Silverstack alternative for Mac
Pomfort Silverstack is a full on-set data station, and for many carts it earns its price. The search for an alternative usually comes from one question: do you need the whole station every year, or mainly verified offload, MHL and a report you can hand to production?
Silverstack vs Olycen at a glance
| Olycen | Silverstack | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $129 once, two Macs, 14-day full trial | Yearly subscription; about $399/year (Silverstack) and $599/year (XT) when last compared in July 2026. Pomfort's store shows the current price. |
| Billing | One-time, nothing to renew | Automatic yearly renewal unless cancelled; temporary licences of 10 days, 1 month and 2 months |
| Trial | 14 days, every feature | Free 10-day trial |
| Checksums and ASC MHL | xxHash (XXH3, XXH64), MD5, SHA-256, C4; ASC MHL v2, written and re-verifiable | Checksum verification and ASC MHL support (algorithm names not stated on the page) |
| Multi-destination | Read once, write every destination, read back each | Multiple destinations and a cascading copy feature |
| Reports | PDF, CSV and ALE | Custom PDF reports; metadata export as CSV, ALE or XML |
| Cheaper offload-only option | The one product is the offload tool | Offload Manager: xxHash, MD5, SHA1 and ASC MHL, with its own 10-day trial |
| Platform | macOS 13+, Apple Silicon and Intel | Runs natively on Apple silicon (Windows not stated) |
The Pomfort pages did not show price figures when fetched on the check date, so the subscription amounts above are from the previous check in July 2026.
Sources: Silverstack XT, Pomfort, Silverstack XT licences, Pomfort, Offload Manager, Pomfort. "Not stated" means the page did not say, not that the feature is missing. Vendors change prices often; check theirs before you decide.
Who should pick which
Stay with Silverstack if
- You need a broad on-set data and review station rather than an offload tool. Silverstack is built to be that, and Olycen is not trying to be.
- Your production or facility specifies Pomfort software.
Pick Olycen if
- Three years of the lower subscription price comes to about $1,200, against $129 once.
- You own the version you bought: it keeps working with no renewal and no network check.
- Offload, MHL, reports, proxies, dailies and delivery without paying for the parts of a station you do not open.
Switching: what to expect
- Footage, ASC MHL files and reports Silverstack wrote stay readable; Olycen can re-verify them.
- Run Olycen beside Silverstack on one real card and compare the checksums.
- Keep Silverstack for the jobs that need its library and review tools; use Olycen for the offload-and-report part of the day.
Try it on a real card, next to Silverstack.
$129 once, two Macs, no subscription, and a full 14-day trial. Run it beside what you use now and compare the checksums.