I know this may be borderline with the forum rules, as I want to talk about alternatives to vMix. Please understand though that I'm not using vMix for its intended purpose and I'm probing the community to see if perhaps there's a better solution out there for me. So I truly hope this is okay and not stepping on toes!

I'm a variety broadcaster on Twitch and I use vMix to display some visual custom alerts, primarily because of the editor allowing me to have text and an image combined.

I'll run through an example and the features that I use.
- I receive a new follow on my Twitch channel, and using the Twitch API, a script I have alerts vMix using the Web Interface that I have this new follower. It passes the name to vMix using a POST.
- vMix receives the POST to change the text, then receives a follow-up POST to "activate" that image.
- I've set vMix up to use a specific transition for 8000ms.
- This entire time vMix is sending its output to 'External' and XSplit is capturing that external output as a webcam.

Herein lies the problem. The vMix Basic only allows me to use 1 transition, so I'm fixed with all alerts being identical in style and identical in length of time displayed. vMix Basic also limits me to 4 'scenes,' and one of those scenes is a solid green background for chroma key. This means I'm effectively limited to 3 alerts only. I also cannot figure out if it's a limitation or I'm simply using vMix wrong, but I cannot have text and a VIDEO in the same scene (without also losing the green chroma background that I've permanently "cut" to; I think the 'multiscene' feature is for this, and either it's locked out and I just don't understand it).

This is why I want to pick the brain of the community here, since you'll have expertise with vMix and alternative products.
In order to raise my limits I'd need to spend $150 USD (As a Canadian, that's $210 + fee!), and it's not that I don't think vMix isn't a great tool and "worth it," it's that I'm using it for such a basic process (simply displaying images for a few seconds) that there may be something more cost effective to do exactly what I'm doing.

vMix is pretty versatile in its suite and I'm using some very unique features (such as the image & text design combo; and I'd very much want to keep that! Or the web interface and ability to accept POST commands). What's more likely is that any alternatives lack these features in its arsenal, and I'm not sure I'd like to regress.

Is there something out there that would better suit my needs, or should I just work with the limited abilities?

(P.S. I know that vMix can also stream to Twitch, but I'm very comfortable with using XSplit as it's very easy and intuitive to use for that exact purpose. Sorry!)

Thanks for any input!

Thanks for that! Sounds like a very creative solution.
Admittedly I don't know Lua, but that's never stopped me from trying. I'll peek into these two applications and see what's up!