Iris

interview podcasters

Iris pitches itself as a quieter Riverside — same browser, same per-participant local recording, but billed by session hours instead of per-track hours. That math favors interview shows with multiple guests. It's younger and the integration ecosystem is thinner, so look elsewhere if you need deep Slack or hosting hooks.

Iris is the kind of tool you find when you get tired of Riverside's per-track math. You spin up a room, invite up to nine people, and each side records locally to lossless WAV and MP4 up to 4K. When a four-person hour-long episode bills as one hour rather than four, the difference compounds fast for any show with regular guests. Real-time captions saved with the recording are a nice touch for show notes, and the export flow drops you clean files instead of nudging you into a proprietary editor. Where it falls short is the surrounding ecosystem — there's no built-in hosting, no integrated AI cleanup like Magic Dust, and the integration list is short. You're expected to plug it into your existing post-production stack. That suits engineers who already have Hindenburg or Pro Tools and just need a reliable capture layer, but solo creators looking for an all-in-one will probably want Riverside or Zencastr instead. As a pure recording tool, it's one of the most honest options in 2026. The free hour per month is enough to test the workflow end-to-end before committing, and the WAV export means you can drop straight into whatever editor you already use.