Product · Released · v1.7.2
A premium desktop media downloader for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Pull videos from YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and over a thousand other sites — or paste a magnet link and grab a torrent in the same queue. Subscriptions, SponsorBlock, seeding controls, system notifications, and a library that keeps every download at hand — powered by yt-dlp and librqbit, wrapped in an interface that respects your taste.
Play anything you download without leaving Prism — powered by embedded mpv, the same engine behind the best desktop players. Every codec and container, true HDR on HDR displays, 5.1 audio with proper downmixing, subtitle and audio track switching, and one-click playback of any single file inside a torrent. macOS & Windows; nothing extra to install.
Paste a magnet link or open a .torrent and it downloads alongside your videos. Pick exactly which files you want, watch peers and share ratio live, and choose how it seeds — stop at 100%, seed to ratio, or keep sharing. Powered by librqbit, with UPnP for peers behind a router.
Watch channels and playlists — new videos are queued automatically on your schedule. Only what's published after you subscribe; never the back catalog.
Mark sponsor segments as chapters, or cut them out of the file entirely, using crowd-sourced data. Most paid downloaders don't have this.
True pause and resume that picks up partial files — torrents included — cancel that actually kills the process, retries with backoff, drag-to-reorder (keyboard works too), and a filter box when the queue gets long.
Every finished download in one place — completed, failed, and canceled in tabs, with search, one-click retry, and the reason a download failed spelled out in plain language. Finished torrents expand into their file list, so episode three is one click away, not a trip through Finder.
Import a whole playlist instantly — pick the videos you want and they all queue at once, no waiting while each one is parsed. Ambiguous links ask whether you meant the video or the playlist.
4K to 480p — and the resolution you pick is the resolution you get, including the 4K and HDR tiers most downloaders quietly skip. If a site delivers less than you asked for, Prism says so the moment the download finishes instead of letting you find out in the player. Audio-only as MP3, M4A, or Opus; thumbnails, metadata, and chapters embedded.
Menu-bar quick-add, drag a link onto the window, a Firefox extension, a universal bookmarklet, clipboard auto-detect — and system notifications when a download finishes while Prism is tucked away in the tray.
Hold or throttle downloads during part of the day — full speed overnight. Plus per-download speed limits and concurrency control.
| Capability | Prism | Downie 4 | 4K Video Downloader+ | Stacher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, open source | $19.99 | Freemium | Free |
| Torrents (magnet / .torrent) | ✓ with file selection | — | — | — |
| Built-in player (all codecs, HDR, 5.1) | ✓ mpv-powered | — | Basic preview | — |
| Platforms | macOS · Win · Linux | macOS only | All three | All three |
| Channel subscriptions | ✓ | — | Paid tier | ✓ |
| SponsorBlock | ✓ mark or remove | — | — | ✓ |
| Warns when a site delivers lower quality than requested | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Quiet hours / scheduling | ✓ | — | Partial | — |
| Self-updating engine | ✓ SHA-256 verified | Vendor-pushed | Vendor-pushed | ✓ |
| True pause / resume | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Basic |
| Browser hand-off | Extension + bookmarklet | Polished extensions | ✓ | — |
| Telemetry | None (opt-in crash reports only) | Closed source | Closed source | None |
Feature comparison as of July 2026, based on public documentation of each product. Downie is a trademark of Charlie Monroe Software; 4K Video Downloader of Open Media LLC.
Free and open source, with builds for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
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