Walnut and other ways to watch together
There are a few good ways to watch with friends online, and they work differently. Here’s an honest look at how Walnut compares with Teleparty, Rave and Discord, so you can pick what suits your group.
Other products change their features often. What follows describes how each one generally works; check their own sites for the details today.
Sync extensions, like Teleparty
How they work: a browser extension keeps each person’s own copy of a show in step on the streaming services it supports, with a chat alongside.
Good for: watching subscription streaming services together at full quality, when everyone has their own account.
Compared with Walnut: Walnut can’t show streaming services that protect their video with DRM; that video is black in any shared browser or screen share. If that’s mostly what your group watches, a sync extension is the better tool. For everything else, Walnut needs no extension and nobody has to sign in to the same sites: one person drives the shared screen and everyone sees it.
Watch-party apps, like Rave
How they work: an app, popular on phones, that plays videos from the services it supports for everyone in a room, with a chat.
Good for: watching together from phones.
Compared with Walnut: Walnut’s shared screen is a full web browser rather than a list of supported services, it plays YouTube and video links in sync, and it adds screen sharing. Walnut has no phone app yet: phones join in the browser and can watch, chat and talk, but can’t share their screen.
Discord
How it works: in a voice channel, someone can stream their screen or a game to everyone, and Discord has offered activities such as watching YouTube together.
Good for: groups that already spend their time in a Discord server, and large communities with channels and roles.
Compared with Walnut: in Walnut the screen is the point of the room: a shared browser that anyone can drive when they hold the remote, videos in sync, screen sharing with sound from the Windows app, and ads blocked on the TV. A Walnut holds up to 16 people and closes 24 hours after everyone leaves, so it suits a group of friends better than a big community.
Where Walnut fits best
- A group of friends, up to 16, who want one screen in the middle and to talk over it.
- Watching and browsing the open web together: YouTube, video links, and any site that plays in Chrome without DRM.
- Showing each other what’s on your computers, with sound.
- Nobody wants to install anything: the web app does it all, and the Windows app is optional.
- It’s free, and the TV blocks ads for everyone.
When something else is better
- Netflix-style streaming services: use a sync extension where everyone plays from their own account.
- A big community with channels, roles and moderation: Discord.
- A group that only uses phones and wants to share phone screens: a phone watch-party app.
Your people. One screen.
Walnut is free in your browser at easywalnut.com, and for Windows. Make an account, start a Walnut, and send your friends the link.