OBS Studio

The ability to create multiple scenes and switch between them while live streaming. Each scene can be either a pre-recorded video source (thus giving you the option of going "Live" with a taped segment [or segments]), a camera (live video source) or a static image.

The inability to create a playlist of scenes so that I could more easily go from one to the next. OBS seems to require me to select a preview and then switch it to live. I'd rather be able to fading a sequence of scenes and then just press one button to go through them.

IT IS FREE. May all of my complains and frustrations with this software be safely tucked under the umbrella of a customer who is pleased at the end of the day with a product that is reliable and costs him nothing. That is a miracle and I believe that it is getting easier and easier to use. I love the fact that once I have everything set up in the back end of the program, I can get going with one click. I use this program to record and live-stream our Sunday morning services at Church. On the off-chance that the wifi goes down or something, the ability to continue recording to an external drive has saved us on more than one occasion. It handles the basics such as screen sharing, adding logos, and even some basic audio input options very well. Overall, I am extremely pleased and it made the ability to live-stream in a church of 200 people affordable and attainable.

Set-up was a long process of educating myself with very little reward and no long-term application for the knowledge that I gained. There seems to be certain settings that you need to select for different types of streaming. Having to wade through numerous youtube videos in order to find what I needed specifically, was not fun. I would love for this software to develop presets for different purposes. Most all gamers tend to used the same presets with some variation depending on their individual internet speeds. Why not have a preset for gamers and another preset for bloggers, or live-streamers? I don't think it would take much and with a few basic questions, the program could do a lot of the heavy lifting that makes the back end of OBS a pain to work with.
Additionally the interface, while more intuitive than most open-source programs, does leave something to be desired. I often have to click through all of the setting options in order to find specific settings that need adjustment. Also, I have been running into issues with syncing external audio with the video during live streaming. The video buffer seems to be inconsistent, so the audio and video will start out synced and randomly get out of wack.