This page provides a comparison of notable screencasting software, used to record activities on the computer screen. This software is commonly used for desktop recording, gameplay recording and video editing. Screencasting software is typically limited to streaming and recording desktop activity alone, in contrast with a software vision mixer, which has the capacity to mix and switch the output between various input streams.

Comparison by specification

Product name Publisher Latest stable version Latest release date OS Software license Source code
available?
ActivePresenter Atomi Systems 8.5.7 2022-05-16 Windows
macOS		 Proprietary commercial No
ActivePresenter Free Edition Atomi Systems 8.5.7 2021-05-16 Windows
macOS		 Freeware No
Adobe Captivate Adobe Systems 9.0 2015-08-03 Windows
macOS		 Proprietary commercial No
Adobe Presenter Video Express Adobe Systems 11.0 2016-09-14 Windows
macOS		 Proprietary commercial No
AVS Video Editor Online Media Technologies Ltd 7.5.1.288 2017-01-16 Windows Commercial No
Bandicam Bandicam Company 6.1.0.2044 2023-02-28 Windows Freemium commercial No
BB FlashBack Blueberry Software 5.4.0.3442 2014-12-18 Windows Proprietary commercial No
BB FlashBack Express Blueberry Software 5.22.0.4178 2016-11-09 Windows Freeware No
CamStudio CamStudio.org 2.7.2 r326 2013-10-19 Windows GPL Yes
Camtasia (Windows) TechSmith 2023.4.5 [1] 2024-04-02 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Camtasia (Mac) TechSmith 2023.3.13 [2] 2024-04-09 macOS Proprietary commercial No
CloudApp CloudApp 6.1[3] 2020-07-13 Windows
macOS
Linux		 Freemium No
Debut (Windows) NCH Software 4.08 2017-09-14 Windows Trialware No
Debut (Mac) NCH Software 4.01 2017-03-31 macOS Trialware No
Fraps Beepa Pty Ltd 3.5.99 2013-02-26 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Freeseer FOSSLC 3.0.1 2013-12-15 Windows
macOS
Linux		 GPL-3.0-or-later Yes
HyperCam Solveig Multimedia 4.0.1511.06 2015-11-06 Windows Proprietary commercial No
HyperCam Hyperionics 2.29.00 2016-01-07 Windows Freeware No
Microsoft Expression Encoder Microsoft 4 2011-11-02 Windows Freeware No
Nero Vision Nero AG 10.6.10800 2011-04-19 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Nvidia Shadowplay Nvidia 2.11.4.0 2016-06-21 Windows Proprietary (Part of NVIDIA GFE) No
Open Broadcaster Software

(OBS Studio)

OBS Project 30.0.2[4] Edit this on Wikidata 2023-12-10; 2024-03-12 Windows
macOS
Linux		 GPL-2.0-or-later Yes
Peek Philipp Wolfer 1.5.1 2020-02-19 Linux GPL-3.0-or-later Yes
Pixetell Ontier Inc. 1.3.11913 2010-01-15 Windows Proprietary commercial No
QuickTime X Apple Inc. 10.0 (118) 2010-03-29 macOS Proprietary (Part of macOS) No
recordMyDesktop SourceForge 0.4.0 2021-03-14 Linux GPL-2.0-or-later & GPL-3.0-or-later Yes
Screencam SmartGuyz Inc. 3.3.0 2009-03-24 Windows Proprietary commercial No
ScreenFlow Telestream 10.0.2 2021-07-06 macOS Proprietary commercial No
ShareX Jaex and Michael Delpach 16.0.1 2024-03-17 Windows GPL v3 Yes
SimpleScreenRecorder maartenbaert 0.4.3 2020-12-26 Linux GPL-3.0-or-later Yes
Snagit (Windows) TechSmith 2024.1.1 [5] 2024-03-12 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Snagit (Mac) TechSmith 2024.2.4 [6] 2024-04-04 macOS Proprietary commercial No
Snapz Pro X Ambrosia Software 2.6.1 2016-10-17 macOS Proprietary commercial No
VirtualDub SourceForge 1.9.11 2012-12-27 Windows GPL-2.0-or-later Yes
VLC media player VideoLAN 3.0.18 2022-11-08[7] Windows
macOS
Linux
BSD
Solaris
QNX
Haiku
Syllable
OS/2		 LGPL-2.1-or-later Yes
Xbox (Game DVR) / Xbox Game Bar Microsoft Windows Freeware No
XVidCap SourceForge 1.1.7 2008-07-13 Unix-like GPL-2.0-or-later Yes
XSplit Broadcaster SplitmediaLabs 3.0.1705.3117 2017-06-27 Windows Shareware No
Product name Publisher Latest stable version Latest release date OS Software license Source code
available?

Comparison by features

The following table compares features of screencasting software. The table has seven fields, as follows:

  1. Product name: Product's name; sometime includes edition if a certain edition is targeted
  2. Audio: Specifies whether the product supports recording audio commentary on the video
  3. Entire desktop: Specifies whether product supports recording the entire desktop
  4. OpenGL: Specifies whether the product supports recording from video games and software that employ OpenGL to render digital image
  5. Direct3D: Specifies whether the product supports recording from video games or software that employ Direct3D to render digital image
  6. Editing: Specifies whether the product supports editing recorded video at least to some small extent, such as cropping, trimming or splitting
  7. Output: Specifies the file format in which the software saves the final video (audio output types are omitted)
Product name Audio Entire
desktop 		OpenGL Direct3D Editing Output
ActivePresenter[8] Yes Yes No Yes Yes
ActivePresenter free edition[8] Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Adobe Captivate[9] Yes Yes ? ? Yes SWF, EXE, MP4
Adobe Presenter Video Express[10] Yes Yes ? ? Yes MP4
Bandicam Yes Yes Yes Yes No
BB FlashBack Yes Yes ? ? Yes AVI, FLV, SWF[11]
BB FlashBack express Yes Yes ? ? No AVI, FLV, SWF, MP4 (H.264 or MPEG-4 ASP), WMV, Animated GIF, PowerPoint slideshow, self-extracting EXE[11]
CamStudio Yes Yes ? ? Yes AVI, SWF
Camtasia (Windows) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Camtasia (Mac) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
CloudApp Yes Yes No No Yes ?
Debut Yes Yes ? ? Yes AVI, FLV, MKV, MP4, WebM, WMV, 3GP, ASF, DV, MOV, MPG, OGV
FFmpeg with a plug-in Depends Depends Depends Depends No cf. FFmpeg § Codecs, formats and protocols supported
Fraps Yes Yes Yes Yes No FPS1 in AVI
Freeseer Yes Yes ? ? No Ogg
HyperCam Yes Yes ? ? No AVI, WMV
Jing Yes Yes ? ? No SWF
Microsoft Expression Encoder Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Nero Vision Yes ? ? ? Yes
Nvidia Shadowplay Yes Yes No Yes No
Open Broadcaster Software Yes Yes Yes Yes No Simple mode: FLV, MP4, MOV, MKV, TS, HLS
Advanced mode: Any format supported by libavformat
Pixetell Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
QuickTime X Yes Yes ? ? No
recordMyDesktop Yes Yes ? — No Theora in Ogg
Screencam Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
ScreenFlow Yes Yes Yes — Yes ProRes, MP4, GIF, AAC
ShareX Yes Yes No No No AVI, MP4, GIF
SimpleScreenRecorder Yes Yes Yes — No Formats supported by libavformat
Snagit (Windows) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Snagit (Mac) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Snapz Pro X Yes Yes ? ? No
VirtualDub Yes ? ? ? Yes AVI
VLC Yes Yes Yes ? Yes
Windows Media Encoder Yes Yes ? ? No
Xbox (Game DVR) /Xbox Game Bar Yes No ? ? No MP4
XVidCap Yes ? ? — No
XSplit Broadcaster Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes MP4, FLV
Product name Audio Entire
desktop 		OpenGL Direct3D Editing Output

See also

References

  1. ^ "Camtasia (Windows) Version History". TechSmith Support.
  2. ^ "Camtasia (Mac) Version History". TechSmith Support.
  3. ^ "Introducing: Automated Drop Naming, Enhanced Annotations, Multi-Monitor Support, and 4k Video Quailty Options". CloudApp Blog. Retrieved 2020-09-06.
  4. ^ "OBS Studio 30.0.2". 10 December 2023. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
  5. ^ "Snagit (Windows) Version History". TechSmith Support.
  6. ^ "Snagit (Mac) Version History". TechSmith Support.
  7. ^ "VLC: Official site - Free multimedia solutions for all OS! - VideoLAN". VideoLAN. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
  8. ^ a b "Feature Comparison". ActivePresenter website. Atomi Systems. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
  9. ^ "Supported file formats". Adobe Captivate Help. Adobe Systems Incorporated. Retrieved 2013-06-03.
  10. ^ "Output formats". Adobe Presenter Video Express Help. Adobe Systems Incorporated. Retrieved 2015-09-14.
  11. ^ a b "Feature Comparison". bbsoftware.co.uk. Blueberry Software. Retrieved 13 January 2015.
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