Virtual camera support

A virtual webcam is a program that create some interfaces that other programs can detect and interact as it were a real webcam hardware, creating fake devices nodes. Creating a virtual webcam may involve in most cases very low level system access, and that depends on how much the operating system allow software developers to have access to the lower level.

GNU/Linux

Webcamoid gives to option to use either akvcam or v4l2loopback as the virtual camera driver, akvcam is the preferred driver which offers more options and compatibility and v4l2loopback is the driver most commonly available in most distros and works as a pass-through device.

If webcam programs list the webcams from /dev/video* and they are are not very picky about resolutions or formats, it will work well. If the programs detects the webcams by listing USB devices, the programs will be not able to detect the webcam, but it will be possible in a future.

For akvcam you can check the compatibility table here, for v4l2loopback you can check the compatibility table bellow:

v4l2loopback

💚 Works
❤️ Does not works

Program	Works?	Notes
Camorama	💚
Cheese	❤️
ffmpeg	💚
ffplay	💚
Firefox Adobe Flash Player	❤️
Firefox HTML5	💚
Google Chrome Adobe Flash Player	❤️
Google Chrome HTML5	❤️
GStreamer	💚
guvcview	💚
HasciiCam	💚
Kamerka	💚
Kamoso	❤️
mplayer	💚
Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)	💚
OpenCV	💚
Opera Adobe Flash Player	❤️
Opera HTML5	❤️
QtCAM	💚
qv4l2	💚
Skype	💚
VirtualBox	💚
VLC	💚
Wine native	💚
Wine DirectShow	💚	Virtual camera for Windows works for other Windows apps in Wine, based on Webcamoid 8.5.0 tests
Zart	💚
Program	Works?	Notes

Mac

You can check the virtual camera compatibility table here.

Windows

You can check the virtual camera compatibility table here.

Other operating systems

Other operating system (like Android and FreeBSD) are not supported yet.