Media Center · compared
KitSlate or Hightail for sending video files?
Hightail, sold by OpenText, shares large files and collects feedback and approvals on creative work in Spaces, with precise comments on the preview, side-by-side version compare and approval routing.
KitSlate’s Media Center sends up to 1 TB per transfer, plays the clips for the person you send to, takes their notes at a timecode and keeps the transfer beside the job’s quotes, call sheets and invoices. Hightail’s side of the table is from its own pages, read on 8 October 2026. “Not stated” means their pages do not say.
KitSlate and Hightail
Where Hightail leadsReview and approval workflow: time-stamped and time-range comments, markup on images, side-by-side version compare, approval routing and tasks, unlimited storage on every paid plan, files that do not expire on paid plans, an Uplink page for clients to send you files, desktop and mobile apps, and an API on Teams and Business.
Where KitSlate leadsLarger single sends than Hightail's Business plan, camera files playing on the page with a spec sheet read from the file, every audio track with its own meter, LUTs, part downloads in original quality where the file allows, and a link that works before the upload ends.
Side by side
| What | KitSlateMedia Center | HightailOpenText |
|---|---|---|
| Sending | ||
| Largest transfer | Per transfer: 5 GB on the free profile, 500 GB on Solo, 1 TB on Studio and above, up to 500 files. | Largest single file by plan: Lite (free) 100MB; Pro 25GB; Teams 50GB; Business 500GB. Their help centre gives the same four figures. A 2018 data sheet says up to 100GB, which no longer matches their pricing page. |
| Storage | Your live links share your storage: 100 GB on the free profile, 500 GB on Solo, 2 TB on Studio, 4 TB on Production House, 10 TB on Enterprise. | Lite 2GB; Pro, Teams and Business unlimited. File retention: Lite 180 days; paid plans no expiration. |
| Link before the upload ends | Yes. The link exists the moment the upload starts, so you can share it while the files are still on their way; their page shows what has arrived and fills in the rest as it comes. | Not stated |
| Uploads from clients | No. Recipients can write back to you on the page; they cannot send files to you. | Yes: Uplink is a personal URL that lets anyone send you files without a Hightail account. Included on Teams and Business; add-on for Pro; not on Lite. |
| Speed | ||
| Transfer engine | In the browser over HTTPS, with nothing to install. Each file goes up in parts over as many as 32 parallel connections, set by a speed test before you send; an interrupted upload carries on from the last part saved, and downloads resume too. No accelerated UDP protocol and no desktop app. | Acceleration: Not stated. Their help pages say connections use SSL/TLS on port 443 and recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari; the Hightail Express desktop app sends from Mac and Windows. Their API docs describe uploading files in chunks directly to Amazon S3. A 2015 customer story on their blog says Express uploads resume from the same point if the connection drops; no current page says so. Parallel streams: Not stated. |
| What the sender uses | A browser. There is no desktop or mobile app to install. | Browser (Mac, Windows, other); Hightail Express desktop app for Mac and Windows; mobile apps for iPhone and Android; Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator plugin; Outlook plugin (Business). Command line: Not stated. |
| Speed, as published | Measured from our office in Manhattan on a 2 Gbps fiber connection: 1.82 Gbps up to KitSlate storage over 12 connections, 2.04 Gbps back down. That is 100 GB in about 8 min, 1 TB in about 1 h 21 min (measured 7 October 2026). A speed test on the Send page, and on kitslate.app/transfers, measures your own line before you send. | No speed figures. The file-sharing page lists 'Download files fast' with no comparison. Their help centre says Hightail does not limit, throttle or cap upload speed; speed depends on your connection. No speed test or transfer-time calculator found.Download files fastFile sharing page, feature list |
| Watching and review | ||
| Plays in the browser | H.264 video and sound play on the page. Camera files play too, MXF included: from the proxy the camera recorded, or from a preview KitSlate makes on paid plans, within the plan's monthly preview minutes. The download is the untouched master. ProRes and DNxHR .mov files show their specs and download; most browsers play only their sound. | Streams video in the browser. Help centre lists .mxf, .mov, .mp4, .avi, .mkv and others as video preview types. Lite previews MP4 and MOV only; the Pro list adds AVI, MKV and others, which are transcoded. Audio and video preview size by plan: Lite 100MB, Pro 2GB, Teams 50GB, Business 500GB. Codec list and ProRes: Not stated. |
| Spec sheet | A spec sheet read from the file itself: Picture (codec, bit depth, frame rate), Sound (tracks and their names, sample rate) and Source (start timecode, camera, scene and take). | Not stated |
| Comments at a timecode | Pause and write: the note carries the clip's source timecode and opens the clip at that frame; you answer on the same thread. Notes sit as markers on the scrubber, and J, K and L play backwards, pause and speed up, on every plan. Frame step, an A-B loop, snapshots and the timecode display are on paid plans; a recipient whose own KitSlate plan is paid gets them by signing in on the page. | Yes. Time-stamped comments on video and audio, including time-range comments; comments on an area of an image; line, arrow and pencil markup. On Teams and Business: version control, side-by-side version compare, approval requests routed to named people in order, and to-dos. Frame-accurate comments: Not stated. |
| LUT view | Log footage shows as Rec.709 from the camera's metadata, a LUT in the clip or on the card, or a show LUT you attach; one switch shows the original. On paid plans. | Not stated |
| Download part of a clip | Set an in and an out and download that part: WAV, MP4 and MOV in their original quality (a long-GOP clip starts on the keyframe at or before the in point), and any previewed file as a compressed MP4. On paid plans. | Not stated |
| Transcripts | A transcript of each audio and video file, every line with the clip's own timecode: the words light up as it plays, a press on a line goes there, and it is searchable. Select a few words to trim to exactly that part, or attach them to a comment. Download it as text with or without timecodes, or as SRT or VTT subtitles. Made automatically by Workers AI (whisper-large-v3-turbo), with no speaker labels, so check it before you quote it. Off until the sender switches it on; on paid plans. | Not stated |
| Audio | ||
| Every audio track | On paid plans every track gets a lane with a switch, solo and a meter with peak hold and loudness, and the Audio menu adds Left, Right and Reverse; Stereo and Mono are on every plan. On a camera file's preview you hear a stereo mix, with every track listed. | Not stated for listening to individual audio tracks or channels, meters or multichannel playback. Audio files can be played in the browser and commented on with timestamps. |
| Audio as its own file | A sound recorder's poly WAV downloads whole on every plan; on paid plans also as one track, or split into a mono WAV per track, with the mixer's track names. | Not stated |
| Delivery and tracking | ||
| Download tracking | Per recipient: opened, played, downloaded, with the time and the speed. Open a transfer you sent and you see their page with an Activity panel only you see. Emails the first time each person downloads, on every download, or never. | Sends show date, views, downloads and Active/Expired status, plus per-file activity. Pro and up get delivery notifications and send tracking, and can switch on download receipts, an email on each download. On Business, an Admin Console shows member activity and admin reports. Audit logs are mentioned in a 2017 blog post; current pages list admin reports. |
| Your branding | On paid plans the email and the download page carry your company's name, logo, email and phone, for the company you send as. No custom domain. | Custom branding of email notifications, app and browser experiences for your recipients: included on Teams and Business, an add-on for Pro. On Lite everything is branded OpenText Hightail. Their help centre says your branding appears on each Space and email notification. Custom domain: Not stated. |
| Integrations | None for transfers: no editing-software panels, no cloud-storage connectors and no transfer API. Recipients come from your KitSlate crew, client and company books. | Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator plugin; Zapier (Teams and up); sync from Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive; OpenText Core; Outlook plugin (Business); OpenText Media Management (Business, contact sales). A Hightail API is available to Teams and Business users. Premiere, Avid: Not stated. |
| Security, as published | TLS in transit; transfer files are held in Cloudflare R2, encrypted at rest. KitSlate does not hold a SOC 2 or ISO 27001 attestation. | In transit TLS 1.2 or greater, up to 256-bit; at rest AES-256 (help centre). Per-send access codes, expiry, verify-recipient and prevent-download (Pro and up). Two-factor sign-in with an authenticator app (help centre). Single sign-on for Business plans of 25 or more users, through sales. SSAE 16 and SAML appear only in old documents (a 2017 security overview, a 2018 data sheet). SOC 2, ISO 27001: Not stated. |
| Terms and your files | ||
| What the recipient needs | A browser. No account and nothing to install; by opening the page or downloading, a recipient accepts the terms. | No account needed to receive a send or open a Space link. Exceptions they state: 'Verify recipient identity' makes the recipient sign in (a free Lite account); guest commenting needs Business plus an admin setting. |
| Who owns the files | You own the files. The licence is to store them for the period you set, stream previews to your recipients, deliver them and delete them.You own what you send.Terms §32, File transfer | You keep ownership. OpenText's cloud terms say the content belongs to the customer and OpenText claims no ownership. Hightail's own terms add permission only 'as necessary' to process uploaded files. Feedback you give OpenText is assigned to OpenText.OT makes no claim to any right of ownership in the ContentOpenText Cloud GTC section 8.2 (Hightail terms 1.1 and 2 also apply) |
| How long files are kept | For the period you set, 1 to 30 days (7 by default); then the files are deleted and cannot be recovered. Transfer files are not part of KitSlate's backups. | Paid plans: file retention is listed as no expiration, and a send can be set to expire after 1 day to one year, or never. Lite: sends expire after 7 days, and files and Spaces after 180 days. Expired files are deleted and cannot be retrieved. Deleted content in backups is removed during backup procedures. Full account deletion is by emailing support (terms) or the Delete My Account button (help). |
| Where files are stored | Cloudflare storage in North America (Eastern North America location hint, best effort). Choosing a region: not stated. | Which region holds your files, and whether any plan can choose one: Not stated. A help page lists storage addresses with the AWS codes us-west-2, us-east-1, eu-west-1 and ap-southeast-2, and another says servers are in Portland, Oregon and Ashburn, Virginia. |
| Scanning and AI training | Transfer files are not read, analysed or used to train anything, and they are not scanned for malware.We do not read, analyse or train anything on transfer files.Terms §32, File transfer | Not stated for malware scanning or for using your content to train AI. What is stated: OpenText may access, view or listen to content in limited circumstances (operating the service, enforcing terms, security, law); it monitors use under its acceptable-use policy; the customer is responsible for content free of viruses.We may access, view, or listen to ContentHightail terms, Additional Privacy Terms section 1 |
| Download and fair-use limits | No download cap is stated. Transfers that exceed an allowance or break the terms may be refused, slowed or stopped. | No download cap or egress fee stated. Stated limits: online plans 200 send recipients a day (Lite 30, others 100 per send; Business bought through sales has no recipient limit); per-file preview size limits; the acceptable-use policy bars 'excessive bandwidth usage, as determined by OpenText'. Help centre: no cap on upload speed. |
| When a plan lapses | A cancelled plan keeps its paid features to the end of the period paid for. If a downgrade leaves you over the lower plan's limits, you are told what exceeds them and given a reasonable chance to export or reduce it before anything becomes read-only (Terms §16). Transfer links you have already sent are not ended by cancellation: each keeps working until the expiry you set, and its recipients can still download; the Pro review tools on them follow your plan at the time the page is opened (Terms §32). | On cancel, you keep the plan until the billing cycle ends, then drop to free Lite (2GB). Files set to expire more than 7 days after the downgrade are reset to expire 7 days after it. You have 30 days from the downgrade to retrieve files; after that all but the most recent 2GB are permanently deleted. |
| Price | ||
| Published price | The Media Center is on every plan, the free profile included (5 GB per transfer). Solo $19, Studio $49, Production House $149 a month; Enterprise: custom pricing. Save 20% billed annually. A plan price with its seats included (1 seat on Solo, 3 seats on Studio, 8 seats on Production House); nothing per gigabyte, and recipients never need a seat. | USD, shown as billed annually: Pro $12/month; Teams $24/user/month (1-30 users); Business $36/user/month (3+ users); Lite free. Their FAQ gives monthly billing as $15, $30/user and $45/user. Online plans: 200 send recipients a day. |
| Beyond transfer | ||
| What else it does | The transfer is one part of KitSlate: on paid plans the same account sends quotes that become invoices, call sheets and agreements, and keeps your crew and client books and your inventory. | Beyond sending: review and proofing on Spaces, versions, approvals, tasks and dashboards, folders and projects, unlimited storage on paid plans, and an Uplink page for receiving files. |
About speed. Hightail has the Hightail Express desktop app for Mac and Windows, and says it does not throttle uploads. KitSlate is a browser with nothing to install. Measured from our office in Manhattan on a 2 Gbps fiber connection: 1.82 Gbps up to KitSlate storage over 12 connections, 2.04 Gbps back down. That is 100 GB in about 8 min, 1 TB in about 1 h 21 min, measured 7 October 2026.
No side-by-side measurement against a desktop app has been published, so this page does not claim KitSlate is faster than one. The speed test on the Send page measures your own line before you send.
Where Hightail’s figures come from
Read on Hightail’s own site and help centre on 8 October 2026. If something has changed, tell us and we will correct it.
Hightail · read 8 October 2026
- Largest transfer
- Storage
- Uploads from clients
- Transfer engine
- What the sender uses
- Speed, as published
- Plays in the browser
- Comments at a timecodewww.hightail.com/solutions/proofing-annotationhightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052712594-How-to-leave-comments-at-specific-points-or-ranges-on-audio-and-videohightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002608607-How-To-Comment-on-a-File-in-a-Spacewww.hightail.com/pricingwww.hightail.com/features-project-management
- Every audio track
- Download trackinghightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203447850-How-To-Track-Sent-Received-Fileshightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052108994-Security-settings-when-sending-files-via-Hightailwww.hightail.com/pricinghightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/220435207-How-do-I-view-activity-of-members-and-their-Spacesblog.hightail.com/4-reasons-hightail-matters-departments
- Your branding
- Integrations
- Security, as publishedhightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/220434907-What-type-of-security-does-Hightail-offerhightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052108994-Security-settings-when-sending-files-via-Hightailhightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036464034-How-to-enable-Two-Factor-Authentication-for-Hightailwww.hightail.com/pricinghightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203295924-Hightail-and-HIPAA-Complianceinsights.hightail.com/hubfs/PDF%20files/Hightail-Security-Overview-2017.pdfinsights.hightail.com/hubfs/PDF%20files/Hightail%20Data-Sheet.pdf
- What the recipient needs
- Who owns the files
- How long files are keptwww.hightail.com/pricingwww.hightail.com/termshightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052108994-Security-settings-when-sending-files-via-Hightailhightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8142365126807-How-to-delete-my-account-in-Hightailhightail.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/16860428101911-Recovery-of-Expired-Spaces-and-Files
- Where files are stored
- Scanning and AI training
- Download and fair-use limits
- When a plan lapses
- Published price
- What else it does
KitSlate · its own pages
- Largest transfer
- Storage
- Link before the upload ends
- Uploads from clients
- Transfer engine
- What the sender uses
- Speed, as published
- Plays in the browser
- Spec sheet
- Comments at a timecode
- LUT view
- Download part of a clip
- Transcripts
- Every audio track
- Audio as its own file
- Download tracking
- Your branding
- Integrations
- Security, as published
- What the recipient needs
- Who owns the files
- How long files are kept
- Where files are stored
- Scanning and AI training
- Download and fair-use limits
- When a plan lapses
- Published price
- What else it does