Growing an audience
Running the business
Both cover live streaming. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| OBS Studio | vMix | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | From $60 |
| Pricing model | Free | One-time purchase |
| Free tier | Yes | No |
| Billing | One-time purchase | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | None | 60 days |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | macOS, Windows, Linux | Windows |
| Covers | Screen Recording, Live Streaming | Live Streaming, Video Editing |
| Works with | YouTube, Twitch | YouTube, Twitch, Facebook |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
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.
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Windows live production with a licence you keep
vMix is the production switcher people buy when they want mixing, replay, titles and multiple camera inputs on one Windows machine and do not want to rent it. The lifetime licences go from a starter tier to a 4K one, and the difference between them is input count, resolution and the extras a sports crew needs. There is a monthly subscription for people who work in bursts, and a sixty-day trial that is long enough to run a whole season through.
Our note
The lifetime licence is unusual enough in live production to be the reason to choose it, and the sixty-day trial is unusually generous too. It is Windows only, so for anyone on a Mac the real comparison is OBS Studio, Ecamm Live or Wirecast rather than this.
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.
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