StreamStash vs Permaloop: a private TikTok archive, or a public one?

Permaloop launched in mid-2026 as a "community TikTok archive": paste a link, it saves the video on its servers at a public URL that anyone can search, and it can monitor creators, stories and lives for you. StreamStash saves the same kinds of content, but to your own drive, privately, across every major platform. They look similar on a feature list and are built on opposite ideas about where an archive should live. Here is the honest comparison.

What Permaloop Is

Permaloop (permaloop.io) launched in July 2026 and describes itself as "the community TikTok archive" and a tik.fail alternative. The model is closer to the Wayback Machine than to a downloader: you paste a TikTok link or username on the website, Permaloop fetches the video with its caption, creator, sound and engagement counts, and stores it on its own servers at a permanent public URL. Anyone can search that archive and watch what has been saved, including videos that TikTok has since removed.

On top of that it has grown the features you would expect from a monitoring tool:

• Creator monitoring. Add an account and new posts are saved automatically "within a few hours". Stories and lives have separate toggles.
• Livestream recording for monitored creators, with replays stitched together when a stream drops and reconnects.
• Folders with an access-code sharing model, and a Download button on every playable video.
• Discord DM alerts when a monitored creator posts or goes live, with a choice of instant, hourly, six-hourly or daily digests.
• Screenshot search: drop a frame in and it looks for visually similar videos in the archive.
• Public creator and sound pages, a verified badge, and a takedown form for creators who want their content removed.

It is a web app: nothing to install, works on a phone, and its free tier is ad-supported. Its own FAQ is clear about the limits: public content only, nothing behind a login or age gate, and "some stories or streams may be missed" if TikTok is unavailable or the content disappears before capture.

What StreamStash Is

StreamStash is a Windows app that builds a private archive on your own drives. TikTok is one of many platforms it monitors; the others include YouTube, Twitch, Kick, Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Telegram, Reddit, Snapchat, VSCO, Patreon, XenForo forums, web media and browser-assisted Discord archives. For TikTok specifically it does:

• Posts, photo posts, slideshows and reposts from monitored creators, plus one-off Quick Download of up to 25 pasted URLs at a time.
• Stories, saved into the creator's feed before the 24-hour expiry.
• Live recording from monitors that check every 60 to 90 seconds, with chat, gifts, battle scores and top gifters captured and replayed over the recording on Power, auto-clipped highlights, and burned-in export.
• Comments saved alongside posts (Power), bio and rename tracking, cross-platform identity matching and perceptual deduplication.
• A local library with a built-in player, AI semantic search on Power, multi-drive storage that spills to the next drive when one fills, and no account, telemetry or cloud component in the desktop app.

Nothing you save is visible to anyone else, and there is no public page for it. That is not a missing feature; it is the point.

The Real Difference Is Public vs Private

Put the two feature lists side by side and they look similar: monitor creators, save stories, record lives, download files, get Discord alerts. The difference that actually decides which one you want is where the archive lives and who can see it.

Permaloop is a public library. A video you save is stored on Permaloop's servers and, unless you are on a paid plan with private saves, joins a shared archive anyone can search. The upside is real: if a creator deletes a video or gets banned, and anyone at all saved it to Permaloop first, it is still there for everyone. That is the only way to watch a TikTok that vanished before you ever heard of it, and no local tool can offer it.

StreamStash is a private library. Your library never leaves your machine. The list of creators you follow, the videos you have kept and the lives you have recorded are not on a website with a search box. The downside is equally real: if you did not save it, StreamStash cannot get it back for you.

Ask yourself which failure you would rather live with. If it is "I wanted to find a deleted video I never saved", Permaloop. If it is "I would rather not have my watch list on a public site", StreamStash.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Live Recording, Honestly

Both tools record TikTok Lives from monitored creators, and both will occasionally miss the first minute because detection is polled, not pushed. The differences are in what is kept.

A TikTok Live is more than the camera feed. Gift alerts, the big animations, hearts and the battle score bar are drawn on the viewer's screen by the app and are not part of the video stream, so a plain recording keeps the creator and loses everything the audience was reacting to. StreamStash captures those events while the stream is live and draws them back over the recording in time, ranks the top gifters, estimates what the stream earned, and can export a copy with all of it burned in. It also scores the chat and gift activity afterwards and cuts the busiest moments into clips automatically. Permaloop stores the video.

One marketing point worth deflating: Permaloop advertises livestream recording "up to 4K when the source provides it". TikTok does not serve 4K lives. The best you will see from either tool is the 720p or 1080p stream the creator's setup produces, because that is what TikTok sends. Anyone promising more is describing the container, not the picture.

If the reason you are looking at a hosted tool is that your PC is not on when creators go live, that is a fair reason and StreamStash's desktop app cannot help with it. StreamStash Cloud exists for exactly that case: it records from hosted servers and keeps the files for 30 days for you to pull down into your local library, privately, from £8 a month. See the options for recording without your PC on.

Which Archive Is More Permanent

Permaloop's name is a promise about permanence, so it is fair to ask what that rests on. A public archive that rehosts full videos, with creator and sound pages indexed by search engines and a takedown form, is a single point of failure in a way a folder on your drive is not. Payment processors, hosting providers and TikTok's own legal team all have opinions about public rehosting, and tik.fail, the site Permaloop positions itself as replacing, is the reason that positioning exists. The FAQ already lists "why do some saved videos no longer play?" as a question.

None of that means Permaloop will disappear. It means the permanence is theirs to maintain, and your access to your saved videos depends on the site, its plan limits and its terms staying as they are. A file in your library is yours in the plain sense: back it up, move it, keep it for twenty years, and nobody can revoke it.

That is the trade in one sentence. Permaloop can give you a video you never saved, as long as it exists. StreamStash can only give you what you saved, forever.

Pricing

Permaloop is free with ads, ten monitored creators, and stories and lives for three creators each. Pro is $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year for 100 creators per type, no ads, private saves and priority processing. Max is $19.99 a month or $119.99 a year for up to 1,000 creators per type. Livestream replays are kept for 14 days on the free plan, 90 days on Pro, and for as long as a Max subscription stays active (prices checked October 2026).

StreamStash Free has no ads, no expiry, five feeds and two live monitors across TikTok, YouTube, Twitter/X and Twitch, with stories included. Personal is £20 one-time for fifteen feeds, five monitors, Instagram, Threads, Telegram and Kick, and Discord webhooks. Power is £40 one-time for unlimited everything, every platform, live chat and gifts, auto-clipping, AI search and deduplication. Lifetime updates on both.

Over a year, Permaloop Max is about $240 billed monthly or $120 billed yearly; StreamStash Power is £40 once. Over three years the gap is roughly £270 to £550 against £40. If your archive is a hobby you expect to keep, the subscription is the expensive option by a wide margin. If you only want it for a month, Permaloop's free tier costs nothing and needs no install.

When Permaloop Is the Right Choice

• You want to watch a TikTok that has already been deleted and hope someone saved it.
• You want a shareable, permanent public link to a saved video.
• You are on a phone, a Mac, Linux or a Chromebook and will not install a Windows app.
• You cannot keep a PC on and do not want to pay for a hosted recorder.
• You only care about TikTok and only about public content.
• You actively want your saves to help a community archive.

When StreamStash Is the Right Choice

• You do not want the creators you follow, or what you have saved, on a public website with a search box.
• You archive from more than TikTok: Instagram, X, YouTube, Twitch, Kick, Telegram, Reddit, Snapchat, forums or Discord.
• You want lives recorded with the chat, gifts and battle scores, not just the camera.
• You need content behind a login: age-restricted lives, your own bookmarks and likes, encrypted chats.
• You want files you control: your naming, your drives, your backups, no plan limits and no monthly bill.
• You expect to still want this archive in five years.

Plenty of people will sensibly use both: Permaloop as a place to look when something is already gone, StreamStash to make sure the creators they care about never are. The two do not compete for the same job so much as sit either side of the moment a video disappears.

FAQ

Is StreamStash a Permaloop alternative?

For the monitoring, story and live-recording use cases, yes, and for TikTok posts it covers the same ground. It is not an alternative for the one thing only Permaloop does: letting you watch a TikTok that a stranger saved before it was deleted. StreamStash has no public archive by design, so there is nothing to browse unless you saved it.

Is Permaloop private?

Videos saved to Permaloop go into a shared archive that anyone can search, by design. Paid plans add private saves, but the default is public. StreamStash is private by default and has no public mode; files stay on your machine.

Does Permaloop support Instagram, X or YouTube?

No. Permaloop is TikTok-only. StreamStash covers TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, Kick, Instagram, Threads, Twitter/X, Telegram, Reddit, Snapchat, forums, web media and Discord archives in one library.

Which one records TikTok Lives better?

Both record lives from monitored creators. StreamStash also captures the chat, gift and battle events on Power and draws them back over the recording, auto-clips highlights, and records Twitch and Kick with the same monitor list. Permaloop advertises up to 4K; TikTok does not serve 4K lives, so treat that as the ceiling on the container, not the stream.

Which is cheaper?

Permaloop is free with ads and caps, then $9.99 or $19.99 a month. StreamStash Free is free with no ads and no expiry, and Personal (£20) and Power (£40) are one-time payments. Over a year, StreamStash Power costs less than three months of Permaloop Max.

Can I use both?

Yes, and some people should. Permaloop to search for something that is already gone; StreamStash to make sure the creators you care about never are.