OBS Studio vs ScreenFlow
Both are bought outright, both sit in capture, and both are bought by people leaving Camtasia, Loom paid plans. Here is what actually differs — including what each price does not buy.
The short answer
- OBS Studio is free; ScreenFlow costs $199.
- OBS Studio has the cleaner licence: free and open source, against own it, pay for major upgrades for ScreenFlow.
Side by side
 OBS StudioFreeOpen source |  ScreenFlow$199Paid upgrades | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | free screen recording and live streaming with no limits or watermark | screen recorder with a real multi-track editor attached, bought outright |
| Price | Free | $199 |
| Licence | Free and open source | Own it, pay for major upgrades |
| What you get | No licence to buy, and the source is public. | One payment, and the developer charges for major versions on a stated cadence. |
| The catch | No editor and no official support — scenes and macOS audio routing are yours to set up | Major versions are paid upgrades, and Telestream does not publish the upgrade price |
| Macs per licence | not established | 1 |
| Account required | no | no |
| Works offline | yes | yes |
| Apple Silicon | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | No | Yes |
| On Setapp | No | No |
| Minimum macOS | macOS 12 | macOS 14 (Sonoma) |
| 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
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.
ScreenFlow
Records screen, camera, microphone and system audio, then puts all of it on a multi-track timeline with callouts, cursor zoom and text animation for tutorial work. The licence is a purchase, not a plan.