Top 5 funeral live streaming apps
To save you some time, we’ve rounded up our top 5 funeral streaming apps, highlighting the pros and cons of each:
1. Forget Me Not Ceremonies
Pros:
- Built from the ground up for live streaming funerals
- Start live streaming in 5 minutes or less
- Lots of interactive features for guests
- No muted or blocked streams because of copyright issues
- Generate pre-need leads
Cons:
- Not free
- Exclusively for funeral homes – family members can not use FMNC
If you’re a funeral director looking for a live streaming solution, consider Forget Me Not Ceremonies. It was built to make live streaming extremely easy for funeral directors while delivering an unmatched experience for virtual guests. You can even generate pre-need leads before, during, or after the live stream.
However, if you’re a family member or friend looking to live stream a funeral, you will need to select one of the other options below.
2. YouTube Live
Pros:
- Free
- Anyone can use it
- No viewer registration
- Guests can chat live
Cons:
- You need at least 50 subscribers to live stream from your mobile device
- Playing copyrighted music risks the stream being muted or blocked
- Potential limits on the number of people that can watch
- Ads potentially interrupting live stream
- No other interactive features
YouTube Live can be a great option if you have a limited budget but there are some significant downsides. A big hurdle to even live streaming anything will be that you need at least 50 subscribers to your YouTube account before you can live stream from your mobile device. Another drawback is the risk of having your live stream muted or even blocked altogether if copyrighted music is played. However, if you’re live streaming a traditional funeral mass in a church, this might not be an issue for you.
3. Facebook Live
Pros:
- Free
- Anyone can use it
- Guests can chat live
Cons:
- Playing copyrighted music risks the stream being muted or blocked
- Must have Facebook account to watch
- Ads displayed alongside funeral
- No other interactive features
Facebook Live is another free option that also may block or mute your stream if copyrighted music is played. Guests will also need a Facebook account to watch and there will be ads displayed alongside the funeral. Unlike YouTube though, anyone can live stream from Facebook.
4. Zoom
Pros:
- Free plan available
- Anyone can use it
- Guests can chat live
Cons:
- Free version limited to 40 minutes
- Limit of 100 attendees, must purchase add-on to increase
- Must manually mute participants
- Recording must be manually shared with those that request it
- No other interactive features
Yes, you can use Zoom, the ubiquitous remote work meeting app, to live stream funerals! We wrote a guide for it here. Thankfully, there are no issues with copyrighted music being played. However, the free plan will limit you to 40 minutes. Even if you upgrade, you will need to purchase an additional add-on to go past the limit of 100 attendees. You will also need to manage the attendees and make sure everyone is muted. Oh, and if someone wants to see the recording, you’re going to have to send it to them manually.
5. Vimeo
Pros:
- Anyone can use it
- Guests can chat live
Cons:
- Not free
- Not as user-friendly
- Bandwidth limit of 2TB per month
- No other interactive features
Vimeo is the most technical option on the list. It has no limits on the number of live streams or attendees you can have but it does limit your monthly bandwidth to 2 terabytes per month. Bandwidth is the amount of information that needs to be sent and received to live stream or share your recording. A live stream may need 1 gigabyte of bandwidth or more but then your viewers will need to download that same 1 GB to watch…see? It’s a little complicated for the average user.
Conclusion
If you’re a family member or friend looking to live stream a funeral, we would probably recommend getting a paid Zoom subscription. There’s no risk of muted or blocked streams and it can be accessed by everyone – just keep in mind that you will be limited to 100 attendees and you will have to manually share the recording with anyone who wants to see it.
If you’re a funeral home looking to professionally and easily live stream your funeral services, check out Forget Me Not Ceremonies. We have a mobile app for Android and Apple, automated fixed-camera systems, and you can even generate pre-need leads from your live streams. Forget Me Not Ceremonies is trusted by thousands of funeral directors across North America!
