OBS VS Streamlabs comparison

This post will be useful for those who want to stream live but do not know which software to choose for this.

Our review compares Streamlabs and OBS, two popular programs.

What you need to know at the start

Take some time to learn the basics about the streaming software you'll use to stream online video live.

The main function is video mixing. With it, you can do seven things that will be enough to make your first broadcasts enjoyable to watch.

You can change the camera, watch a pre-recorded video, select the audio source, add images, share the screen, and even use green screen effects.

OBS Studio

Advantages and disadvantages of OBS

Free and open source, this software has been around for quite a while and remains popular today. As an added benefit, Open Broadcaster Software does not overload the central processor, and even a person with no video experience can understand its interface.

With OBS you can stream live on Youtube or Twitch, or use it as an input source for more complex streaming workflows with more Callaba Cloud.

You can read about how to do this in our tutorial “How to start streaming in OBS Studio over the SRT Protocol”.

OBS lets you choose the platform for broadcasting in the settings. You can also record videos with it.

Pros:

With OBS being open source, you can add plugins and add-ons to extend its capabilities. For more information on this topic, read the forums. There you will learn how to stream to multiple platforms, separate music, games, Discord into separate audio tracks, or, for example, learn how to show replays of cool moments live.
OBS has minimal CPU usage. The minimum technical requirements for OBS are Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB RAM.
If you have several monitors, you can record from any one (by the way, not every program can handle this). You can add different video capture sources in parallel, such as desktop and webcam.
You can easily connect donations, you can choose an encoder, as well as stream from consoles through a capture card.
There is support for 40 languages.

Basic settings

Once the program has been downloaded and installed, open it. You will see a huge black square and three windows at the bottom. On the left there is a “Scenes” window for creating various scenes. For example, you may need a game scene, a “stream will start soon” scene, a be-right-back scene for the moment when you need to grab some tea or use the restroom.

In the center there’s a Source panel, which contains the sources that belong to the current scene.

On the right is a sound device where you can monitor how well you are being heard.

In the settings, you can also select speakers, a microphone and, for convenience, hot keys. The most important ones to start with are “start streaming” and “start recording”.

Everything is set up simply: inside one scene, you press “+” and create different types of sources.

In the Mixer device, you can adjust the volume.

Minuses:

You will not be able to change the bitrate during the stream, on the fly.
If there are problems during the broadcast, you will have to stop the stream in order to solve them.
No audio files as sources

Streamlabs

Advantages and disadvantages of Streamlabs

Here's your option if you don't care about setting up.

The three main advantages of this software are easy setup, the ability to test changes, alerts and built-in chat. This is an “out of the box” solution.

Simply install the program and widgets, and you can start streaming immediately.

Overlays are a paid feature.

You can read about how to make an overlay for free and quickly in our post “How to add streaming overlays easily and for free”.

Basic settings

Link your streaming account,
Run the optimizer,
Add your streaming key.

That’s all.

What makes Streamlabs so unpopular?

Generally, the main complaint is that they copy other people's features without changing the concept.

Second, the work is not as stable as, for example, OBS.

Another complaint is the non-obvious selection of notifications. While in OBS you can put them in an open window, in Streamlabs they are displayed at the bottom while you are streaming and they are accompanied by a sound notification, but this is not always visible. especially if you're streaming from two OBS.

For example, in a situation where you stream horizontally on Trovo and vertically on Tik Tok.

Another disadvantage is that you will need a powerful computer to run this software.