Best webcams 2025

The Logitech C920 HD Pro has been around for years, but it's still a fantastic budget webcam and the place to start if you're just seeking your first webcam upgrade. For its sub $60 price (generally), it's the best value webcam around. 

The C920's design is subtle and compact and incorporates a really easy-to-use monitor mount. It also has LED lights to indicate when the camera and microphone are on, though come with a lens cover, but it's easy enough to just turn the camera around or tilt it upwards.

Image quality is limited by the 1080p resolution (rather than 4K) and 30fps frame rate (rather than 60fps) but it's still absolutely fine for video chats and basic streaming. The inbuilt microphones also work well and Logitech's software makes it easy to tweak the focus, brightness, and contrast of your picture.

Read our Logitech C920 HD Pro review.

The Elgato Facecam Pro is the company's dedicated streaming webcam. It's a great choice if you're looking to stream on Twitch or YouTube, or you just want incredibly sharp video calls. You get 4K 60fps to offer crisp and smooth footage with excellent overall image quality.

It's a big piece of hardware with a relatively chunky build. But, that size allows the camera to house a large sensor (Sony Starvis CMOS) and a high-quality 8-element zoom lens. Combined, these features produce fantastic image quality that holds up particularly well in low light while producing natural colors.

What's more, the Facecam Pro is backed by its versatile Camera Hub software that lets you control settings such as FOV, contrast, white balance, shutter speed, and ISO. Meanwhile, auto focus means you can get sharp images whether you're holding an object close to the camera to show its details or taking in a wide, distant view.

The big downside here is there's no built-in mic at all, so you'll need to invest in a gaming microphone to record your voice as well as your face.

Read our Elgato Facecam Pro review.

If you're serious about streaming, but aren't yet ready to invest fully into 4K, the Elgato Facecam MK.2 is a great option. It may only offer 1080p video but it's among the best quality 1080p webcams you can buy.

The secret is its large sensor (Sony Starvis CMOS 1/2.5-inch) combined with a quality lens that means it can produce a very clear, sharp image even in low light, with no washed out colors. It can also deliver uncompressed video so that your streaming software is able to take in as fresh and high quality a video feed as possible.

There are two big downsides here, other than it being a surprisingly bulky camera and limited to 1080p at 60Hz. The first is the lack of a microphone – Elgato envisions you using a separate streaming mic like its Elgato Wave:3 – and that it has a fixed focus. The latter means you can't hold objects closer than 30cm away from the camera and have them stay in focus, plus it can't focus beyond 6ft/2m.

The upside to this fixed focus is that the camera can't lose focus on you. So, no more occasions of you streaming for an hour or being in a meeting and realising the camera has been focused on the wall behind you instead of your face.

Read our Elgato Facecam MK.2 review.

There are plenty of webcams out there that include face and body tracking as a core part of their features, but most rely on software gimmicks that make tracking slow and produce poor image quality. The OBSBOT Tiny 2, though, has a built-in gimbal that means it can pan and tilt the camera to point out you, while its digital zoom gives you full PTZ functionality.

What's more, its built-in AI tracking means the camera will automatically track your head or body, meaning you never miss a beat as you wander around the room or shuffle in your gaming chair. The software is also intuitive and powerful, letting you add all sorts of clever gesture controls and presets. There's even a remote control so that you can take manual control of the camera direction and zoom.

Image quality from this camera is also excellent, producing crisp 4K video at 60Hz that holds up well in low light and produces vivid colors. All this and the camera is tiny – it's dwarfed by all the other cameras on this list. For those concerned about privacy, the AI is performed locally and the camera will automatically turn itself downwards when not in use, to preserve your sense of privacy – lights on the front also indicate when it's active.

Read our full OBSBOT Tiny 2 review.

If you're in need for a budget webcam for basic video calls or making your first forays into game streaming, the Logitech Brio 101 is a great starting point. It offers 1080p video at 30fps, includes a microphone, and offers totally plug-and-play ease of use.

Image quality is decent too, with a reasonable amount of clarity and color definition with the camera also able to cope reasonably well in low and varied lighting conditions. There's a clear step up to 1080p cameras – let alone 4K cameras – but it's also better than even cheaper options and most built-in laptop webcams.

The easy to use and secure mounting system makes it easy to drop this camera onto your the top edge of your monitor while its sliding privacy cover gives you peace of mind than no-one's watching when the camera's otherwise inactive. For under $40, it's a great buy.