Against the other live production applications, and against what the same capability costs in hardware. Compiled from each product's own published documentation.
| Skynat Live | OBS Studio | vMix | Streamlabs | Prism Live | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform & licensing | |||||
| Runs on Windows | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Runs on macOS | ✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Affordable plan — from $19 a month or $99 a year | ✓ | free | one payment | subscription | free |
| Every feature in one version, no tiers | ✓ | ✓ | 3 tiers | Ultra plan | — |
| Works fully offline once activated | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Six themes, and workspaces for each kind of show | ✓ | — | — | themes | — |
| Presets for every part, saved and shared as one file | ✓ | scene collections | ✓ | — | — |
| Session recovery after a crash or power cut | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Update check that knows which Mac or PC you have | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Switching & production | |||||
| Preview / Programme with Take | ✓ | Studio Mode | ✓ | Studio Mode | — |
| Cut, fade, wipe, push, slide | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| 3D transitions — cube, flip, doors, iris, zoom | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Stinger from your own clip | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Stinger generated from your logo | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Scenes with saved layouts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| Multiview on a second screen | ✓ | projector | ✓ | — | — |
| Stage display output for presenters | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Auto-framing that follows a presenter | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Scene editor with layers | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| Picture-in-picture and split layouts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Keyboard shortcuts for every action | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Cameras & sources | |||||
| USB cameras and capture cards | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Screen and window capture | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Video files, stills and playlists | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| RTMP feeds into the application | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| SRT feeds into the application | ✓ | plugin | ✓ | — | — |
| Free companion phone-camera app | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Eight phones as cameras at once | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Works with DroidCam, Camo and other camera apps | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Remote guest joins over the internet by QR code | ✓ | — | vMix Call | — | — |
| Router opened automatically (NAT-PMP / UPnP) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Green room to check a guest before air | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Remote cameras over the internet that sharpen when taken to air | ✓ | — | vMix Call | — | — |
| Another studio, another building, as a camera on your desk | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Remote engineer console — faders, grades, Enhance from any phone, free | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Presenter tracking with any number of ordinary cameras | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| PTZ camera control with presets | ✓ | plugin | ✓ | — | — |
| Capture cards | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Playlist source with its own running order | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Up to twenty sources, eight phones | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| Mesh Wi-Fi friendly discovery | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Carrier-grade NAT detected and explained | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Phone app: studio found on the network by itself | ✓ | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Phone app: four-digit pairing or scanned code | ✓ | — | — | — | QR |
| Phone app: adaptive bitrate that climbs back | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Phone app: tally, messages and attention signal | ✓ | — | vMix Call | — | — |
| Phone app: full-quality backup recording on the handset | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Phone app: every lens, torch and low-battery warning | ✓ | — | — | — | basic |
| Remote camera talkback, both ways | ✓ | — | vMix Call | — | — |
| Friends between studios, 24-hour codes by WhatsApp | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Looks and voice presets sent from studio to studio | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Remote cameras paid by the gigabyte, never cut mid-stream | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| A phone as a tracking-only camera | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Audio — the console | |||||
| Per-channel gain, mute and solo | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| Noise gate | ✓ | filter | ✓ | filter | — |
| Compressor | ✓ | filter | ✓ | filter | — |
| Automatic gain control | ✓ | filter | — | — | — |
| Auto leveller that stops volume spikes | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Four-band EQ drawn over the live spectrum | ✓ | VST | ✓ | VST | — |
| Voice isolation — strips room noise and hum | ✓ | plugin | — | plugin | — |
| De-esser | ✓ | VST | — | VST | — |
| Multiband compression | ✓ | VST | — | VST | — |
| Automatic microphone mixing | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Feedback guard | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Auto FX — polishes and thickens vocals | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Group faders and mute groups | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| PFL headphone bus | ✓ | monitor | ✓ | monitor | — |
| Mix-minus for remote guests | ✓ | manual | ✓ | — | — |
| Reverb and delay sends | ✓ | VST | — | VST | — |
| Console snapshots you can recall | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Loudness pilot for broadcast targets | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Up to 32 isolated audio tracks recorded | ✓ | multi-track | ✓ | — | — |
| Real-time analyser on every channel | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Talkback to the room and to remote guests | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Silent keepalive so platforms never drop a quiet stream | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Direct frequency control on the EQ | ✓ | VST | ✓ | VST | — |
| Picture & colour | |||||
| Three-way colour wheels | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Curves, master and per channel | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Secondary correction on one colour | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| .cube LUTs | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Waveform monitor | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| RGB parade | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Vectorscope | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Histogram | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Automatic white balance in one click | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Camera-to-camera matching | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Enhance — the face found and lit automatically, every skin tone | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Virtual studio light: the person lit, the room dimmed, no green screen | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Noise calmed on a dark camera without smearing motion | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Zebra, false colour and focus peaking | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Programme grade over the whole output | ✓ | filter | ✓ | filter | — |
| Title and action safe areas | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Enhance — one switch, the face found, lit and kept true | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Enhance for every skin tone — never pushed to one grey | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Skin-true colour balance off the face | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Enhance by hand, starting from what automatic chose | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Skin smoothing, glow and warmth on skin only | ✓ | plugin | — | filter | beauty |
| Green screen & virtual studios | |||||
| Chroma key with spill suppression | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| Virtual studio sets included | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Use any downloaded studio backdrop | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Background blur and removal with no green screen | ✓ | plugin | — | — | ✓ |
| Advanced 3D depth — a set you stand in, a desk to step in front of | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| The set follows a real camera move (PTZ or ordinary camera) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Your real shadow on the set and the set’s light on you (Max) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| A real room filmed on a phone as a set with depth (Max) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Matte view to check the key | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Video backdrops and moving sets | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| Contact shadow and floor reflection | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Virtual studio presets per shot | ✓ | — | virtual sets | — | — |
| One measurement places the presenter at real size | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Presenter tracked by any number of ordinary cameras | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Hybrid keyer — every strand of hair kept (Max) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| The set’s light on the presenter, their own shape in relief (Max) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Graphics & text | |||||
| Designed lower thirds ready to use | ✓ | — | ✓ | themes | — |
| Custom lower thirds in your own brand | ✓ | browser source | ✓ | — | — |
| Ticker, countdown and logo bug | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Vector motion graphics library | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Slides imported from PowerPoint or Keynote | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Song lyrics, including CCLI formatting | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Scripture with offline translations | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Live captions generated on the machine | ✓ | plugin | ✓ | — | — |
| Overlay backgrounds and a media library | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | basic |
| Automatic intro and outro | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Text-only second screen for the room | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Streaming | |||||
| Stream to one platform | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Several platforms at once | ✓ | plugin | higher tiers | Ultra plan | ✓ |
| One encode shared across destinations | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Per-destination health and reconnect | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Adaptive bitrate when the line struggles | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Broadcast delay buffer | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Vertical 9:16 output alongside landscape | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Pre-flight check before going live | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok | ✓ | keys | keys | ✓ | ✓ |
| SRT out | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Hardware encoding | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bandwidth test before you go live | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Broadcast report afterwards | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Recording | |||||
| Record separately from the stream | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Up to 4K | ✓ | ✓ | higher tiers | ✓ | — |
| Crash-safe segments | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Pause with the gap cut out of the file | ✓ | pause only | — | — | — |
| Each camera recorded to its own file | ✓ | plugin | higher tiers | — | — |
| Instant replay with slow motion | ✓ | buffer | higher tiers | — | — |
| Clips marked and exported while live | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Trim and join afterwards, inside the app | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Whole production packed into one file | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Isolated audio tracks per microphone | ✓ | multi-track | ✓ | — | — |
| Stills grabbed from Programme | ✓ | screenshot | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Control | |||||
| Stream Deck and Companion | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Phone browser remote by QR code | ✓ | plugin | Web Controller | — | — |
| Presenter can change slides from stage | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Preacher or speaker can call up text from stage | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| MIDI control surfaces with learn | ✓ | plugin | ✓ | — | — |
| Digital desk over OSC (X32 / M32) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Allen & Heath SQ over USB | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Show control — MMC and MSC | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Open HTTP and WebSocket API | ✓ | WebSocket | ✓ | — | — |
| Virtual camera into Zoom or Teams | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Phone remote: several devices at once | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Phone remote: start, stop and mark a clip | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Presenter clickers | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Audience | |||||
| Chat from every platform in one column | ✓ | plugin | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Moderate without leaving the app | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | — |
| Put a viewer comment on screen | ✓ | plugin | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Live viewer counts across platforms | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Captions burned in, or sent alongside | ✓ | plugin | ✓ | — | — |
Skynat Live's column covers every edition; a row marked (Max) is in Skynat Live Max (Enterprise). Compiled September 2026 from each product's own website and documentation. A dash means the feature is not listed in that product's published documentation. OBS Studio is open source, so “plugin” means a well-known community plugin covers it rather than the feature shipping in the box. Product names are the trade marks of their owners. Tell us if something here is out of date and we will correct it.
A hardware gallery works, and for some productions it is still the right answer. It is also a stack of single-purpose devices, each bought separately.
| Hardware switcher | Switches between cameras and does the transitions. | R21 000 |
| Hardware encoder | Turns the programme output into a stream. | R7 000 |
| Hardware recorder | Records the programme to disk. | R7 000 |
| Converters and scalers | Gets signals between HDMI, SDI and the right formats. | R5 000 |
| Total for the switching, encoding and recording alone | R40 000 | |
A real example: what one venue spent building a hardware gallery, at the prices they paid at the time. Prices are what that venue paid at the time and are shown only to give a sense of scale — they are not current prices, and they are not ours to quote. and that is before cameras, cabling, the audio desk, a graphics machine or a replay unit.
| Skynat Live | A hardware gallery | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy, and what you buy next | ||
| Inputs fixed at the moment you buy | No — add sources in software | Yes — the box has the ports it has |
| Adding another camera | A capture card input, a phone, or a network encoder | Another switcher, or a bigger one |
| A phone can be a camera | Yes — eight at once, free app | Only through a separate encoder |
| A guest anywhere in the world | Yes, over the internet | Needs a separate decoder or a computer |
| Cameras must be cabled to the unit | No — USB, network and Wi-Fi as well | Yes, HDMI or SDI to the box |
| What else is already in the price | ||
| Colour grading with broadcast scopes | Included | A separate device or software |
| A full audio console with processing | Included | A separate mixing desk |
| Graphics, lower thirds and motion | Included | A separate graphics computer |
| Instant replay with slow motion | Included | A separate replay unit |
| Every camera recorded separately | Included, up to 12 | A recorder per camera |
| Every microphone on its own track | Included, up to 32 | A multitrack recorder |
| Live captions | Included, generated locally | A subscription service |
| Text, lyrics and imported slides | Included | Another computer and application |
| Living with it | ||
| New features after you buy | Arrive as updates | Firmware fixes; features mean new hardware |
| Packs down into | A laptop bag | The unit, its supply and every cable |
| The whole show saved and recalled | One file — settings, graphics and media | Presets on the unit; media lives elsewhere |
| Runs with no computer at all | No — it is software | Yes, and that is a real advantage |
| Survives a computer failure mid-show | Session recovery, but the machine matters | Yes — nothing to crash |
| Frame-accurate, sub-frame switching | Software latency applies | Yes — this is what the hardware is for |
| Long SDI cable runs with locking connectors | No — HDMI, USB and network | Yes, on the models that carry SDI |
It does not need a computer, so there is nothing to crash and nothing to update the night before. Switching is frame-accurate at a latency software cannot match. On the units that carry SDI you get locking connectors and cable runs measured in tens of metres. If your production is live-to-air, in a fixed installation, with an engineer who knows the gear — buy the box.
Everything that would be a separate purchase is already here — the grading suite, the audio desk, the graphics machine, the replay unit, the multitrack recorder, the captions. Cameras can be phones people already own, or a contributor on another continent. And what you bought improves with updates instead of being superseded by next year's model.
Plenty of productions run both — the box for the cameras in the room, this for everything the box was never built to do.
Or $19 a month. Affordable, and everything is in it — every update in the year included, nothing renews on its own. Max, with the heavy GPU features, is $599 a year or $79 a month.
