OBS Studio vs. YouTube Live

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
OBS Studio
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
OBS Studio is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming, featuring real time video/audio capturing and mixing. Users can create scenes made up of multiple sources including window captures, images, text, browser windows, webcams, and capture cards.N/A
YouTube Live
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
YouTube Live is the platform's livestreaming service.N/A
Pricing
OBS StudioYouTube Live
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
OBS StudioYouTube Live
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
OBS StudioYouTube Live
Best Alternatives
OBS StudioYouTube Live
Small Businesses
Zoom Events & Webinars
Zoom Events & Webinars
Score 8.5 out of 10
OBS Studio
OBS Studio
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Zoom Events & Webinars
Zoom Events & Webinars
Score 8.5 out of 10
Zoom Events & Webinars
Zoom Events & Webinars
Score 8.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Zoom Events & Webinars
Zoom Events & Webinars
Score 8.5 out of 10
Zoom Events & Webinars
Zoom Events & Webinars
Score 8.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
OBS StudioYouTube Live
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.9
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
OBS StudioYouTube Live
Likelihood to Recommend
From simple streaming to bigger events, OBS has been able to handle all of it with full confidence from us. Have never questioned if it was going to be unreliable in a specific situation, even with minimal training. Software identified the external input source easily and had no issues setting that up (Blackmagic Mini Recorder), and great for pulling in separate audio from the computer input.
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If you have a preexisting community somewhere (a newsletter for example) and you want to interact with them, YouTube Live is a great tool to do that. In my experience, a Live is great to make announcement, discuss topic or even make interviews if you integrate it with Zoom.
I guess it's not as useful if you haven't build a community yet, since people are not going to show up on your live if they don't know that you exist.
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Pros
  • Free software for live telecast
  • Open source project for video recording
  • Powerful video recording
  • Written in C and C++
  • Totally virus free and free download
  • Collaborates with Facebook live and YouTube live streaming.
  • Computer screen recording
  • A hub for collectting source and broadcast
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  • Since Covid I tend to watch church live
  • I follow [...] and she has two channels. One for random, on the spot and her second channel for recordings.
  • Some supermarkets do live advertising or clothing shops I've seen/watched
  • music is my every day live at work
  • international news. YouTube is my only paid service.
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Cons
  • OBS can be a little clunky sometimes, the lots of features can be a bit overwhelming
  • I can multitask with it, but can't run heavy software like Premiere alongside it
  • No way to make adjustments to file after it's done, have to use After Effects or Premiere for that
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  • It could have options of studio like a oneline platform of restream of fb live to help make multi people connect, tickers etc
  • There should be options of virtual backdrops and faceless live streams with other videos or images via mobile
  • It could make resharing content a little easier to more platforms and also improve the auto edits into bite sized content
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Usability
Very usable because it is free and has had a lot of people helping to suggest improvements and sponsors have allowed the product to grow in sophistication and suitability across a variety of situations and use needs. It is very logical to use once you get started, although the dashboard can seem intimidating at first.
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It provides a lot of tools, but in order to be a 10 it should be a little bit more "visually friendly". Also it contains so many options all at once that it can be overwhelming. Other than that, it's a great software for your business/personal project.
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Support Rating
For a free product, a range of support is available. There are plenty of ways to find out answers to questions, because there are probably thousands of people using the product who are willing to share what they have learned. It usually works as designed, so needs for support are limited.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
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YouTube Live Is more cost effective it is more widely seen easily available and better while I have used Facebook Live, Linkedin Live, instagram live YouTube Live is more easier. to use, but combined with a multi streaming platform the net effect is excellent and you can actually stream to all the platforms together at the same time
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Return on Investment
  • It was great to have a platform that is free that I can experiment with without having to use our business capital on.
  • It took time to learn, but it helped me understand a lot of things, so it was a great learning experience.
  • It was a great balance of cost and time with the high-quality product we got from it.
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  • Not much way for brands to be personal
  • not a great way to get noticed or get traction without other platform
  • No Channel points for getting viewer retention
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ScreenShots