Gamepad Viewer alternative
ControllerOverlay is an alternative to Gamepad Viewer for streamers who use a PS5, PS4 or Xbox pad and do not want to write CSS. This page puts the two side by side, with a source for every line, and says where Gamepad Viewer is the better pick.
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Side by side
Gamepad Viewer details were read on its own pages on 10 November 2026.
| Feature | Gamepad Viewer | ControllerOverlay |
|---|---|---|
| Price | No price listed. The site runs on donations: “I’m a fair believer in the honor system.” gamepadviewer.com, Donations | Free account for the stock looks. The vault is $9.99, paid once. |
| Controllers drawn | Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, GameCube, NES, Nintendo 64, FightPad Pro and Fight Stick, with white versions of three of them. gamepadviewer.com, skin list | PS5 DualSense, PS4 DualShock 4 and the Xbox controller. |
| PS5 skin | Not in the built-in list on the main site or in the beta URL Generator. A custom skin can be loaded from a CSS URL. beta.gamepadviewer.com, URL Generator | The DualSense is one of the three pads. Its stock look is free. |
| Changing colours | The editcss= parameter takes “any URL pointing to a properly formatted CSS file”. Making a skin from scratch needs “some basic knowledge of CSS”. gamepadviewer.com, Docs and FAQ | Picked in the studio: button colour, light colour and mode, and a name on the pad. These are vault options. No CSS. |
| The link after a change | Skin and settings are URL parameters (p=, s=, sc=, dz=), so a different skin is a different link. The beta offers sign-in to “save your setups”. gamepadviewer.com, Docs | The link stays the same. A saved change reaches the browser source within about 12 seconds. |
| Wrong buttons lighting up | A Remap Buttons page on the main site. The beta has a guided remap of “26 prompts, about 2 minutes” and a way to fix one input. beta.gamepadviewer.com, Remap | Common Bluetooth button orders are corrected automatically. A calibrator remaps the rest in 10 presses. |
| Account | None needed to generate a link on the main site. gamepadviewer.com, Generate URL | Needed to save a design and copy the link. Trying pads and colours on the site needs none. |
Gamepad Viewer and ControllerOverlay in short
Gamepad Viewer is a web page that shows what you press on a controller. Its own FAQ calls it “a web-based tool used for representing gamepad input visually”. You connect a pad, build a link in its URL Generator and paste that link into a browser source in OBS. The changelog on gamepadviewer.com goes back to 2014, and a second version, GPV 2, is in beta at beta.gamepadviewer.com.
ControllerOverlay does the same job with a narrower aim. It draws three current pads, the PS5 DualSense, the PS4 DualShock 4 and the Xbox controller, and every skin is fitted to all three. You set the pad up in a studio on this site, sign in, and copy one link. The link goes into a Browser source at 800 × 600, and the background is transparent, so only the controller sits over your game.
Both run inside an OBS browser source, so most of what you already know from Gamepad Viewer carries over: one source, one URL, resize it in the scene. The differences are in which pads you can show, how you change the look, and what happens to the link when you do.
Where Gamepad Viewer is the better choice
A comparison written by one side should say this part plainly. Stay with Gamepad Viewer if any of these matter to you:
- You want to pay nothing and skip the account. Gamepad Viewer lists no price and its main site generates a link without a sign-in. ControllerOverlay needs an account to copy a link, and its skins beyond stock cost $9.99.
- You play on something other than a PS5, PS4 or Xbox pad. Gamepad Viewer has skins for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, GameCube, NES and Nintendo 64 pads, plus a FightPad Pro and a fight stick. ControllerOverlay draws none of those.
- You show more than one controller. Its player parameter accepts 1 to 4. A ControllerOverlay link draws one pad.
- You need its tuning parameters. Gamepad Viewer has an input delay in milliseconds for console capture, a rotation setting that makes a stick stand in for a steering wheel, and trigger strength meters. ControllerOverlay has no input delay setting and no wheel mode.
- You write CSS and want full control. A custom CSS file can replace a Gamepad Viewer skin outright. ControllerOverlay skins are chosen from a list, and you cannot upload your own.
Where ControllerOverlay fits better
The first case is the pad itself. If you hold a DualSense, Gamepad Viewer’s built-in list stops at the PlayStation 4, and getting a PS5 look means finding or writing a CSS skin. ControllerOverlay draws the DualSense with its touchpad, Create button and light strips, and the stock version is free. The PS5 controller overlay page shows it running.
The second is changing how it looks. In Gamepad Viewer a colour change is a CSS file hosted somewhere and passed in the link. Here you pick a skin from the skin list, then a button colour, a light colour and a name, and watch the pad change as you go. Those colour and name options are part of the vault.
The third is the link. Gamepad Viewer keeps the skin and settings in the URL, so a new skin means pasting a new link into OBS. ControllerOverlay keeps your design on the server. The browser source checks in about every 12 seconds, so a change you save in the studio shows up on stream without opening OBS. One link runs in one place at a time: load it somewhere new and the earlier copy stops, and refreshing the browser source takes it back.
The last is Bluetooth. Sony pads paired over Bluetooth often report their buttons to the browser in a non-standard order. Both tools deal with it: Gamepad Viewer with a guided remap of 26 prompts, ControllerOverlay by correcting the common orders automatically and offering a 10-press calibrator for the rest.
What Gamepad Viewer’s status page says about OBS 33
Since 23 October 2026 Gamepad Viewer has had a warning on its status page. In its words: “From OBS 33.0.0 on, a browser source stops receiving controller input as soon as OBS is not the focused application”, and the overlay “freezes on the last input it saw”. The page says “Nothing changed in GamePad Viewer” and calls it “a change in OBS rather than something we can fix from our side”. Its advice is to run OBS as administrator on Windows, or to go back to OBS 32.2.2.
The OBS project has an open report for the same symptom, issue 14083, “Controller inputs not being read in browser source after OBS loses focus”, filed against 33.0.0 on macOS.
ControllerOverlay also runs inside an OBS browser source and reads the controller there. We have not tested it on OBS 33, so we are not going to tell you it behaves any differently. If you are on OBS 33, try your overlay with the game in focus before you go live.
How to switch from Gamepad Viewer
You do not have to remove anything first. Add ControllerOverlay next to your Gamepad Viewer source, compare them, and keep the one you prefer. The OBS steps below follow the OBS Sources Guide and its Browser Source page.
- Open the studio, pick your pad and a skin, sign in and copy your overlay link. It looks like controlleroverlay.com/v/….
- In OBS, click the + button at the bottom of the Sources dock and choose Browser from the Add Sources list.
- In its properties, replace the URL with your ControllerOverlay link. Leave Width at 800 and Height at 600, which are the defaults for a new Browser source.
- Drag the source to the corner where your Gamepad Viewer pad sits and resize it with the handles on its red bounding box. Press a button on your controller: the pad should light up.
- Hide the Gamepad Viewer source with the eye icon next to it. When you are sure, select it and click the − button to remove it.
If the new source is hidden behind your game, drag it higher in the Sources list. OBS draws sources that are higher in the list on top of the ones below. The full walkthrough, with the checks to run when nothing lights up, is in how to add a controller overlay to OBS.
What ControllerOverlay costs
A free account gives you the stock PS5, PS4 and Xbox looks, your permanent link and the Bluetooth button fix. The vault is $9.99, paid once, with no subscription. It adds every other skin on all three pads, plus the button, light and name options. If it is not what you expected, email support@controlleroverlay.com within 14 days and the purchase is refunded in full. The details are on the pricing page.