished edit. It reads every word, pause and shot, 1.7 times faster than real time on the base Mac mini M4, so it has been through a one-hour episode in about 35 minutes.

Filler words and silences. Riverside highlights fillers in the transcript, and its paid plans remove silences. Sharpy puts fillers, repeats, restarts and long gaps into one review list, each with its reason. Restarts are found per speaker, "mm-hmm" stays because it means yes, and long gaps come down to the recording's own quickest pause at that kind of place in a sentence, never to nothing. Removing filler words and dead air explains the rules.

Smart layouts. Riverside switches to whoever is speaking. Sharpy splits the conversation by speaker, wrong 3.67% of the time against VoxConverse, a public test set, measured on the base Mac mini M4. It turns each speaker's turns into angle cuts or crops, adds a lower third at each speaker's first turn, and keeps every angle in a multicam clip, so you or the agent can switch angles after the cut.

Magic Audio. Riverside cleans and balances voices on paid plans. Sharpy levels each line of dialogue to −23 LUFS, raising quiet speech without lifting the room in the pauses, and lands the episode on the loudness you name, such as Apple Podcasts' −16 or −14 for YouTube. Its voice clean-up only accepts a setting that keeps 97% of the words.

A microphone with a foam cover beside a laptop showing several separate audio tracks as waveforms, a small recorder and cables on the desk.
Riverside's separate tracks are exactly what an editor wants: each voice on its own, to clean and level apart.Photo by Jeremy Enns on Pexels

Magic Clips. Riverside makes sets of 30 to 90 second highlights. Sharpy finds clip moments by meaning and frames a vertical cut on the person. For your own picks, lay a range marker over each moment and choose File ▸ Export Each Marked Stretch…: each comes out as its own file, named after its marker, with its captions beside it.

Bringing in recordings from anywhere. Riverside edits what it recorded. Sharpy takes Riverside's separate tracks, a camera's files, a field recorder and a phone, and syncs them by sound or timecode, taking out the drift between devices' clocks. Two 21-minute recordings sync in 7.5 seconds on the base Mac mini M4. How to edit a podcast video walks through the whole workflow.

Where does your footage go?

Riverside works in its cloud. Its FAQ says each participant's recording uploads to the cloud in the background as the session goes on, and your files wait in your dashboard to download or edit. Its help centre says its AI features use third-party sub-processors, naming OpenAI, ElevenLabs, HeyGen, Auphonic, Hedra and Pika.

Sharpy works on your Mac. Every model runs on it, and once its models are downloaded it works offline. Download your separate tracks from Riverside once, and the editing, transcripts and projects never leave the machine. A four-hour recording is transcribed and split by speaker on a 16 GB Mac.

What does each cost?

Sharpy is one plan with everything included: $20 a month or $200 a year at launch, with unlimited edits and no hours, credits or download caps. It is coming soon. From launch, a new account's first 24 hours are free: you add a card, nothing is charged, and it renews after 24 hours unless you cancel.

Riverside's plans, from its pricing page:

Riverside plan Billed yearly Billed monthly Highlights
Free $0 $0 2 hours of separate-track recording, once; 720p; a watermark
Pro $24 a month $29 a month 4K, 48 kHz, no watermark, 15 hours of separate-track downloads a month
Grow $34 a month $39 a month 20 hours of downloads, 2 studios, live streaming
Webinar $79 a month $99 a month 25 hours of downloads, webinars
Business On request On request Unlimited downloads, collaborative editing

The pricing FAQ says recording itself is unlimited and the hours count separate-track downloads. AI credits pay for AI translation, voice clones, an AI twin and AI B-roll: Pro starts with 2,000, 100 credits buy one minute of translation, and more are bought separately.

When does Riverside still make sense?

When your guests are somewhere else. Sharpy records your own screen, microphone and camera, but it does not run a call with remote guests, and Riverside's local recording on each guest's device is what makes a remote episode sound like a studio one. Its live streaming and webinars are also outside what Sharpy does. Record there, download the separate tracks, and let Sharpy make the edit. Every comparison is in one place.

Frequently asked questions

01

What is Riverside used for?

Riverside is used to record podcasts, interviews and video calls with remote guests, each recorded locally on their own device in up to 4K, and to edit, clip and live stream them in the browser.

02

Can you edit in Riverside?

Yes. Riverside has a text-based editor in the browser and its Mac app, with filler-word removal, smart layouts, Magic Clips and, on paid plans, Magic Audio. Sharpy goes further by making the whole edit itself, on your Mac.

03

Is Sharpy a Riverside alternative?

For the editing, yes: Sharpy edits Riverside's recordings, or any others, on your Mac with no uploads or credits. For recording remote guests, no: use Riverside or another remote recorder and edit the tracks in Sharpy.

04

Can Sharpy edit Riverside's separate tracks?

Yes. Bring in each person's audio and video, and Sharpy syncs them by sound, splits the conversation by speaker, cuts angles, levels each voice and sets the loudness.

05

Is Riverside free?

Riverside has a free plan with 2 hours of separate-track recording, once, at 720p with a watermark. Pro costs $24 a month billed yearly or $29 month to month.

Sources

Checked on 18 October 2026.

hopeengineer

Written by

hopeengineer

Software architect and founder of Sharpy and Threadify. Builds scalable systems and AI tools, and writes here about how Sharpy understands and edits video.

Sharpy opens on 1 November 2026.

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