Open-source Restream alternatives

OBS Studio, from the Open Broadcaster Software project, is a free, open-source application for recording video and streaming live. It runs on Windows 10 and 11, recent macOS versions and Linux, and it is written mainly in C and C++ under the GPL-2.0 license.

Content is composed as scenes built from multiple sources, such as window captures, images, text, browser windows, webcams and capture cards. You can create as many scenes as you need and switch between them with customizable transitions. An audio mixer provides per-source filters like noise gate, noise suppression and gain, and VST plugins are supported. A modular dock-based interface can be rearranged, and individual docks can be popped out into separate windows.

OBS can stream to Twitch, YouTube and other providers, or record to local files using H.264 video and AAC audio. The project is funded through sponsors and backers. It suits streamers, educators, gamers and anyone producing tutorials or presentations who needs flexible capture and mixing without a license fee.

SRS, short for Simple Realtime Server, is an open-source real-time media server for live streaming and video communication. It handles many protocols in one product, among them RTMP, WebRTC, HLS, SRT, HTTP-FLV, MPEG-DASH and the GB28181 surveillance standard, and supports video codecs including H.264, H.265, AV1 and VP9 and audio codecs including AAC, Opus and G.711.

It runs on Linux and macOS across a wide range of processor architectures, from x86-64 and ARM variants to Apple M1, RISC-V, LoongArch and MIPS. The getting-started guide recommends running SRS in Docker, after which you open the local web console on port 8080 and push a stream with FFmpeg or OBS to an RTMP address, then play it back with common players using whichever protocol you prefer. A mirror registry is mentioned for users in China.

SRS is written in C++ and licensed under MIT, though some third-party libraries carry their own licenses. Topics point to low-latency streaming, live broadcasting and video conferencing. It suits teams building live video platforms, surveillance ingest or conferencing backends who want to run their own media server.

Ant Media Server is a scalable media server for low-latency live streaming. It supports WebRTC with a claimed latency of about half a second, along with SRT, RTMP, RTSP, HLS and CMAF low-latency HLS, and also handles H.265/HEVC. Developers use it to build real-time video applications and live broadcasting.

Capabilities include adaptive bitrate workflows, transcoding, recording and cloud auto-scaling. SDKs are provided for iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, Unity and JavaScript, and security features include SSL/TLS, token authentication, IP filtering and watermarking. The README lists use cases such as telehealth, e-learning, sports streaming, auctions and interactive applications.

The project is split into a Community edition with the essentials and an Enterprise edition that adds advanced features and support, and a free trial of the Enterprise edition is offered. It is written in Java, and documentation covers installation, API references and tutorials.