Skip to content
Kuaishou Video Downloader
Kuaishou & Kwai explained

Kuaishou vs Kwai: Same Company, Two Very Different Apps

Kuaishou and Kwai share an owner but not their videos, accounts or links. How the apps relate, where Snack Video fits, and what it means for downloads.

Ishtiaq Turi Former Trust & Safety and data quality specialist at Kuaishou Technology
Published 3 min read

Already have a link? Paste it into the downloader and skip ahead.

Open the downloader

Kuaishou (快手) and Kwai are short-video apps from the same company, Kuaishou Technology. Kuaishou is the app for mainland China. Kwai is the company’s app for people outside China, published on Apple’s App Store by JOYO TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD. They’re separate apps with separate accounts, separate videos and separate links. A video on one doesn’t show up on the other.

I worked at Kuaishou Technology in Trust & Safety before building this site. Here’s how the two apps fit together, with a source for each fact.

The short history

  • 2011: The company starts as GIF Kuaishou, an app for making animated GIFs. Its co-founders are Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao.
  • 2013: It turns into a short-video platform. “Kuaishou” roughly means “quick hand”.
  • 2016: It adds live streaming, which later becomes a big part of the business alongside e-commerce.
  • Late 2010s: The company takes its app abroad, mostly as Kwai. In India, Pakistan and Indonesia, it used the name Snack Video.
  • 2020: Kwai is among the Chinese apps banned in India.
  • February 2021: Kuaishou Technology lists on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

You still see the GIF-era name in links. Kuaishou’s mobile share pages live on domains like gifshow.com and chenzhongtech.com.

Side by side

KuaishouKwai
Who it’s forMainland ChinaUsers outside China
App languageChineseMany languages, depending on the country
Websitekuaishou.comkwai.com
Typical share linkv.kuaishou.com/...k.kwai.com/p/...
Videos and accountsIts ownIts own

Isn’t this just Douyin and TikTok again?

It’s a fair comparison. ByteDance also runs two apps: Douyin for China and TikTok for everywhere else. Kuaishou Technology did the same with Kuaishou and Kwai. In China, Kuaishou has long been known for everyday creators, smaller cities and live-stream selling, while Douyin is seen as more polished and trend-led. Treat those as reputations, not rules. Both apps have changed a lot.

What this means when you save a video

Use the link from the app you found the video in. A Kuaishou link won’t open a Kwai video, and a Kwai link won’t open a Kuaishou one. The downloader takes both, and it works out which one you pasted.

You’ll get different files. I tested both in October 2026:

KuaishouKwai
VideoMP4 (H.264), sometimes plus a smaller H.265 MP4One MP4 (H.264)
Resolution in my tests720 x 1280720 x 1280 or 576 x 1024
Cover imageYes, usually JPGYes, usually WebP
Separate soundtrackYes, as M4A, when the post lists itNo

Errors look different too. When Kuaishou won’t show a video, it usually says why, for example that the video is private or under review. Kwai shows logged-out visitors its general home page instead, so a deleted, private or region-blocked Kwai video all come back as “not found”. The troubleshooting guide covers both.

Snack Video links don’t work yet. The downloader accepts Kuaishou and Kwai links only.

Which guide do you need?

If your app’s menus are in Chinese, you’re on Kuaishou. Follow how to download Kuaishou videos. Otherwise it’s Kwai, and how to download Kwai videos is the one for you. Link formats shows every link type for both.

Sources