iShowU Studio 2 vs OBS Studio
Both are bought outright, both sit in capture, and both are bought by people leaving Loom paid plans, Camtasia subscription. Here is what actually differs — including what each price does not buy.
The short answer
- OBS Studio is free; iShowU Studio 2 costs $79.
- iShowU Studio 2 has the cleaner licence: buy once, own forever, against free and open source for OBS Studio.
Side by side
 iShowU Studio 2$79Perpetual |  OBS StudioFreeOpen source | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | record and edit in one app, on a genuine perpetual licence | free screen recording and live streaming with no limits or watermark |
| Price | $79 | Free |
| Licence | Buy once, own forever | Free and open source |
| What you get | One payment. Updates included, indefinitely. | No licence to buy, and the source is public. |
| The catch | $79 covers Studio 2 only — the quicker iShowU V6 recorder is a separate $89 app | No editor and no official support — scenes and macOS audio routing are yours to set up |
| Macs per licence | 1 | not established |
| Account required | no | no |
| Works offline | yes | yes |
| Apple Silicon | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | No |
| On Setapp | No | No |
| Minimum macOS | not established | macOS 12 |
| App Store rating | not established | not established |
| Last updated | not established | not established |
| Price checked | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
Apple’s public API reports a rating for only a small minority of Mac apps, and returns zero for most of the rest even when the store page plainly shows reviews. A blank here means we could not read a number, never that an app is unrated or disliked.
In their own right
iShowU Studio 2
Records the screen with audio and then gives you an editor for trimming, zooming, cursor highlighting and callouts in the same app. Sold as a perpetual licence with no annual option at all.
OBS Studio
OBS Studio records and streams anything on a Mac: scenes built from window, display, camera and audio sources, filters, and a large plugin ecosystem. Free under the GPL, with no watermark, no length limit and no account.