Screen Recording & Demo Videos
Record your screen for product demos, walkthroughs, and async-loom-style videos.
The "record a quick walkthrough of this feature" workflow, plus more polished product-demo recording. For static screenshots, see Mockups & Screenshots.
Async / Loom-style (record, share a link)
- ★ Loom (free tier) — closed source; 25 videos / 5 min each on free plan; the category-defining tool. Auto-transcripts, comments, view tracking. Honest pick: still where most teams land.
- ★ Tella (free tier) — closed source; very generous free tier in 2026; designer-leaning; built-in backgrounds, multi-scene editing.
- Vidyard (free tier) — closed source; 25 videos free; sales-leaning.
- Screencastify (free tier) — Chrome extension; 30 recordings / 5 min each free.
- Vimeo Record — free with Vimeo account; lightweight.
Polished product demos (camera move, zoom, smooth)
- ★ Screen Studio (macOS) — closed source, paid (free trial); auto-zoom on clicks, animated cursor, smooth-cam — the bar for marketing-quality screen demos in 2026.
- Tella — see above; competitive with Screen Studio; cross-platform.
- CleanShot X — see Mockups & Screenshots; records too, with annotations.
- Jumpshare — closed source, freemium.
Heavy-duty / streaming / multi-source
- ★ OBS Studio — free OSS (GPL); the canonical streamer. Multi-scene, multi-source, plugins, output to file or stream. Cross-platform. Steeper learning curve but unmatched ceiling.
- Streamlabs — OBS fork; free with paid plans.
- mmhmm — closed source, freemium; presenter-overlay style.
Free OSS desktop recorders
- ★ OBS Studio — see above.
- SimpleScreenRecorder (Linux) — free OSS.
- Kazam (Linux) — free OSS, simpler.
- ShareX (Windows) — free OSS; includes screen-recording.
- macOS QuickTime /
Cmd+Shift+5— free; built in; no editing.
Animated GIFs
- ★ CleanShot X / Shottr — both export GIFs natively.
- LICEcap — free OSS; the OG cross-platform GIF recorder.
- Kap (macOS) — free OSS; clean Electron app, MP4 / GIF / WebM.
- Peek (Linux) — free OSS GIF recorder.
- ScreenToGif (Windows) — free OSS; underrated; best Windows pick.
Editing recordings (post)
- Descript (free tier) — closed source; transcript-first editor (delete words → cuts video). Free tier includes 1 hr of transcription / month.
- DaVinci Resolve (free) — closed source, deeply capable free tier; broadcast-quality editor.
- Kdenlive — free OSS video editor; GPL.
- Shotcut — free OSS; cross-platform.
- CapCut (free) — closed source; freemium; good enough for short demos.
Pick this if…
- Async walkthrough at work: Loom or Tella free tier.
- Marketing-quality product demo, macOS: Screen Studio.
- Streaming or multi-source recording, free: OBS Studio.
- Quick GIF for a PR or doc: CleanShot X (paid) or Kap / ScreenToGif (free).
- Heavy editing free: DaVinci Resolve free tier or Kdenlive.
- Edit by editing the transcript: Descript free tier.