Top 10 Free OBS Alternatives for Recording and Streaming

If you're a gamer who likes to stream the perfect gameplay or a teacher with many video lectures, you may know the OBS Studio. This free and open-source program is used for video recording and live streaming. The software is widely used for Twitch, Mixer, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Live streamers.

However, it is a little complicated for beginners to use with a complex user interface. Fortunately, there are lots of OBS alternatives you can count on. This post shows you a list of the top 10 best free alternatives to OBS Studio. Keep on reading to find your desired program similar to OBS.

Top 1. EaseUS RecExperts ^[HOT]

Compatibility: Windows and macOS

With a simple and intuitive user interface, EaseUS RecExperts is an easy-to-use and free OBS alternative. Like OBS, this software allows you to capture your screen flexibly, including full screen, a part of the screen, etc. Also, it is an excellent audio recorder that supports capturing system sound or microphones in simple clicks.

Better than OBS, this screen recording software also provides a trimmer, which means you can easily modify your recorded files within this screen recording software.

Top 2. Atomi Active Presenter 6

Compatibility: Windows and macOS

It's a full-scale screen recording and tutorial creating software like OBS. The software is designed mainly for e-learning and course creation, but anyone can use it for screen recording and similar purposes with its features.

Once the recording is done, you can blur, speed up, or cut your recordings with the built-in tools. Finally, this alternative to OBS allows exporting recorded files in various formats, including MP4, FLAV, MKV, etc.

Pros:

• Record videos of unlimited length
• Edit videos with cut, speed up/down, blur, and volume adjustment
• Full annotation capabilities Export to MP4, FLV, WebM, AVI, WMV, and MKV formats

Cons:

• Export to HTML5 is available only in the professional edition
• Upload recordings to YouTube or other video hosting sites

How to Record Screen with OBS

If you are a novice, it will be a great challenge for you to use OBS Studio to record screen. So, given that, we offer you a detailed tutorial to record your screen with OBS in this useful post.

Top 3. Screencast-O-Matic

Compatibility: macOS

Another OBS alternative for Mac is Screencast-O-Matic. With its help, you can capture any area of your screen with the option to add narration from your microphone and video from your webcam. While recording, you are able to enhance your video by adding text, shapes, and images. Moreover, this software also allows you to create fun animations and fluid transitions with ease.

Pros:

• Free to use and user-friendly
• One-click uploading to YouTube, Google Drive, Dropbox
• A built-in speech-to-text feature
• A great Chrome extension that is easy to use

Cons:

• Videos are watermarked
• Only the paid premium versions include editing tools

Top 4. IceCream Screen Recorder

Compatibility: Windows, macOS, and Android

This feature-rich screen recorder alternative to OBS Studio helps you capture video and screenshots. You can record the screen, system audio, and microphone. You can also overlay your webcam on the screen while recording it.

A useful feature for tutorial clip creators is drawing on the screen while recording. You can draw different shapes, arrows, or even erase a created shape.

Pros:

• The free version supports decent features, but records in 25 fps
• Multiple annotation options
• Available for both Windows and Mac
• Follow mouse feature allows you to capture a small resolution video on a large display

Cons:

• Export only to WebM format or YouTube in the free version
• No editing capabilities
• No commercial use of videos in the free version

Top 5. Loom

Compatibility: macOS, Windows, and Chromebooks

It is a simple and easy-to-use OBS alternative for Chromebook and Mac. This software allows you to choose different recording styles depending on whether you want your voice, your face, or both.

Moreover, this OBS alternative stores your videos on the online portal, protecting you against crashes. You can share your videos directly through their portal. The support team is friendly and quickly responsive. There is a Beta version of Loom for Teams, and you can bring the whole team together, recording and collaborating in a shared workspace.

Pros:

• Allow you to save video data with large size out of disk
• The dashboard contains the necessary tools to manage the videos
• The keyboard during recording videos is practical, and you can use letters as shortcuts

Cons:

• Few editing options within the user console
• There is no option of deleting videos

Top 6. Xsplit Broadcaster and Gamecaster

Compatibility: Windows

Xsplit supports two different software - Broadcaster and Gamecaster. Broadcaster tool is a screen recording program similar to OBS, so you can customize your desktop screen with overlays and add different audio and video sources (including sound cards).

And Xsplit Gamecaster is streaming software like OBS, which allows you to start live streaming or recording. You can adjust all of the necessary encoding settings. The interface (in-game stream control HUD) allows you to work directly inside your favorite game, so you can start and stop your broadcast and interact with chat.

Pros:

• Hundreds of fully customizable themes to choose from
• Powerful and easy to use intuitive editor
• Allow you to see all your stream events for new followers and subscribers
• Store all of your themes in the cloud

Cons:

• Put a watermark on higher resolution files

Top 7. Streamlabs OBS

Compatibility: Windows

Another OBS alternative for Windows is Streamlabs OBS. This free and quick video recorder provides an easy platform for new streamers. It has a lot of integrated features, including a huge number of free themes.

The users with accounts for Streamlabs can import many tools directly from the company's website. Moreover, this OBS Studio alternative recognizes your supporters live on stream with fully customizable alerts. It supports dynamic in-game overlay for single monitors, so you can see events and chat on one screen.

Pros:

• Free to use streaming software
• Save resources and settings on the cloud

Cons

• Fewer encoding options than OBS Studio
• Currently in beta, so you might face some issues

Top 8. Lightstream

Compatibility: web-based, Windows and macOS

Lightstream is a simple, web-based broadcast studio powered by the cloud. It's a good starting point for new gamers.

Using this online OBS alternative, you can stream what you are passionate about and easily invite guests onto your stream. Besides that, this program supports many features like third-party integrations, images, video clips, and many more.

Pros:

• Full creative control over user stream
• Access by any browser on a modern desktop or laptop
• Easily invite remote guests onto your stream
• Remote control of your stream by a mobile browser

Cons:

• Lightstream changed the policy and now offers a week's free trial
• Most of the streams are 720p

Top 9. OBS.Live

Compatibility: Windows

Stream Elements created an add-on to the application OBS. It's easy to set up and versatile. You have to download, install, and use Streamelements' web page to create your scenes.

OBS.Live loads of ready-made scenes for you at the click of a button. Practically OBS.Live can do the same thing, but it has fewer bugs, and there is no latency issue.

Pros:

• Contains all StreamElements info in one place
• Library of free overlays and SuperThemes for specific games
• No bugs latency/connection issues

Cons:

• Sometimes a widget may not appear
• Not as many advanced bonus features as Streamlabs OBS

Top 10. Prism Live Studio

Compatibility: Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android

Prism Live Studio is a program like OBS. You can use it to stream on many platforms like Youtube, Twitch, Periscope simultaneously. You can add photos, videos, gameplay screens, and text to your broadcast.

Additionally, it allows adding AR masks, graphic effects, and media files to your streams and videos. The latest update v2.1.2 provides many easy-to-use features, including improved performance of Beauty Effects, 4K monitors, and many more.

Pros:

• Run on multiple platforms (Windows /macOS, and iOS/ Android)
• Stay camera ready with facial effects, powered by automatic face recognition technology
• Enjoy real-time communication with the audience
• Add some background music

Cons:

• No ability to stream 60 fps, as most games have 60 fps
• It put watermarks on the video
• The last update works unstable

Conclusion

OBS Studio is a popular application among gamers, professional trainers, and online streamers. There is many OBS alternative software, and this guide gives some advice for 10 of the most appropriate free software like OBS. Some of them are running only under Windows or macOS, and others can be used on PCs and mobile devices.

Among them, EaseUS RecExperts is the best alternative to OBS Studio, as it records a full screen and a webcam at the same time. Moreover, it supports many video and audio formats so that you can get the files you need directly without converting.