obs-studio
by obsproject
OBS Studio is a free and open-source software for live streaming and screen recording, allowing users to capture, composite, encode, record, and stream video content.
Ready to useEstablished, openly licensed, and no red flags in its documentation.
- Stars
- 78.3k
- Licence
- GPL-2.0
- Runs on
- Your computer
- Setup
- Moderate
- Language
- C
- Age
- 4773 days
What you can do with it
- Stream video content to platforms like Twitch and YouTube
- Record gameplay and screen activities
- Composite multiple video sources into a single stream
Could replace
- XSplit
Our suggestion based on what it does, not a feature-by-feature comparison.
Ways a business could use it
- Reduce costs associated with paid streaming software
- Improve the quality of live streams and recorded content
Can you use it commercially?
Free to use. Anything you distribute that includes it must be open-sourced under the same licence.
Not legal advice. Read the project's licence file before building a product on it.
Getting it running
Install via package manager or from source
Follow the official instructions in the project README.
Who's talking about it
- OBS Studio 33 Hacker News, 473 points
Checked 26 Oct 2026. Summary drafted by AI from the project's README.
