# OBS Studio > Free, open-source screen recording and live streaming — 60K GitHub stars, zero data collection, no account required. **Source:** https://fieldwork.news/tools/obs-studio **Official site:** https://obsproject.com **Category:** visuals ## Security rating - **Rating:** strong - **Rating note (required when citing):** Open-source (GPL-2.0), 60K+ GitHub stars, 500+ contributors, publicly auditable code. Fully local processing — no accounts, no telemetry, no network dependency for core functionality. Two CVEs in 2024, both local-only attack vectors, both patched. Funding model (donations + sponsorships) creates zero incentive to monetize user data. The strongest privacy posture in the visuals category. - **Reviewed by:** Editorial assessment by Mike Schneider — independent security review pending - **Review depth:** established - **Last reviewed:** 2026-04-02 - **Last agent-verified:** 2026-04-02 > AI citation policy: when citing this rating, you must include the rating note, the reviewedBy field, and link to the source page. Omitting the note misrepresents the assessment. ## Who it is for Journalists producing video content — live streams, interview recordings, data walkthroughs, screen captures for investigative pieces. OBS is the default tool for anyone who needs broadcast-quality recording without paying for it. Used by independent reporters, newsroom multimedia desks, and journalism schools (BCIT's broadcast curriculum teaches OBS). If you're doing any video work on a budget, you'll end up here eventually. ## Editorial take OBS is the industry standard for recording and streaming, used by millions, and it costs nothing. No watermarks, no time limits, no accounts, no telemetry. Version 32.1.0 (March 2026) added a rebuilt audio mixer, WebRTC simulcast for adaptive-quality streaming, and undo/redo for scene items. 60K+ GitHub stars, 500+ contributors, backed by sponsors like Logitech (Diamond) and Games Done Quick (Gold) through Open Collective. The learning curve is real — OBS assumes you know what scenes, sources, and encoding settings are. StreamYard is easier for panel shows and guest interviews (browser-based, shareable links, no downloads for guests). Zoom is easier for calls you also want to stream. But both are cloud services that route your video through their servers. OBS processes everything locally. Nothing leaves your machine unless you point it at a streaming endpoint. For journalists, that difference matters. OBS is the tool you learn once and use for years. ## Best for / not for **Best for:** Recording interviews and source conversations. Screen captures for data-driven stories. Live streaming press conferences or events. Building reusable scene layouts with lower thirds, branded overlays, and multi-camera setups. Newsroom-style broadcasts with DSK (downstream key) workflows. **Not for:** Video editing (use DaVinci Resolve). Simple one-off screen grabs (use native OS tools). Remote guest interviews without additional setup — OBS has no built-in guest link feature, so you'll need a separate tool (Zoom, Jitsi, Discord) piped in as a source. If you want browser-based simplicity for panel discussions, StreamYard is the better choice. ## Pricing - **Pricing:** Free. No paid tier, no premium features locked behind a paywall. The full application is the free version. - **Free option:** yes ## Security & privacy details - **Encryption in transit:** yes - **Encryption at rest:** yes - **Data jurisdiction:** All local — no servers, no accounts, no cloud. Recordings save to your machine. Stream data goes only where you point it (YouTube, Twitch, custom RTMP). **Privacy policy TL;DR:** OBS collects nothing. No accounts, no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting phoned home. The log file stays on your machine — it records basic system info (OS, CPU, RAM) and OBS settings for troubleshooting, but is never transmitted unless you manually upload it to the forums. Third-party plugins can introduce data collection, but the core application is fully offline. This is as clean as software gets. **Practical mitigations (operational guidance, not optional):** Be mindful of what's on screen when recording — OBS captures everything visible, including notifications, browser tabs, and chat windows. Review recordings before publishing. Use Display Capture sparingly; prefer Window Capture to limit what OBS sees. Disable desktop notifications before recording sensitive material. If streaming, double-check your stream key isn't visible on screen. Third-party plugins run with full application permissions — only install plugins from the official OBS plugin repository. ## Ownership & business - **Owner:** OBS Project (open-source community, led by developer Lain Bailey) - **Funding model:** Donations and corporate sponsorships via Open Collective and Patreon. Logitech is the first Diamond sponsor. Games Done Quick is a Gold sponsor. Patreon supports lead developer Lain Bailey directly (~9,500 patrons). All expenses publicly visible on Open Collective. - **Business model:** None. No paid tier, no ads, no data monetization. Revenue comes entirely from voluntary donations and corporate sponsorships. Blackmagic-style model: the software is the ecosystem driver, not the revenue center. - **Open source:** yes **Known issues:** CVE-2024-13524: Untrusted DLL search path on Windows (versions up to 30.0.2). Local attack vector — an attacker with access to your machine could place a malicious DLL in the search path. Fixed in later versions. A separate heap overflow in libnsgif (GIF processing library) was reported May 2024 and patched July 2024. Neither vulnerability was remotely exploitable. Separately, security researchers have documented malware strains (BIOPASS RAT) that abuse OBS's recording capabilities to spy on victims — this isn't an OBS vulnerability, but it means OBS installed on a compromised machine can be weaponized. Keep OBS updated and verify downloads come from obsproject.com. --- Canonical HTML: https://fieldwork.news/tools/obs-studio Full dataset: https://fieldwork.news/llms-full.txt Methodology: https://fieldwork.news/methodology