OBS Live Translation Without a Plugin

Most "OBS translation plugins" (LocalVocal, OBS-Captions-Plugin, Polyglot) run AI models locally on your GPU. That means:

• 5-20% extra GPU load during streams that are already CPU/GPU bound
• Breaking on every OBS update — plugins need recompiling per OBS version
• Windows-only or platform-locked
• Hours to set up — install plugin, download model, configure audio routing

StreamTranslate runs everything in the cloud. You add ONE browser source URL (the same way you add a Twitch alert or chat overlay) and it works. Across every OBS version since 22. Mac, Windows, Linux. Zero GPU. Sub-500ms latency.

StreamTranslate listens to your mic input (browser-captured), sends audio to advanced AI for real-time speech-to-text, then races translations across neural machine translation, Azure, and Lecto in parallel and picks whichever returns first. The translated text gets pushed to your OBS browser source via Socket.IO in under 500ms end-to-end.

You stay in full control of style: font, size, color, outline, position (top/bottom), translation-only mode (hide spoken), live typing on/off. Update settings from the control panel — they sync to OBS instantly.

Does OBS live translation require a plugin?

No. StreamTranslate uses an OBS browser source — no plugin install, no DLL files, no compatibility issues with OBS updates. Works on OBS Studio 22 and above (2018+).

Is there a free OBS translation option?

Yes. StreamTranslate has a Free Plan with 3 hours every month with card required for the Free Plan; no payment unless you upgrade. After that, plans start at $5/month for 50 hours.

Will it work with Streamlabs OBS and Meld Studio?

Yes. Any streaming software that supports Browser Sources (OBS Studio, Streamlabs Desktop, Meld Studio, Lightstream, XSplit, vMix) works the same way.

How is this different from LocalVocal?

LocalVocal runs Whisper locally on your GPU, eating 5-20% of available VRAM during streams. StreamTranslate runs cloud-side — zero GPU impact. Also no plugin install, no OBS version conflicts.

What languages are supported?

Source language detection in 65 languages. Target translation in 65 including Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Russian, Italian, Polish, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Turkish, Thai.

What is the latency from speech to caption?

Under 500ms end-to-end. advanced AI transcription runs in ~300ms, translation race adds 200-500ms, Socket.IO push to overlay is <50ms. Total: 600ms-1.5s typical, hard cap of 2s.

Can I show dual-language captions (English + translated)?

Yes. The overlay supports showing the original spoken language on top and the translated language below, or just the translation. Toggle in settings.