OBS Studio Streaming Tutorial: YouTube & Twitch Setup in 1 Hour

OBS Studio surpassed 150 million global downloads in 2025, becoming the open-source software with the highest market share in the live streaming and screen reco

OBS Studio surpassed 150 million global downloads in 2025, becoming the open-source software with the highest market share in the live streaming and screen recording sector. The main reason is that after integrating its three major hardware encoders—NVENC, AMF, and QuickSync—CPU usage for 1080p 60fps streaming can be kept below 5%. For YouTube, Twitch, and Bilibili creators, mastering OBS's scene architecture and encoder settings is equivalent to mastering the core variables of streaming quality and stability. What is OBS Studio: The Market Position of Open-Source Streaming Software OBS Studio (Open Broadcaster Software) is an open-source live streaming and screen recording software maintained by the OBS Project , licensed under GPL v2 and supporting Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms. Its core function is to mix multiple audio and video sources (cameras, windows, browsers, game footage, microphones) into a single output, then push the stream via RTMP, SRT, HLS, and other protocols to platforms such as YouTube Live, Twitch, and Facebook Live. According to "OBS Studio GitHub Release cumulative downloads exceed 150 million (2025 OBS Project Official Statistics)" (Source: OBS Project GitHub) , its penetration rate in the streaming software market is far higher than competitors such as Streamlabs and XSplit. Twitch's official 2024 data indicates that "78% of partner streamers on the Twitch platform use OBS Studio as their primary streaming tool (2024 Twitch Creator Report)" (Source: Twitch) , with this ratio being even higher in the Asian region. The biggest difference from paid competitors is: OBS is completely free, with no watermarks, no feature locks, and no cloud account binding. All computation happens locally, with the stream key written directly into the configuration file without passing through third-party servers. Core Architecture: Scenes and Sources OBS's design philosophy is built on a two-layer structure of "Scenes" and "Sources." A scene is a container