Best yet free - OBS Studio
January 22, 2025

Best yet free - OBS Studio

Mantra Manan Saraswat | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with OBS Studio

We have a video conferencing and live streaming product. The live streaming product is built on HLS but it can take can RTMP-in feed as well as output RTMP if needed to external providers. We, as well as a lot of our customers, use OBS Studio for sending the RTMP feed to our live streaming product. This is primarily because OBS Studio is a lot more extensible and has support for multiple devices, mics, cameras as well as combining of different feeds.

Pros

  • RTMP Streaming with customizable bitrate
  • Scene Composition and Switching + source control which allows for creators and our customers to move between different types of content they might have (different video feeds, slides etc)
  • Audio mixer and audio control - noise gating, a/v syncing, audio source control

Cons

  • Guide on using the software since it has a steep learning curve
  • Mobile App or Remote Control - Some customers have asked if they could control parts of their stream using their mobile phones, especially source switching
  • OBS doesn’t offer native cloud syncing for configurations, scenes, or settings.
  • Our revenue from streaming increased 5x as soon as we started supporting RTMP Ingestion since OBS studio is one of the most widely used software.
Not easy to get started with since the UI looks old. There is a steep learning curve but lots of youtube tutorials exist out there. Additionally, lots of people can work on it if you're willing to outsource this job. Best part is it is completely free and extremely powerful.
Only one reason which is that OBS studio is free and open source and we had team members capable of using it effectively. Other softwares have great prebuilt features which make it super easy to go live for small streams and individual streamers.

Do you think OBS Studio delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with OBS Studio's feature set?

Yes

Did OBS Studio live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of OBS Studio go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy OBS Studio again?

Yes

It is well suited for organization of any size as long as they are willing to spend some time with it. Some individuals might have difficulty configuring it if they aren't very much tech aware, but there are ample youtube guides to get people started with doing the basic streaming. Working with the scene, source and audio composition won't be as straightforward though. Some online solutions like StreamYard might do the job for individuals or teams which are not willing to get their hands dirty and are willing to pay for it. One of the best parts is lots of plugins exist out there already, and this is completely free and open source.

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