OBS Studio vs ScreenPal Comparison 2026
Both cover screen recording. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Free and open source streaming and recording
Screen recording and hosting at four dollars
At a glance
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
OBS Studio | ScreenPal | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $4 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing (they differ) | One-time purchase | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | None | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | Not stated |
| Runs on (they differ) | macOS, Windows, Linux |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
OBS Studio
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
- Covers live streaming
- Works with YouTube
- Works with Facebook
- Works with Twitch
- Works with Kick
ScreenPal
Screen recording and hosting at four dollars
ScreenPal records the screen, edits what it recorded and hosts the result on a page you can send to somebody, which is three products most tools split up. The editor handles the things a tutorial actually needs, captions and callouts and cutting the dead air, without turning into a timeline that has to be learned. It was Screencast-O-Matic for years and the price has stayed in the same place. Anybody wanting cinema-grade output is in the wrong shop.
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.