Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover screen recording. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Bandicam | OBS Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $33.26 | Free |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Not stated | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | None | None |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | macOS, Windows | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Covers | Screen Recording | Screen Recording, Live Streaming |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | YouTube, Twitch |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
A recorder sold as a licence
Bandicam records the screen, a game at high frame rates or an external capture device, and it is one of the few recorders still sold outright rather than rented. The free download records with a watermark and a time limit on each clip. A licence removes both, and the perpetual one keeps working on the version it was bought for.
Our note
OBS Studio does most of this for nothing and is the better default. Bandicam earns its money on the game-capture path, and for anybody who would rather buy software once than subscribe to it.
Free and open source streaming and recording
OBS is what most of the streams you watch are running, and it costs nothing because it is a volunteer project rather than a business with a free tier. Scenes, sources, filters and a real audio mixer are all there, along with plugin support. Nothing about it is friendly on the first evening, and the settings that decide whether your stream looks good are the ones with no explanation next to them.
Our note
Every paid streaming tool in this catalog is, in part, selling you an escape from OBS's settings panel. That is a real thing to buy if your time is worth more than the evening. If it is not, OBS does everything they do and costs nothing.
Only on this side
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.