Feature comparison
Castmux and Cesbo Astra, side by side.
Astra is the incumbent in this category and it is a good product. This is the honest version of the table: where they are ahead, it says so. Anything marked Roadmap is on the published roadmap.
The short version
Most decisions come down to four or five rows.
If you are in a hurry, this is the whole page.
Choose Astra if
- You need DVB-S/C/T tuner input
- You need DVB-CI descrambling or a CAM
- You need full conditional access with Simulcrypt
- You need DVB-T modulation
Choose Castmux if
- You need it on arm64, offline, in a fanless box
- You want on-demand multicast so a small appliance carries more channels
- You want the network diagnosed for you
- You want the licence free with a channel package
Feature by feature
Every row, including the ones we lose.
Seven sections: sources, delivery, transport stream processing, reliability, operations, content services, and platform and commercial terms.
| Capability | Castmux | Cesbo Astra | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sources | |||
| HLS | Yes | Yes | We select a ladder rung by resolution; Astra selects by bandwidth only. |
| SRT caller | Yes | Yes | We derive latency from measured round-trip time automatically. |
| SRT listener / rendezvous | Manual | Yes | Possible via engine parameters; first-class UI option is on the roadmap. |
| RTMP | Yes | No | Astra has no RTMP input at all. |
| UDP/RTP multicast input | Roadmap | Yes | Needed to sit behind another headend. High priority. |
| HTTP MPEG-TS input | Roadmap | Yes | |
| RTSP cameras | Roadmap | Yes | Garden and entrance cameras are a real request in care homes. |
| DVB-S/C/T tuner input | Roadmap | Yes | Astra is far ahead: DiSEqC, Unicable, T2-MI, SAT>IP, adapter scan. |
| Delivery | |||
| UDP/RTP multicast output | Yes | Yes | TTL, egress binding, full 1316-byte datagrams. |
| Constant bitrate / null padding | Mux only | Yes | Applied on the DVB-C multiplex today; per-channel CBR on UDP is roadmap. |
| DVB-C RF output | Yes | Yes | Both drive TBS modulators. We add drag-and-drop assignment and hot-swap. |
| DVB-T modulator output | No | Yes | Astra supports HiDes IT950x. Not planned unless customers ask. |
| HLS/HTTP output with auth | Roadmap | Yes | For guest phones and tablets. Preview only today. |
| SAP/SDP announcements | Roadmap | Yes | Set-top box auto-discovery. |
| Transport stream processing | |||
| Pass-through of original PIDs | Yes | Yes | |
| All audio tracks with language tags | Yes | Yes | On the pass-through engine. The remux engine carries one track. |
| Audio track ordering / language forcing | Roadmap | Yes | So the television's default track is the right language. |
| PID filtering and remapping | Mux only | Yes | Automatic inside the multiplex; not yet exposed per channel. |
| PAT/PMT/SDT generation | Yes | Yes | |
| NIT with cross-mux linking (fast scan) | Roadmap | Yes | We generate NIT today; automatic cross-linking is next. |
| Logical Channel Numbers (LCN) | Roadmap | Yes | The most requested DVB-C feature. Top of the list. |
| TDT/TOT clock | Roadmap | Yes | Sets the clock on every guest set. Cheap, disproportionately noticed. |
| Stable pinned service identity | Roadmap | Manual | Guarding it against accidental change is ours; Astra leaves it to you. |
| Reliability | |||
| Automatic restart with backoff | Yes | Yes | |
| Ordered backup sources with failover | Roadmap | Yes | Astra's is mature: active and passive modes, separate return delays. |
| Technical-difficulties slate fallback | Roadmap | Manual | Astra makes you hand-build a looping file. We intend to ship it working. |
| Dead multicast route detection | Yes | No | Sending to an unroutable group succeeds silently. We check from outside. |
| Duplicate sender detection | Yes | No | Two senders on one group present as pixelation and waste days of diagnosis. |
| Server-level high availability | Roadmap | Yes | Astra has a master/slave standby mode. |
| Operations | |||
| On-demand streaming (IGMP) | Yes | Partial | We watch real memberships with packet capture and actively query, because these segments have no querier. |
| Per-channel bitrate measured on the wire | Yes | Yes | Engine-agnostic, so it is true for both engines. |
| Live viewer count and client list | Yes | HTTP only | Astra counts HTTP sessions; multicast viewers are invisible to it. |
| Built-in transport stream analyser | Roadmap | Yes | CC errors, PES errors, scrambled counts, per PID. A support-cost killer. |
| Email / webhook alerting | Roadmap | No | Astra has no alerting engine at all — it expects you to run Zabbix. |
| Metrics export (Prometheus/Grafana) | OTLP | Yes | We ship OpenTelemetry; a Prometheus endpoint and dashboard are on the roadmap. |
| Config backup, restore and clone | File | Yes | Readable file with automatic pre-change backup; one-click export/import is next. |
| HTTP API | Yes | Yes | |
| Multi-site fleet management | Roadmap | Partial | |
| User roles | Single user | 3 roles | Neither is good enough. Reception-versus-engineer scoping is on our roadmap. |
| Content services | |||
| EPG from XMLTV into the multiplex | Roadmap | Separate tool | Astra ships this as a second binary with its own config file. We intend to build it into the same UI as the channel. |
| In-house information channel | Roadmap | No | Activities, menus, notices, services, camera. Nobody in this market ships it in the headend. |
| Radio channels as first-class services | Works | Yes | |
| Descrambling (DVB-CI/CAM) | No | Yes | Astra's external-CI design is genuinely strong. Not on our roadmap. |
| Scrambling (BISS) | Roadmap | Yes | |
| Scrambling (DVB Simulcrypt / full CAS) | No | Yes | If you need Conax and an ECMG, buy Astra. We will tell you that. |
| Transcoding | No | No | Neither product transcodes. Both pass video through untouched. |
| Platform and commercial | |||
| arm64 / low-power appliance | Yes | x86 only | Astra requires 64-bit x86. Structural difference, not a feature gap. |
| Runs with no internet access | Yes | No | Astra validates its licence against remote servers periodically. |
| Container deployment | Yes | Binary | |
| Price | €22/mo or €220/yr | €22/mo or €220/yr | Matched deliberately. |
| Free with a channel package | Yes | No | Take channels from tvheadend.io and the licence costs nothing. |
This table is compiled from the public Cesbo Astra documentation and pricing pages. If anything here is out of date or unfair, tell us athello@castmux.comand we will correct it. A comparison table that flatters us is worth nothing to you.
Sehen Sie es mit Ihren eigenen Signalen laufen.
Zwanzig Minuten per Bildschirmfreigabe. Bringen Sie eine Stream-URL mit, und wir legen sie live auf eine Multicast-Gruppe. Wenn es nicht passt, sagen wir das im Gespräch.