ffmpeg vs GStreamer

Works on Linux, OS X and Windows.

In addition to having great flexibility over demuxer, decoder, processer, encoder, muxer choice and settings, ffmpeg can crop, stream, merge audio and video from different sources and perform many other tasks.

There are multiple GUI implementations of ffmpeg for ease of use. Among the most commonly used WinFF (Windows, Linux), Avanti (Windows) and Miro (cross-platform) are worth taking a look at.

Licensed under LGPL.

You can use ffmpeg to record your desktop along with audio.

Among the more common formats ffmpeg can handle are h.264, HEVC(h.265), mp3, AAC, mpeg-4, wmv3, ProRes, QuickTime, SWF, Speex, FLAC, VP9 and many more. To get a full list in terminal type: ffmpeg-formats

Because ffmpeg allows transcoding on the fly and supports multiple streaming protocols such as rtmp, rtsp, http, ftp, hls, you can use it to stream to services such as twitch.tv or set up your own streaming solution.

You can use both local realtime recordings or another stream as a source, transcode it if necessary, and output it to a different stream.

ffmpeg -i rtmp://server/live/originalStream -c:a copy -c:v libx264 -vpre slow -f flv rtmp://server/live/h264Stream

In addition to having great flexibility over demuxer, decoder, processer, encoder, muxer choice and settings, GStreamer can clip, crop, stream, extract frames, merge audio and video from different sources and perform many other tasks.

You can dynamically load plugins and implement different libraries to extend functionality.

GStreamer can give you detailed information about the pipeline and each individual process it's running.

Among the more common formats GStreamer can handle are h.264, HEVC(h.265), mp3, AAC, mpeg-4, wmv3, ProRes, QuickTime, SWF, Speex, FLAC, VP9 and it can also be extended with other libraries to support different formats.

Licensed under LGPL.

Available on Windows, OS X, and Linux.