Camtasia vs. OBS Studio

Camtasia

Camtasia

405 Reviews and Ratings

OBS Studio

OBS Studio

42 Reviews and Ratings

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Camtasia	Score 8.8 out of 10	N/A	Camtasia is a video editor and screen recorder. Camtasia offers a range of plans designed to meet varying video creation needs, and enables users to produce professional-looking videos. Its features include Camtasia Rev, script generation, text-to-speech, translations, and avatar videos, to streamline the video creation process. The editions available are Free, Essentials, Create, or the Pro plan.	$198 per year per seat
OBS Studio	Score 8.9 out of 10	N/A	OBS Studio is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming, featuring real time video/audio capturing and mixing. Users can create scenes made up of multiple sources including window captures, images, text, browser windows, webcams, and capture cards.	N/A

Pricing

Camtasia

OBS Studio

Editions & Modules

Camtasia Business: $198
per year per seat

No answers on this topic

Offerings

Pricing Offerings
Camtasia	OBS Studio
Free Trial
Yes	No
Free/Freemium Version
Yes	Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

Entry-level Setup Fee

No setup fee

No setup fee

Additional Details

*Discounts available for purchases supporting a large volume of users.

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More Pricing Information

Community Pulse
	Camtasia	OBS Studio
Considered Both Products	Camtasia Verified User Anonymous Chose Camtasia Personally find that Camtasia has better video editing tools than those available in the above competition. That being said the other software I have used has been mainly focused on other areas; their video editing tool is more of an afterthought and isn't as easy to use as … Incentivized Helpful? RL Robin Larrabee People Development and Experience Manager Chose Camtasia Camtasia is much more robust than iMovie. You can customize Camtasia and easily adjust video and audio settings. With iMovie, you can always "tell"- it is only customizable to a certain degree. Camtasia is like the "advanced" version of iMovie, giving you more flexibility and a … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Camtasia Ease of use, the daily notifications that I receive. Ability to track support skills and subject matter experts. Teams are able to provide feedback on needs and what works, what doesn't. I use other Techsmith products as well as tools like Scribe. Camtasia offered a variety of … Incentivized Helpful? bill roberts Advisor @ The Futurists Podcast & Rise of Technosocialism Book Chose Camtasia Adobe Premiere Pro and Canva Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Camtasia Adobe After Effects Incentivized Helpful? Michael Chow Learning Experience Designer / Graphic Designer Chose Camtasia My goal was to quickly create a professional-looking course and video in no time with Camtasia. 'Time is money,' as the old saying goes. Because of my lack of time and patience, I didn't bother with other applications. Camtasia is everything I need and more. I just wished I can … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Camtasia As with most software products, you'll always find pros and cons when making comparisons. Camtasia is always my go-to application when someone asks me to whip up a video on a very tight deadline. You can very quickly turn an idea into a finished video and be happy with the … Incentivized Helpful? Drew Harrison Freelance Programmer Chose Camtasia Camtasia is much more expensive than Filmora, but it is much more robust. Filmora is great if you're on a budget, but Camtasia can add an extra level of professionalism that is difficult to achieve in Filmora without a lot of extra work. Either is great, but Filmora is only a … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Camtasia I honestly have not worked with any others in at least three to four years. There is virtually no learning curve with Camtasia--super simple and does everything I need. I cannot say how others stack up currently, as there has been no reason to explore other options since using … Incentivized Helpful? Candace Goldstein-Lefebvre Learning Management System Administrator/eLearning Specialist Chose Camtasia Camtasia is so easy to use and all media can just be uploaded. Incentivized Helpful? Doug Ash Partner Chose Camtasia We use Snagit for screen capture and needed a video capture so we went to the same company. Incentivized Helpful? Chris Carpenter Danaher Business System Leader (DBSL), Awesomizer, Fixer, Maker, Collaboration Enabler Chose Camtasia Camtasia is not on the same level as Premiere Pro, but it isn’t designed to fill that niche either. Premiere Pro is much more capable, but it is also much more expensive and much more broadly focused as a linear editor. It is much more approachable, it is much more affordable, … Incentivized Helpful? Glen Gummess Educational Technologist Chose Camtasia Captivate is high-end to the extent that it is beyond the use of a "typical" user. It has a steep and lengthly learning curve. Camtasia's learning curve can be mastered potentially within an hour to be productive, and it weds with SnagIt to become versatile in presenting … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Camtasia The two first, well too complicated. I couldn't move fast enough to be able to edit what I needed. I tried and every single time, I came back to Camtasia. The rendering process seems to be faster (I worked prior with a third party company and the rendering process took a lot of … Incentivized Helpful? Nathan Roberts Director, Management Information Systems Chose Camtasia I've tried several freeware recorders, too. If all you want to do is literally record your screen, and nothing else, you don't need Camtasia. There are literally dozens of apps that will do that. If you want an app that will record your screen while capturing mouse clicks, … Incentivized Helpful? Jamie Drahos Sr. Learning Solution Analyst Chose Camtasia Our advanced editors use programs like Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve, but we only have about 5-6 employees that have that skill level. That isn't enough to support our video output. Camtasia allows everyone that is not at that level to create quality videos with a much … Incentivized Helpful? Andy Ryan Launch Engineer Chose Camtasia Camtasia lets you purchase the software and download it to your computer. You don't need to have an internet connection to work on your projects with Camtasia. You don't have to pay a monthly subscription for Camtasia like you do the others. Camtasia is the software to use if … Incentivized Helpful? Jorge A. Merino Diseñador gráfico autónomo Chose Camtasia I have used others, but I consider that the closest to Camtasia are: Movavi, Filmora, Openshot, IMovie and perhaps DaVinciResolve (although this is something more for the professional sector). Among the others I've used: LumaFusion (Ipad), Kinemaster (Android), Vllo (Android) … Incentivized Helpful? Allison Chaney Chief Digital Training Officer Chose Camtasia Camtasia has more features and more customization options than the other products we've used. It allows us to record presentations while keeping a video of the presenter in the corner. It has green-screen features, which a lot of other software does not have. Some programs have … Incentivized Helpful? KC Karen Chamberlain Consultant Chose Camtasia Never could really get the hang of MadCap. Incentivized Helpful? Nancy Johnson Director of Training and Development, Visual IQ Chose Camtasia They are similar products. For someone devoted to video-editing, Captivate might be a better choice - it has a bit more functionality but is harder to learn and use. The last time I used Captivate, it couldn't handle a multi-screen setup, which was a deal-breaker for us, and … Incentivized Helpful? Keith Lillico, M.Ed, MBA Owner/Independent Instructional Designer Chose Camtasia Adobe offers you a lot more tools and control over what you are doing when editing a video, but there tends to be a lot of features you never use and get overly complicated. Camtasia offers the basic tools that you need to get almost any job done if perfection is not required. Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose Camtasia Having used both solutions, I would recommend them for different uses. iMovie is a great platform for family videos but does not go beyond clipping videos together. Camtasia allows you to do some nicer editing of videos. This is why it is a much better platform for small … Incentivized Helpful? Amelia Keown Six Sigma Master Black Belt Chose Camtasia Camtasia has great and features such as zoom, pan, screen capture, and table of contents - all of which are useful when creating our training videos. Incentivized Helpful? Will Goad Senior director of implementation Chose Camtasia For training and multi-departmental purposes I believe Camtasia wins due to: 1. A more intuitive, less technical user interface than Premiere. 2. Windows and Mac versions, unlike Final Cut. 3. Annotation features (arrows, boxes, etc) not found in Corel Video Studio Pro. Incentivized Helpful?	OBS Studio Mantra Manan Saraswat Product Manager Chose OBS Studio Only one reason which is that OBS studio is free and open source and we had team members capable of using it effectively. Other softwares have great prebuilt features which make it super easy to go live for small streams and individual streamers. Incentivized Helpful? HL Hayden LeMaster Owner/Operator Chose OBS Studio I've tried both Meld and Bandicam in the past. But OBS seems like the best to me. I've been using OBS for a few years now, it's nice that it's free :) not opposed to paying for good software, but OBS seems to be the best of the bunch and it's free, so I've stuck with it … Incentivized Helpful? LS Louis Schietekat Founder and Tutor Chose OBS Studio I've used Zoom to capture my screen on video. Although the tool is obviously not primarily built to fulfill that function. To capture basic tasks on video, zoom could do the trick but as soon as it gets a bit complex or lengthy, or you need to use multiple video inputs, I would … Incentivized Helpful? Bobby Matheson Owner/Operator Chose OBS Studio OBS is far more customizable and user-friendly than any other broadcasting software I have found. It keeps things simple while allowing you to customize your layout exactly how you want it - there are more user-friendly options, but none with the customizability of OBS. I would … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose OBS Studio I have also used TinyTake by Mango Apps and I prefer OBS studio because the video quality results are better and OBS allows you to record an unlimited length of the video. OBS also lets you record an entire screen instead of manually having to draw your parameters, which can … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose OBS Studio I first was recommended beta version of mmhmm but it was not available for Windows OS. I tried it when it became available but it was too late for me to switch and I stayed with OBS. OBS did everything I needed and it is free Incentivized Helpful? MD Rafsanjani Rahi CEO Chose OBS Studio I have never use anything like OBS Studio. This is very easy to use. I just saw some reviews online and downloaded OBS Studio. This is free for download, easy to run, no virus and no watermark.OBS Studio is a great programme for advanced users and there are no time limits. Incentivized Helpful? Joshua Welsh Assistant Professor Chose OBS Studio OBS is the only robust screen capture with a stable graphical user interface that works on Linux (that I could find). That's why I originally chose it. Since the program is cross-platform, I have been able to keep using it. I could switch back to Panopto, now that I am on … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Anonymous Chose OBS Studio We checked out a lot of alternatives, which were simply too expensive for us when we are just in the startup stage of livestreaming. Incentivized Helpful? Charles Beck Vice President, Sales Chose OBS Studio The fact that it's free is helpful and it is so unique with the level of technology it provides for such a low cost that it is worth trying. Now that we use it every day, why know that there is a paid professional version that offers even more features. I didn't do a hard … Incentivized Helpful? Steven Shulmister Co-Founder \| Head of Research \| VP, Operations Chose OBS Studio Webex has its uses, particularly when meeting viewers need to participate, but we always use OBS Studio when they don't need to interact (just view). Incentivized Helpful? Seth Paine Web & Media Developer Chose OBS Studio OBS takes a lot more work to get started with than Google Hangouts, but you get a much more high quality output from it. It even works better with YouTube than Hangout, which is odd since it is also owned by Google. You can not set a poser image on a YouTube live stream when … Incentivized Helpful? Travis Gray Owner/Producer Chose OBS Studio Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder (obsolete, clunky and not always clear what's wrong when it was giving us issues) Wirecast (too pricey for what we needed) Incentivized Helpful?

TrustRadius Insights
	Camtasia	OBS Studio
Highlights	Research Team Insight Published September 15, 2020 Camtasia and OBS Studio are both screen capture and video recording tools. OBS Studio is designed primarily for live-streamed video, giving users the ability to send their video to sites like YouTube or Twitch as it’s recorded. Camtasia, on the other hand, is aimed at users who want to create training videos and other pre-recorded content, and includes tools for editing videos after they’re recorded. Camtasia is simple to use and has a reasonable price point, which is likely why it’s popular with businesses of all sizes. OBS Studio is most popular with small businesses, likely because it’s open-source and free. Features Although both Camtasia and OBS Studio allow users to record their screen and create videos, they also differ significantly in their feature set and user experience. OBS Studio helps users create both live-streamed and pre-recorded video content. Every audio, video, and text element in OBS Studio can be customized in a variety of ways. Users can lay out collections of pre-customized audio and video elements and switch between them at will with dynamic transitions. Its open-source format means users can take advantage of an expansive library of community-created plugins, transitions, filters, and other options. And, like other open-source software, OBS Studio is free for anyone to use. Camtasia, by contrast, is designed for pre-recorded videos. Its interface is simple and intuitive, making it easy to get new users up and running quickly. A pre-loaded asset library gives users a starting point to make videos with a cohesive theme. It also includes post-production video editing tools to add effects, insert transitions, and make other modifications to recordings. Limitations OBS Studio and Camtasia are each powerful tools in their own right, but they also have important limitations to consider before you choose one or the other. Camtasia does include post-production features, but these features aren’t as robust as one might find in other video editing software. For example, users report that Camtasia’s audio processing, color correction, and color keying functions are very basic, and that they have had to resort to other post-processing tools for their needs. Camtasia doesn’t allow users to live-stream video, making it useful only for pre-recorded content. Some users also consider Camtasia’s price point a bit high, especially when compared to other free options such as OBS Studio. However, OBS Studio can be costly in other ways. New users often find OBS Studio daunting and unintuitive. Newcomers to the software should expect a significant learning curve, as they’ll likely need to search the internet for examples, tutorials, and other support. OBS Studio also doesn’t include post-production tools; if you want to add effects, images, or other modifications to pre-recorded videos, you’ll need to use other video editing software. Finally, like many other open-source projects, the software may suffer from bugs and be taxing on computer resources. Pricing OBS Studio is open-source and can be downloaded for free. Camtasia uses a per-license pricing model with discounts for education, non-profit, and government customers. For individuals and for-profit businesses, each license is a one-time fee of $249.99. For government and non-profit organizations, each license is a one-time fee of $223.99. For educational organizations, each license is a one-time fee of $169.99. Bulk discount pricing is available for purchases of 5 or more licenses. For bulk pricing details, refer to the vendor’s pricing page.

Best Alternatives
	Camtasia	OBS Studio
Small Businesses	Sendspark Score 10.0 out of 10	Zoom Events & Webinars Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies	Snagit Score 9.3 out of 10	Zoom Events & Webinars Score 8.5 out of 10
Enterprises	Snagit Score 9.3 out of 10	Zoom Events & Webinars Score 8.5 out of 10
All Alternatives	View all alternatives	View all alternatives

User Ratings
	Camtasia	OBS Studio
Likelihood to Recommend	8.4 (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	10.0 (0 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Usability	7.0 (0 ratings)	7.9 (0 ratings)
Support Rating	8.6 (0 ratings)	9.0 (0 ratings)

User Testimonials
	Camtasia	OBS Studio
Likelihood to Recommend	Well-suited scenarios Camtasia is an excellent video creation tool if you are new to making/editing videos. Its definitely the easiest application to use and doesn't overcomplicate things. Once you are used to the way things work within Camtasia, coupled with applying some important, basic principles of making videos, you can produce some nice-looking videos. I've had lots of compliments on some of the product promo videos I've created using Camtasia. If you want to create something quick, simple, and eye-catching, you can certainly do that in Camtasia without a ridiculously steep learning curve. Not so well suited scenarios Camtasia wouldn't be my choice of product if I wanted to make a full-length feature film, but that isn't really its intended target audience. There are more powerful applications out there, such as Adobe Premier Pro, or Final Cut Pro (if you're an Apple user) for that type of thing. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	From simple streaming to bigger events, OBS has been able to handle all of it with full confidence from us. Have never questioned if it was going to be unreliable in a specific situation, even with minimal training. Software identified the external input source easily and had no issues setting that up (Blackmagic Mini Recorder), and great for pulling in separate audio from the computer input. Incentivized Travis Gray Owner/Producer Read full review
Pros	Very intuitive controls. You don't need to be a pro at video editing Seamless control of assets (separates video from still images) Great library of annotations and gestures Easy to integrate audio/video edits Custom formats that suit my needs (web, mobile, tablets) Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Free software for live telecast Open source project for video recording Powerful video recording Written in C and C++ Totally virus free and free download Collaborates with Facebook live and YouTube live streaming. Computer screen recording A hub for collectting source and broadcast MD Rafsanjani CEO Read full review
Cons	Camtasia takes a lot of training to learn how to integrate and edit video Video editing is not as advanced as most major video editing software products Camtasia does not provide as many pre-made sound themes as they should. The selection is not very diverse. Incentivized .Kim Murphy Owner Read full review	OBS can be a little clunky sometimes, the lots of features can be a bit overwhelming I can multitask with it, but can't run heavy software like Premiere alongside it No way to make adjustments to file after it's done, have to use After Effects or Premiere for that Incentivized HL Hayden LeMaster Owner/Operator Read full review
Likelihood to Renew	Each release of Camtasia has added just enough functionality to justify the upgrade to the new version. I like that Camtasia is not a subscription-based product as we have more flexibility and control over our spend on the product. We can also purchase support packages that include the next version when released. Incentivized Jamie Drahos Sr. Learning Solution Analyst Read full review	No answers on this topic
Usability	I haven't used another video recording and editing tools that is as comprehensive and straight-forward as Camtasia. Typically, if you want a user-friendly video editing tools for novice users, you have to compromise on features. Camtasia solves this problem by offering extensive editing features in a simplistic, user-friendly environment. Highly recommend Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review	Very usable because it is free and has had a lot of people helping to suggest improvements and sponsors have allowed the product to grow in sophistication and suitability across a variety of situations and use needs. It is very logical to use once you get started, although the dashboard can seem intimidating at first. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Support Rating	With the latest version (Camtasia 2020), I actually had problems with an Imac with HighSierra, but from the first moment they answered and guided me to solve the problem, even before making the purchase (with some doubts I had). And they have support in English and Spanish, I really liked that. Jorge A. Merino Diseñador gráfico autónomo Read full review	For a free product, a range of support is available. There are plenty of ways to find out answers to questions, because there are probably thousands of people using the product who are willing to share what they have learned. It usually works as designed, so needs for support are limited. Incentivized Verified User Anonymous Read full review
Alternatives Considered	My goal was to quickly create a professional-looking course and video in no time with Camtasia. 'Time is money,' as the old saying goes. Because of my lack of time and patience, I didn't bother with other applications. Camtasia is everything I need and more. I just wished I can afford the upgrade. Incentivized Michael Chow Learning Experience Designer / Graphic Designer Read full review	Only one reason which is that OBS studio is free and open source and we had team members capable of using it effectively. Other softwares have great prebuilt features which make it super easy to go live for small streams and individual streamers. Incentivized Mantra Manan Saraswat Product Manager Read full review
Return on Investment	We used to source instructional videos. Now we do them in house, saving us time and money. Not only that, they are of higher production value. We have used Camtasia to produce promotional videos in house. These used to be outsourced. We don't have to wait for an outside firm to find capacity to help us with simple video projects, but can now do them on our timeline. Camtasia has surprising power for the price. Again, don't expect Primiere Pro, but understand you may find you can do a lot with this program. We keep finding more and more use-cases for it. Incentivized Nathan Roberts Director, Management Information Systems Read full review	It was great to have a platform that is free that I can experiment with without having to use our business capital on. It took time to learn, but it helped me understand a lot of things, so it was a great learning experience. It was a great balance of cost and time with the high-quality product we got from it. Incentivized Seth Paine Web & Media Developer Read full review
ScreenShots	Camtasia Screenshots