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OBS Studio
The streaming and screen-recording standard — scenes, sources, plugins, used by everyone from beginners to Twitch's biggest channels.
Free open-source broadcaster: live streaming and screen recording with scenes, capture sources and endless plugins.
- Pricing
- 100% free and open source
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- Category
- Streaming & Analytics
- Last reviewed
- September 21, 2026
What is OBS Studio?
OBS Studio is the free, open-source broadcaster that runs most of the live internet: Twitch streams, YouTube lives, church services, esports events and the screen recordings behind thousands of tutorials. Its model is scenes and sources — a scene is a layout (gameplay + facecam + alerts), sources are the pieces (window capture, display capture, camera, browser widget, image), and you switch between scenes instantly. Everything is customizable to a degree paid software rarely matches.
The plugin ecosystem extends it indefinitely: advanced scene switchers, virtual background removal, NDI network sources, stream decks integration, and recording features like replay buffer (save the last 60 seconds after something epic happens). It records locally in high quality with your choice of encoder, which makes it a free Camtasia for tutorial creators even if they never stream.
Setup intimidates beginners — bitrate, encoder and canvas settings need one good tutorial to configure properly, after which it runs silently forever. There is no paid version, no watermark, no account: OBS is funded by donations and used by professionals precisely because it has nothing to sell you.
Key features
- Unlimited scenes and sources with instant switching
- Game, window, display and camera capture
- Live streaming to Twitch/YouTube/Kick and custom RTMP
- High-quality local recording with replay buffer
- Huge plugin ecosystem (alerts, effects, automation)
- Virtual camera output for calls and other apps
Free plan & limits
Completely free and open source (GPL). No paid tier, watermark or account. If a site sells "OBS Pro", it is not affiliated with the real project.
Who is it best for?
Anyone streaming or recording their screen — from first-time live broadcast to professional production setups.
Frequently asked questions
Is OBS really free? What's the catch?
No catch — it is a non-profit open-source project funded by donations. Beware scam sites selling "OBS Pro"; the only official source is obsproject.com.
Can my computer run it?
Most modern machines handle 1080p streaming/recording fine. For weak hardware, use the x264 veryfast preset or hardware encoders (NVENC/AMF/QuickSync) at 720p.
OBS or Streamlabs?
Streamlabs bundles alerts/themes over an OBS-derived core with more hand-holding and more upsells. Plain OBS with a few plugins is lighter, faster and fully free — most streamers graduate to it.