The best Loom alternatives, compared honestly
Loom still does the core job better than most: hit record, stop, and the link is on your clipboard before you have switched windows. What sends people looking is the shape of the free plan. Starter counts videos rather than minutes, 25 per person including archived ones, 5 minutes each, and Loom's own documentation says free creators cannot download their videos at all. So the free tier degrades as a library you cannot empty. This page compares seven alternatives on price, licence, and the question the roundups skip: who holds the file when you stop paying.
The best Loom alternative depends on what is actually hurting:
- You want your files, not a library → Cap: AGPLv3 source, documented self-hosting, and a Loom importer. Both tools cap free recordings at 5 minutes, but lifting that costs $29 a year for a Cap desktop licence against $180 a year per user on Loom Business.
- Zero cost, zero vendor → OBS Studio: GPL-2.0, version 32.2.2 shipped 14 August 2026, no account and no counter.
- A cloud tool that behaves like Loom on Mac and Windows → Zight: $9.95 per user per month, though its free tier repeats Loom's 25-capture, 5-minute shape.
- Demos that need to look produced → Screen Studio: $9 per month billed yearly or $20 month to month, macOS only.
Narrower cases are in the table below: Vimeo if you want a real player and hosting, ScreenRec for unlimited recording length on a free plan, Guidde when the video should have been a document.
Why teams look elsewhere
What pushes teams off Loom
Loom did not get worse at recording. Five things push people to evaluate alternatives, and every one of them is stated in Atlassian's own documentation or on Loom's own pricing page, checked August 2026.
The free plan counts videos, not minutes
Starter is capped at 25 videos per person, and Loom's support docs are explicit that the count includes any archived videos. Hit the wall and you cannot create a new recording until you delete something or upgrade. Nothing is deleted for you. The tier simply stops working as a library.
Five minutes per recording
Starter enforces a 5-minute duration limit per video. Meeting recordings are exempt and unlimited, which is a real free-tier perk almost nobody mentions, but a six-minute walkthrough needs a paid seat.
No MP4 on the free plan
Loom's download documentation states that admins and creators on a Starter free plan cannot download videos, and that Starter viewers cannot either, whatever the owner's settings say. MP4 export starts at Business. The exit is behind the paywall.
AI is the $6 step
Business is $18 per user per month and Business + AI is $24, both monthly rates. Auto titles, meeting recaps and notes are not an add-on you attach to Business; they are the reason the more expensive plan exists.
The help centre is Atlassian's now
Atlassian announced the acquisition on 12 October 2023. As of August 2026, support.loom.com redirects to support.atlassian.com/loom, and Loom is packaged with Jira, Confluence and Rovo in Atlassian's Teamwork Collection alongside its standalone plans.
Your OS already records the screen
macOS records with Shift + Command + 5 and drops a .mov on the Desktop. Windows 11 records with Windows + Shift + R in Snipping Tool. Neither has a counter, so the paid step is buying the link and the library, not the capture.
The shortlist
7 Loom alternatives worth evaluating
This category splits into two genuinely different answers, and picking the wrong half is why migrations stall. Subscription cloud tools keep the library, the analytics and the share links, and keep billing per seat. Local tools hand you a file, no recurring bill and no vendor holding anything; they also hand you no library. The ranking below optimises first for replacing what Loom actually does, then for how cleanly you can walk away. Every pick lists one honest strength and one real weakness.
Records to a local file or to a shareable link from a desktop app on macOS, Windows and Linux. Free forever for personal use, with local editing and 4K/60fps export, though Cap's own FAQ caps the free version at 5 minutes per recording, the same ceiling Loom Starter has. The desktop licence is $29 per licence billed yearly and adds commercial use; Cap Pro is $12 per user per month billed monthly, or $8.16 billed annually, and brings unlimited cloud sharing, transcripts, a custom domain, a Loom video importer and support for your own S3 bucket. The source is AGPLv3 apart from MIT-licensed camera crates, self-hosting is documented, and release 0.5.9 landed 11 August 2026. Weakness: it is still a 0.5.x product, and the free prebuilt app carries no commercial usage rights.
The recording engine broadcasters use, GPL-2.0, with version 32.2.2 released on 14 August 2026 and around 75,000 GitHub stars behind it. Scenes, multiple sources, system audio, any resolution your machine can encode, and the file lands wherever you point it. Weakness: it gives you a file and nothing else. No library, no share links, no transcripts, and a first-run configuration that the colleague who asked for a 90-second walkthrough will not enjoy.
Automatic cursor smoothing, zooms and backgrounds that make a raw capture look produced, which is why it dominates product demos on social. $20 per month billed monthly, or $9 per month billed yearly, shareable links included, and every recording is a local project file. Weakness: two of them. It is macOS only, with the FAQ still asking whether a Windows version is ready, and it is a subscription now: the one-time licence is a legacy arrangement the FAQ has to explain to old buyers.
Formerly CloudApp. Desktop apps for Mac and Windows, a Chrome extension and an iOS app, with screenshots, annotation, GIFs and video in one library. Create is $9.95 per user per month and Collaborate is $12, the monthly rates on Zight's own plans page, and the Scale tier adds custom S3 storage and custom data retention. Weakness: the free tier is Loom's tier with a different logo, namely the last 25 captures, a 5-minute recording length and 720p, so it is a cheaper counter rather than no counter.
Screen recording is listed as unlimited on every tier including Free, and what surrounds it is a serious player: no ads, 4K and HDR, embedding, chapters, captions and transcripts. From Vimeo's own plan data, in USD: Starter $12 per seat per month billed annually ($144 a year) against $20 month to month, Standard $25 against $41, Advanced $75 against $125. Weakness: the video counter does not stop when you pay. Free is 2 videos a month up to 25 total, and Starter is capped at 60 videos per seat per year.
Free Forever with unlimited recording length, 2 GB of cloud storage, no watermark and instant share links, on Mac, Windows and Linux. Pro is $8.32 per month billed annually for 50 GB, 1080p and 60 fps; the page has a pound, dollar and euro selector, so check the currency it serves you. Weakness: the free tier is explicitly personal use only and caps quality at 720p, and the app is closed source, so the generosity is a policy rather than a right.
Captures a workflow and turns it into a narrated step-by-step guide with an AI voiceover, then exports it as video, PowerPoint or PDF, which is the part that matters here: the artifact can leave the platform. Free covers up to 25 how-to videos with the watermark left on. Pro is $29 per creator per month, or $19 billed annually; Business is $59 monthly, $39 annually, for up to 5 creators. Weakness: it is documentation tooling, not a face-cam message, and its free tier carries the same 25-artifact cap.
Left out on purpose. Scribe (formerly scribehow.com) makes written step-by-step docs rather than video, at $35 per seat per month or $25 billed yearly for Pro Personal; worth knowing about if the recording was never the point. Kap is MIT with roughly 19,000 stars, but its last release was version 3.6.0 in October 2022 and its last commit landed in November 2024, so it is popular and frozen. ScreenToGif is MS-PL and actively released, most recently in July 2026, but it is Windows-only and GIF-oriented. Tella shows $13 and $19 per month in its compare-plans row without stating which side of the monthly and annual toggle those figures belong to, so we left it out rather than guess.
Side by side
Loom alternatives compared
Prices as of August 2026, in USD, from each vendor's own pricing page. The column that decides most migrations is not the seat price, it is what the free tier counts: every cloud tool here meters the artifact rather than the time, and three of them independently landed on the same number, 25. Loom's own row is the baseline.
| Tool | Type | Free plan counts | Can you take the file out? | Licence | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loom | Cloud, per seat | 25 videos/person, archived included; 5 min each | ✗ no MP4 download on Starter; MP4 from Business up | ✗ proprietary SaaS | Staying put on a paid seat |
| Cap | Local, optional cloud | 5 min per recording on Free; unlimited on a paid licence | ✓ local files, your own S3 bucket, self-host | ✓ AGPLv3 (MIT capture crates) | Owning your recordings |
| OBS Studio | Local only | Nothing: there is no account | ✓ the file is the only output | ✓ GPL-2.0 | Zero cost, zero vendor |
| Screen Studio | Local, subscription | No free tier | ✓ local project files and exports | ✗ proprietary, macOS only | Polished macOS demos |
| Zight | Cloud, per seat | Last 25 captures; 5 min each; 720p; 1 GB | ✓ downloads on paid plans, custom S3 on Scale | ✗ proprietary | A Mac and Windows cloud swap |
| Vimeo | Cloud, per seat | 2 videos/month, 25 total; 60/seat/year on Starter | ✓ downloads and transcript export | ✗ proprietary | A real player and hosting |
| ScreenRec | Cloud plus desktop app | 2 GB storage, 720p, personal use only | Cloud library, 2 GB ceiling on free | ✗ proprietary | Unlimited free recording length |
| Guidde | Cloud, per creator | 25 how-to videos, watermarked | ✓ export to video, PPT and PDF on Pro | ✗ proprietary | Turning the video into a doc |
Loom quotes the monthly rates on the front of its pricing page and puts the annual equivalents behind the billing toggle: $180 per user per year for Business and $240 for Business + AI, a 17% saving. The monthly figures are the ones quoted here. Loom Enterprise, Zight Scale, Vimeo Enterprise and Guidde Enterprise publish no price at all, which is why nothing is stated for them rather than an estimate. ScreenRec serves a pound, dollar and euro selector; the figure above is the USD one. Pricing and free tiers change often; check each vendor for current terms. Compiled August 2026.
Official pages: Loom · Atlassian (Loom) · Cap · OBS Studio · Screen Studio · Zight · Vimeo · ScreenRec · Guidde · Apple (macOS recording) · Microsoft (Snipping Tool)
A fair call
When Loom is still the right choice
Migrating is not free. Your existing library stays where it is unless you can download it, and on Starter you cannot, so the first month of any move usually costs one paid seat. Two facts below should settle the question before you start.
Loom is still right if…
- You already pay for a seat. Both counters vanish on Business, and $18 per user per month buys unlimited length, up to 4K, password-protected videos and the view analytics that make async video accountable.
- You are an Atlassian shop. Loom ships inside the Teamwork Collection with Jira, Confluence and Rovo, so it may already be paid for on your invoice.
- You are worried Atlassian will retire it. Atlassian's Q1 FY26 shareholder letter, dated 31 October 2025, calls Loom a standalone business past $100 million in annual recurring revenue, with AI editions growing more than 100% year over year. That is the opposite of a wind-down, and it is the fear most "leave Loom" posts are quietly built on.
- You record long meetings for free. Starter's 5-minute cap does not apply to meeting recordings, which are unlimited: the free tier's least-known strength, and the one case where the artifact-counting model works in your favour.
Look elsewhere if…
- You need your MP4s and will not pay for the privilege: Cap or OBS Studio.
- You want a cloud library on Mac and Windows for less per seat: Zight at $9.95 per user per month.
- Your recordings are product demos that have to look produced: Screen Studio.
- Video has to live on your own infrastructure: Cap, self-hosted, or nothing at all.
- The recording was really a process document: Guidde, which exports to PDF and PowerPoint, or Scribe.
Common questions
Common questions about Loom alternatives
What is the best Loom alternative in 2026?
Cap is the best all-round Loom alternative in 2026 because it replaces what Loom actually does, record and share a link, without holding your files. Its source is AGPLv3 apart from MIT-licensed capture crates, self-hosting is documented, and local recording is free forever for personal use. Cap Pro at $12 per user per month billed monthly adds unlimited cloud sharing, a Loom video importer, a custom domain and support for your own S3 bucket. If you only need the capture and no library, OBS Studio is free under GPL-2.0 and actively released. If you want a cloud tool that behaves like Loom on both Mac and Windows, Zight is $9.95 per user per month.
Why do teams leave Loom?
The recurring reason is the shape of the free plan rather than the quality of the product. Loom Starter counts videos instead of minutes: 25 per person, with archived videos included in that count, and 5 minutes per recording. Reach 25 and you cannot record anything new until you delete or upgrade. Loom's own documentation also states that admins and creators on a Starter free plan cannot download videos, so the free tier is a library you cannot empty into your own storage. The other push is the $6 per user per month step from Business at $18 to Business + AI at $24.
How much does Loom cost in 2026?
Loom publishes three prices and one custom tier. Starter is free, with up to 25 videos per person and a 5-minute limit per recording. Business is $18 per user per month and Business + AI is $24 per user per month, both monthly rates; annual billing saves 17%, and the pricing page's own plan data prices Business at $180 per user per year and Business + AI at $240. Enterprise has no published price, is annual only, and adds SSO, SCIM and a 99.95% uptime SLA. Loom is also included in Atlassian's Teamwork Collection alongside Jira, Confluence and Rovo.
Is Atlassian shutting Loom down?
No. Atlassian announced the acquisition on 12 October 2023 and said Loom would remain available as a standalone product, and it still is: loom.com sells Business and Business + AI seats directly. Atlassian's Q1 FY26 shareholder letter, dated 31 October 2025, describes Loom as a standalone business past $100 million in annual recurring revenue, with AI-enabled editions growing more than 100% year over year. What has changed is the estate around the product: the Loom help centre now redirects to support.atlassian.com/loom, and Loom is bundled into the Teamwork Collection with Jira, Confluence and Rovo.
Is there a truly open-source Loom alternative?
Yes, and the licence names matter. Cap is AGPLv3 for everything except its camera and capture crates, which are MIT; both are OSI-approved, and Cap documents self-hosting on your own infrastructure. OBS Studio is GPL-2.0. Those are open source in the strict sense, unlike the source-available licences such as BSL, SSPL or Sustainable Use that turn up elsewhere in developer tooling. Kap is MIT but effectively frozen: its last release was version 3.6.0 in October 2022 and its last commit landed in November 2024. Screen Studio, Zight, Vimeo, ScreenRec and Guidde are all proprietary.
Can I get my videos out of Loom before I switch?
Only from a paid seat. Loom's download documentation limits MP4 downloads to admins and creators on Business and Business + AI, and to admins and members on Enterprise, and states plainly that admins and creators on a Starter free plan cannot download videos. Viewers on a Starter plan cannot download either, whatever the owner's video settings say. The practical route is one paid month of Business, download the recordings that matter as MP4, then move. Cap Pro also ships a Loom video importer, which shortens the second half of that job.