Last year, while researching lightweight streaming tools, I stumbled across Meld Studio mentioned in a few community threads. Its promise of pro-grade features without the usual resource drain sounded too good to ignore. I bookmarked the project, but life—and a relentless OBS setup—kept me from digging deeper.
Then, out of the blue, community manager iSageSen reached out with a personal invitation. The timing couldn’t have been better: fellow content creator Killswicth from RegimentGG had just commiserated with me over OBS’s tangled settings, CPU spikes, and that maddening latency when switching scenes live. Suddenly, Meld wasn’t just another app in the crowd; it was my next experiment.
From day one Meld Studio has been 100% free—no limits, no watermarks, no account needed. The team has already signaled that future monetization will come via optional add-ons and a plugin marketplace, not by locking up today’s free features behind a paywall. As one early user put it: “Everything you love about OBS with Adobe-like effects, it’s free, it will eventually have add-ons. And it’s faster, uses fewer resources.”
This approach keeps the core experience accessible for everyone, while giving power users the choice to invest in specialized effects, advanced audio tools (like VST3 plugins), or bespoke scene packs down the line.
Now, With version 0.9.3.4, Meld Studio tackles two of streaming’s biggest pain points head-on:
Better Media Layer Capabilities,
Now you can customize your media layers so that you have more control over what they do.
- Play the media clip when layer becomes visible,
- Hide the layer when media is done playing,
- Freeze your media on the last frame when it is done playing,
Vertical Replay Clip
Want to share your epic moments from your vertical canvas? Now you can use the replay clip feature with your vertical canvas to share instantly with your audience!
This was a update later after the 0.9.3.1 which offers also two high demand featured with:
- Instant Clip Replays
Capture and replay the prior 90 seconds of your live feed instantly—no pre-buffer setup required. - Dual Bitrate Recording
Stream at a stable, lower bitrate for your audience while saving a high-bitrate master file for spot-on VOD edits.
Beyond these headliners, the release smooths out B-frame performance, refines audio track sorting in the mixer, and adds one-click Kick integration. It’s the kind of polish that turns fiddly configuration into set-and-forget confidence.
How Meld Stacks Up Against OBS
| Feature | OBS Studio | Meld Studio v0.9.3.4 |
|---|---|---|
| Clip Replay | Requires external plugin | Built-in, instant 90-second buffer |
| Multistreaming | Third-party tools needed | Native, unlimited, free |
| Bitrate Recording | Single-track only | Dual bitrate (stream + master) |
| Resource Usage | High CPU/GPU impact | Optimized, lightweight |
| Audio Track Management | Manual routing | Automated sorting in mixer |
Meld’s built-in multistreaming is a revelation for anyone juggling multiple audiences—and yes, it’s totally free:
- Unlimited Destinations
Simultaneously stream to Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook Live, Kick, or any custom RTMP endpoint. - Effortless Setup
Navigate to File → Preferences → General → Add Output. Then toggle each platform live from the top-right panel. - Zero Watermarks or Hidden Limits
No surprise caps, no embeddable logos—just raw, direct feeds across every network you choose.
Whether you’re courting the desktop gamers on Twitch or chasing vertical-video views on TikTok, you can do it all without extra apps or subscription fees.
Meld Studio’s ethos has remained rock-solid since day one: a fully free core experience. While the team’s roadmap hasn’t been made public due being a small but laser-focus team, it has been promises optional premium add-ons—think advanced VST3 audio plugins, bespoke scene packs, and specialized effects—rather than gating today’s features behind paywalls.
It is true that recently Meld team via CEO Joel Clay, acknowledged that as a company, they will need monetize their service, but it will NOT be with everything they had launch with Meld Studio so far and I can guess that this is including the multistream cloud service.
What we can expect to be at Premium will be the in-house capacity of Meld Studio on editing video and content directly, but we are pending to know how this will make people chose over free alternatives like HitFilm Express, DaVinci Resolve or if there are good considerations over paid services like Adobe After Effects or Wondershare Filmora Sute.
I am eager to already know!
From my first tentative mention of Meld last year to that direct message from iSageSen, this journey has been about more than new software—it’s been about rethinking how we share our stories live. Version 0.9.3.4 isn’t just an update; it’s proof that streaming can be powerful, accessible, and flexible all at once.
While I am in a gaming livestream hiatus, Meld either way has served me on content creation without the need of going live, so there is no deyning that Meld Studio has given creators a taste of freedom. And by keeping the core free and promising add-ons over paywalls, they’ve set a new bar for what every streamer should expect from their toolkit.
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