Best Webcams 2025-4K, 1080p, and PTZ Webcam Options Tested

The Logitech C920 HD Pro has been around for years, but if you’re just looking for an initial webcam upgrade, it’s still a great budget webcam and where to start. For a price of $60 (generally), it’s the best value webcam around.

The C920’s design is subtle and compact, and includes a very easy-to-use monitor mount. There is also an LED light that indicates that the camera and microphone are on, but with a lens cover, it’s easy to turn the camera or tilt it up.

Image quality is limited by 1080p resolution (not 4K) and 30fps frame rate (not 60fps), but still fine for video chat and basic streaming. The built-in microphone works well, and Logitech’s software allows you to easily fine-tune the focus, brightness and contrast of your photos.

Read the Logitech C920 HD Pro review.

The Elgato Facecam Pro is the company’s premium-only streaming webcam. If you’re trying to stream on Twitch or YouTube, or if you want a very sharp video call, it’s a great choice. Get 4k 60fps and delivers clear and smooth footage with excellent overall image quality.

It’s a big hardware with a relatively thick build. However, its size allows the camera to accommodate a large sensor (Sony Starvis CMOS) and a high-quality 8-element zoom lens. Combined, these features produce great image quality and retain particularly well in low light, while producing natural colors.

Furthermore,The Facecam Pro is backed by versatile camera hub software that allows you to control settings such as FOV, contrast, white balance, shutter speed, and ISO. Autofocus, on the other hand, means you can hold an object close to the camera and get a sharp image, whether you want to view its details or take a wide, far-flung view.

The big drawback here is that there is no built-in microphone at all. So you need to invest in a gaming microphone to record your voice and face.

Please read us Elgato Facecam Pro Review.

If you’re serious about streaming but aren’t ready to invest fully in 4K yet, the Elgato Facecam Mk.2 is a great option. Although we can only offer 1080p video, it is one of the best quality 1080p webcams you can buy.

The secret is that it combines its large sensor (Sony Starvis CMOS 1/2.5 inch) with a high-quality lens. They can also provide uncompressed video so that streaming software can incorporate as fresh and high quality video feeds as possible.

Here it has two major drawbacks, except it’s an incredibly bulky camera and is limited to 1080p at 60Hz. The first is the lack of a microphone – Elgato assumes he’s using another streaming microphone, like the Elgato wave. The latter means that the object cannot be focused more than 30cm away from the camera, and cannot be focused beyond 6 feet/2m.

The advantage of this fixed focus is that the camera cannot focus on you. So there’s no more chance you’ve streamed for an hour, went to a meeting, or noticed that the camera is focusing on the wall behind you instead of your face.

Read the review of Elgato Facecam Mk.2.

There are many webcams that contain face and body tracking as the central part of the function, but most often they are slower to track and rely on software gimmicks with low image quality. However, the Obsbot Tiny 2 has a built-in gimbal. This means you can pan and tilt the camera to point you out, but the digital zoom offers full PTZ functionality.

What’s more, its built-in AI tracking means that the camera automatically tracks your head or bodythat is, when you wander around the room or shuffle in a gaming chair, you never miss a beat. Additionally, the software is intuitive and powerful, and can add all kinds of clever gesture controls and presets. There is also a remote control so that you can take manual camera control from afar.

The image quality from this camera is also excellent, producing crisp 4K video at 30Hz, which holds well in low light and produces vibrant colors. This and the camera are all small – all other cameras on this list are war-keeping. For those worried about privacy, AI runs locally and the camera rotates automatically If not in use, facing downward to maintain a sense of privacy – the light on the front indicates it is active.

Read the complete Obsbot Tiny 2 review.

If you want a webcam that can track movements, there’s nothing better than a camera in its ability to physically move around, rather than relying on digital tracking to allow you to make presentations at a certain distance or because you tend to do lots of movement while streaming gaming sessions. The Emeet Pixy offers that feature, but is only a small portion of the pricing of many existing options.

The Obsbot Tiny 2 gets the same core feature Tilt for around $300, but the Emeet Pixy costs just under $160. It’s still a reasonable amount for a webcam, but you’re literally packed into two motors that turn and tilt the camera, using AI to keep your face in the center of the screen.

With up to 4K on 30Hz video recording (or 1080p at 60Hz), the trio’s microphones provide noise-cancelling audio in addition to highly capable video. Very complete package for the price.

The main drawback is that the image quality is not as good as a premium camera, especially in very low light conditions, but the price is still decent. The much-promoted second camera also doesn’t seem to be much of a use in reality, so it feels like a bit of a gimmick, but it doesn’t affect the usefulness of this camera’s core.

Check out our full Emeet Pixy review for more information.

If you need a budget webcam for basic video calls, or if you’re making your first foray into gaming streaming, the Logitech Brio 101 is a great starting point. It offers 1080p video at 30fps and includes a microphone, providing complete plug and play ease of use.

The image quality is also decent. A reasonable amount of clarity and color definition with the camera can also be properly addressed in low lighting conditions. Not to mention the 4K camera, it clearly stepped up to a premium 1080p camera (not to mention the 4K camera), but it’s even better than the cheaper options and most built-in laptop webcams.

The easy-to-use and secure mounting system allows you to easily drop this camera on the top edge of your monitor, but the sliding privacy cover gives you more peace of mind than anyone looking when the camera is not inert. For under $40, it’s a great purchase.

Elgato Cam Link 4K is not a webcam. However, it is a device that can turn many other regular cameras into webcams. So, if you own a high-end DSLR or mirrorless system camera, or have an older camera with a spare, you can also use it as a webcam, or use it as a webcam, for image quality that is generally well beyond that.

The CAM Link 4K literally has an HDMI port on one end and a USB output on the other end. Connect it to your PC via USB and connect it to the camera’s HDMI output to record the output that the camera can generate. Important details are that to use this device, whether it’s a Mini or Micro, you’ll need a camera with HDMI output.

The resulting image quality is surprising, especially if you have a swappable lens type camera with high-end lenses. You can also access features such as exposure control and manual zoom completely.

The downside is that such setups can be big and heavy, requiring an entire camera mount system individually – they can’t usually be placed on a monitor – and more, they’re going a lot more crazy than a regular webcam. The latter will automatically start on your PC, while Cam Link setup requires you to turn on the camera and set up images (focus, etc.) every time. Additionally, the video feeds that you tend to get from most cameras are what you see on the camera’s screen, not just the raw video, so settings and other overlays are displayed in the video feed.

Cam Link 4K can seriously incorporate and deliver videos at up to 4K @ 60fps for high-end image quality, but this also depends on the camera’s video output rate.

In the end, if you really need the versatility of setting up a “real” camera for high quality video or webcams, the Elgato Cam Link 4K is a great way to make that possible. This is not the first choice I recommend for most gamers, but it does have great results.