Four apps come up whenever someone asks how to get a video from a web page onto a TV from an iPhone: iWebTV, Web Video Cast, TV Cast and Tubio. They all take the same route — a browser that finds the video stream behind the page and hands it to the television, so the TV fetches it itself instead of showing a mirrored copy of the phone. Why that route beats mirroring is covered in how to watch a web video on your TV without screen mirroring.
Where they differ is which televisions they reach, how they charge, and what they collect. Everything below was read from each app’s US App Store page on 1 October 2026; prices and in-app purchases change, so check the listing before you buy.
The four at a glance
| iWebTV | Web Video Cast | TV Cast for Chromecast | Tubio | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | Swishly | InstantBits | Kraus und Karnath | AutoExpert International |
| Ratings (US) | 176,571, average 4.8 | 71,198, average 4.8 | 39,982, average 4.0 | 1,936, average 3.9 |
| On the store since | 2015 | 2018 | 2014 | 2015 |
| Google Cast / Chromecast | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apple TV | Yes | Yes (Apple TV 4) | No — a separate app | Yes |
| Roku, Fire TV | Yes | Yes | No — separate apps | Yes |
| DLNA smart TVs | Samsung 2018+ and others | Yes | No — separate apps | Yes |
| Free version | Banner ads | Ads | Ads | Ads |
| Paid | $6.99 lifetime, or $0.99 a month / $9.99 a year, plus single features | $3.99 or $6.99 | Mostly $9.99 per feature | $4.99 |
| “Data used to track you” | None listed | Usage data | Location, identifiers, usage data | Location, usage data |
| Needs | iOS 16.6 | iOS 17.6 | iOS 12 | iOS 13 |
iWebTV
The oldest and the most rated of the four, and the most complete browser: tabs, a pop-up and ad blocker, a subtitle search, a queue, live streams. It reaches the widest spread of televisions on this list — Chromecast, Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Samsung sets from 2018 and several other smart TV brands.
The catch is the price list. Alongside the PRO upgrade ($6.99 lifetime) and PRO+ ($0.99 a month or $9.99 a year), the store page lists separate one-off purchases: $5.99 to remove the banner, and $3.99 each for HD auto-select, desktop mode, HD preview and skipping video ads. Its paid cloud proxy is for streams that refuse to play directly on the TV. Its privacy label lists browsing history among the data collected, though not linked to you.
Web Video Cast
The broadest device list: Google Cast, Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV 4, DLNA televisions from Samsung and LG, Xbox and PlayStation 4, plus a website that turns any smart TV’s own browser into a receiver. The description names HLS and live streams directly.
It is the simplest to pay for — one Premium purchase, listed at $3.99 and $6.99 — but the free version carries ads, and bookmarks, most-visited sites and a custom home page are Premium features. Its privacy label lists usage data as used to track you.
TV Cast
Kraus und Karnath publish TV Cast as a family of apps, one per kind of television: the Chromecast one here, others for Roku, Fire TV, Samsung, LG and more. That makes each app simple, and it means you buy again if you change TVs.
The Chromecast app is free with ads and sells its features one at a time, most at $9.99 each: Premium, the remote playbar, bookmarks, subtitles, desktop mode, a custom home page, local videos, the ad blocker. One review on the store page complains that pause, rewind and fast-forward moved behind a purchase. There is also a paid-up-front TV Cast Pro for Chromecast at $9.99, with 8,124 ratings averaging 4.3. Its privacy label lists location, identifiers and usage data as used to track you, the longest list of the four.
Tubio
The smallest of the four by ratings, with the widest protocol list on paper — DLNA televisions, Xbox, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku and Fire TV — and one $4.99 Premium purchase that removes ads and adds HD playback where the source has it.
Its reviews are the weakest here: freezing, Roku TVs that stop being found after the first connection, and live streams that loop over the same few seconds. Its privacy label lists location and usage data as used to track you.
Which to pick
- You have a Roku, a Fire TV, or a DLNA TV with no Cast or AirPlay: Web Video Cast or iWebTV. Those are the two with both the device list and the track record.
- You want one purchase and done: Web Video Cast’s Premium, or Tubio’s if its reviews do not put you off. Read iWebTV’s and TV Cast’s price lists before you start, because the features are sold separately.
- You care what the app collects: read the privacy labels in the table. They range from nothing used to track you (iWebTV) to location and identifiers (TV Cast).
- Your TV is a Chromecast or Google TV: all four reach it.
Whichever you try, test it with the page you actually want to watch. All four fail on the same things — DRM-protected streams, players that build the video inside the page, and phones and TVs on different networks — because those are limits of the video and the network, not of the app. For the Chromecast case specifically, see how to cast a web video to Chromecast from an iPhone.
Where VidBeam fits
VidBeam is my own app in this category, released on 30 September 2026, so it has no ratings yet and is not in the table. It does less than the four above on purpose: it reaches AirPlay and Google Cast televisions only, in one list, so you do not need to know which one your TV speaks — no Roku, Fire TV or DLNA. iPhone only.
What it puts its effort into is the long watch. The phone keeps playing with the screen locked, with controls on the Lock Screen; closing the page or opening another one does not stop the TV; if a stream’s link expires mid-match it fetches a fresh one; and if it picked the wrong video on the page, the others are one tap away. There is no account to create. It is on the App Store.