Comparison

iShowU Instant or OBS Studio?

OBS for any serious use (YouTube, streaming, product tutorials). iShowU for a quick capture with no setup.

Tool A

iShowU Instant

Simple, lightweight macOS screen recording for when QuickTime is not enough.

Tool B

OBS Studio

The open source streaming and video recording tool, the standard for content creation.

Criterion by criterion

Criterion by criterion
Criterion	iShowU Instant	OBS Studio
In my stack	Yes	Yes
My rating	4.2 out of 5	4.7 out of 5
What it does better	Captures system audio natively, no Soundflower/BlackHole hack	Free, open source, streaming, scenes, multiple sources, highly configurable
What it does worse	Largely replaced by QuickTime + OBS for more advanced uses	Complex interface, long initial setup
Entry price	Included in Setapp (~€9.99/month)	€0
Plan I would pick	Setapp · ~€9.99/month (Setapp subscription)	OBS Studio · €0
Works with	macOS	macOS, Windows, Linux, API
Where the opinion comes from	Based on my iShowU Instant review	Compared from my iShowU Instant review

Verdict

OBS for any serious use (YouTube, streaming, product tutorials). iShowU for a quick capture with no setup.

On OBS Studio, written from my iShowU Instant review