Streamlabs is a free-to-use software suite designed for streaming. Originally built on the open-source project OBS, Streamlabs has since become a company focused on creating a user-friendly experience for streamers and content creators alike. With eight distinct but intertwined software solutions to work with Streamlabs aims to streamline the content creation process no matter your needs.
While each of these software solutions has always offered a basic free version for creators to test, each has also had a premium version tied to a subscription. Recently Streamlabs has announced their latest pricing option, the Ultra Subscription, an all-in-one price point that gives creators access to all 8 premium versions of their software suite. After weeks of testing the many tools that the Ultra subscription has to offer the question must be answered, is Ultra worth its price point? Grab that coffee, kick back and find out in our review of the Streamlabs Ultra subscription, generously provided to us by the good folks at Streamlabs.
More Power, More Tools
The Streamlabs Ultra subscription provides premium access to Dashboard, Desktop, Mobil, Console, Talk Studio Pro, Podcast Editor Pro, Cross Clip Pro and Video Editor Pro. The idea of this subscription is to offer everything needed for a single creator to create, edit and produce content across multiple platforms and social media outlets. The power of Ultra is found in the synergy between each of the toolsets offered. While most creators won’t need every tool here at any given time, access to all of them opens up some interesting and easier ways to create content.
Probably the most powerful tool in Streamlab's arsenal is Desktop. This is the bread and butter of the Streamlabs experience and the longest-running of their software solutions. While the free version of Desktop offers some fairly powerful tools in its own right, the premium version opens up a whole new world of easy customization and stream optimization. With full access to the theme library, multistreaming, dual output and custom alerts (to name a few features), Desktop Premium is a powerhouse to use and easy to set up.
Thanks to Streamlab's commitment to a user-friendly experience, installation and setup is a painless and quite enjoyable experience. With only a few clicks Desktop can easily scan your system and optimize your streaming and recording settings. From here you gain access to the aforementioned theme library which is packed with an array of gorgeous overlays, transitions and effects to choose from. Once this is done, you can get to work pulling in capture cards, webcams and mics. Within a few moments, you’ll be up and running and ready to stream.
While some of these things can be achieved in the free version of Desktop, the added features present in the Premium version help elevate the experience for creators. For those new to streaming, Desktop Premium takes a lot of the guesswork out and makes getting up and streaming quick and painless.
For those who favour console over PC gameplay, Console offers an Xbox streaming solution without the need for a capture card or PC. While there are some limitations (at the moment it is only supported by Xbox and it can only be streamed to Twitch), Console offers a great solution for creators looking for a streamlined and easy-to-use experience that can be controlled from your phone via the Streamlabs Console. Essentially the broadcast from the Xbox is routed to the Streamlabs Console browser interface where layouts, alerts, overlays and widgets can be handled. In testing it worked well with no major issues. Editing layouts and widgets were fairly straightforward to set up and use.
Talk Studio Pro, as another example, is a powerful streaming tool that makes hosting video podcasts a delightful experience. Gone are the days of attempting to capture discord video and audio. In their place is a simple invite link that allows your co-host or contributors to join your stream and manage their audio and video.
From the browser, the host has full control over an array of helpful layout settings and features. Talk Studio Pro supports full overlays and logos allowing you to truly customize the look and feel of your show. Showing video, sharing your screen, sound effects and animations are a click away and can cleared just as quickly. It's incredibly powerful and by far the easiest tool I’ve tested to date for this type of content. Best of all it can be managed in real time while hosting the show.
Streamlabs Mobile, while mostly functional was the least impressive of the tools. While it can leverage the front or rear camera and offers a host of layout and alert customization within the mobile App it struggled to capture games well and more than once crashed during use. Even logging into the app became problematic at times often forcing me back to the home screen before restarting the app. This is one of the apps that feels the least polished and could use a bit more bug-fixing overall.
Editing In the Cloud
The Ultra subscription doesn’t just offer powerful streaming tools. It also has a host of powerful editing tools for creators to leverage and work The Podcast Editor offers a pretty impressive AI toolset to allow for some impressive results. For starters, it comes with a full transcript creator that easily distinguishes between speakers. Once a video is uploaded the software will generate a transcript as a base. From here you can edit and trim out any unwanted content. Branding, clip creation even subtitles can all be added with ease right from the transcript.
However, the most powerful aspect of this editor is the translator which will translate your content to any language with full voice dubbing. While I’m not fluent in any other language, when sent it off to a Spanish-speaking friend of mine they were impressed at how well it communicated the content. While it didn’t always get every word perfectly translated it did a solid job with minimal effort on the part of the creator.
The only critique I have of the Podcast Editor is its lack of audio editing or even EQing. This was a bit surprising considering the nature of podcast content. While there is an auto edit option that can quickly edit the video together on your behalf there is no manual way that I could see to edit audio directly. Hopefully, this is something we see in future updates.
Another impressive editor within the Ultra Subscription is the Cross Clip Pro editor. This is by far the easiest to use with the most powerful results. The Cross Clip Pro software allows you to quickly and painlessly convert captured video to high-quality mobile clips. Simply drop your footage into the editor and adjust away. Options for adding cameras, multiple sources and the ability to edit horizontally or vertically make it the easiest and most powerful editor I’ve used for creating mobile content. Text and animations can be added with ease and the overall user experience is one of the friendliest to date.
The Video Editor Pro, unfortunately, isn’t quite as impressive as the others. While it can take any of your clips and help create a decent final video, it lacks some features that would help it compete with other free video editors. While basic filters, sound effects, text and transitions are present they are often cumbersome to add to the timeline and in a few cases simply wouldn’t play properly in the preview.
Audio in particular was a frustrating element to edit and transitions often took multiple attempts before they would attach to a clip. This becomes even more cumbersome as the timeline becomes more complex making it frustrating to work with. While Video Editor Pro is fine for simple highlight reels or clips I wouldn’t want to use it for longer-form, technically complex, video editing.
One Dashboard to Rule Them All
With so many software tools available Streamlabs makes managing all of these easy thanks to the Dashboard. From here a creator can manage every aspect of their streaming and content creation experience. Monetization, logo creation and even branding are all baked into this space, along with other helpful tools list analytics, alerts and widgets.
The Dashboard helps bring everything together into one seamless, focused experience for the user. While there is a lot to manage for a full-time content creator, the Dashboard helps bring all of its many facets into reach through a single portal. With the added synergy of all of the Ultra apps, the Dashboard becomes the one-stop shop for content creators.
Final Thoughts
The Streamlabs Ultra subscription is a powerful set of tools with room for improvement. While some tools like Desktop, Talk Studio Pro and Cross Clips Pro offer some serious workflow improvements, others such as Mobile and Video Editor Pro still need some polish. The question though is whether or not the Ultra Experience is worth the price. For everything offered in the subscription, it is worth considering.
This becomes even more of a consideration if you are a solo creator, new to streaming or simply want the most streamlined process available. The Ultra subscription does all of that and offers some tools that could upon up new avenues for content creation. Priced at 149.99/year the Streamlabs Ultra Subscription is a mostly useful set of tools for creators.
