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OpenScreen is an open-source alternative to Screen Studio
- mc7alazoun 6mo agoThanks for sharing! I'll give it a go and send back my feedback.
- colesantiago 6mo agoThanks to open source and AI, we don't need every software to be a subscription or an enshittified SaaS. Screen Studio at $29/mo is unusually and extremely expensive for a video recorder app, and not counting the fact that it is proprietary, which means they can change pricing at any time. Thanks for building this.
- danpasca 6mo agoYep. I've had ChatGPT build many simple python scripts or browser extensions that I can use for free instead of paying for subscriptions that shouldn't be subscriptions in the first place.
- josephcsible 6mo agoDoes this have any advantages over OBS Studio?
- hackyhacky 6mo agoSpeaking as someone who has used both: yes. OBS is a general-purpose recording/streaming system. It gives you a lot of flexibility, but it can take some work to make things look "nice." Screen Studio (and so OpenScreen as well) are "opinionated" and are designed to create aesthetic videos with minimal configuration. They can't do a lot of the things that OBS can do, but if all you want is to record your desktop with a webcam overlay, it's a lot easier.
- triilman 6mo agocan it utilize my accelerator or GPU for best performance. and is it support kind of encode like av qucksync?
- neoCrimeLabs 6mo agoOBS is more focused on live-streaming, even if it can be general purpose. OpenScreen is more about screen recording, once recorded it turns into a simple-ish NLE that is focused on editing screen-casts.
- csomar 6mo agoYes. For me personally, I am only interested in creating short demo videos in as little time as possible. OBS is an advanced software that requires me to learn to use it. I just downloaded this and had a zoom effect video from the first attempt. The learning curve is roughly zero.
- gargan 6mo agoIt's the automatic zooming animations. I've not found any OBS scripts that can do this?
- xgulfie 6mo agoOBS + kdenlive can also get you here, but this product is meant to be purpose-built and time-saving specifically for the computer instructions use case
- SilentM68 6mo agoNifty app! Just tried the AppImage version on Linux, simple to use, and works Ok on my end. Suggest you add preferences dropdown to floating bar, and ability to highlight parts of an area for record, ability to set the default save location or change it at will. Also noted that though I closed the app via the customary way, and removed the AppImage, the apps ICON remained present in GNOME's notification area. Will keep an eye on its progress since OBS (what I used) seems to have stopped receiving updates :)
- josephcsible 6mo ago> OBS (what I used) seems to have stopped receiving updates :) No it hasn't: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/commits/master/ https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/commits/master/
- SilentM68 6mo agoHmm, for the longest time, the Flatpak version of the app in my Linux OS was warning me that a particular older org.freedesktop.Platform runtime was end of life, and that OBS project should update their compatibility hence OBS was being classified as a security risk during the update process. Having said that, and reading your reply, I stand corrected and I take it back as I did an update and the error is nowhere to be found. Not sure how the runtime was updated to the latest, 25.08, but assume it was the obs project. :)
- Nevin1901 6mo agoThank you so much for making this. Screen studio was unbelievably expensive for what it was
- youniverse 6mo agoNow we need an open source self hostable Loom.
- crummy 6mo agoHaven’t tried it, but here is one: https://github.com/MarconLP/snapify https://github.com/MarconLP/snapify
- DougMerritt 6mo ago1. It says it is $8/month, which is not mentioned on the github page, so I had been thinking it was free in addition to being AGPL-3.0; it links to https://snapify.it/ https://snapify.it/ which is where I see the fee. 2. It says "for everyone" but looks like it might be Linux-specific, and it doesn't say anything about which OSes are supported.
- josephcsible 6mo agoIIUC, the fee is just to use their instance, and hosting your own instance is actually free. Also, it looks like the client side of it runs in a browser, so it will support pretty much any OS.
- volume_tech 6mo ago[dead]
- marktolson 6mo agoGenuinely impressed with this! Thank you!
- karimf 6mo agoNice project. I thought of building exactly this. Since it's much easier to port source code to other languages now, I'd love to see more projects like written in Swift, or C#.
- alin23 6mo agoAm I in the minority for thinking ScreenStudio is actually worth the money? The recent video I did for Cling for example (https://lowtechguys.com/cling https://lowtechguys.com/cling) I’ve had many people ask about how I did it because it has just the right amount of motion and highlighting. I did it in a few minutes of editing in the ScreenStudio UI. I’m not saying it’s a great video, but people say it conveys the info well enough and that’s what matters. It would have taken me days to do the same with DaVinci Resolve because of my inexperience with complex editors. A $30/month subscription is indeed too much, but I see it as a one time payment for that month when I release something, then I pause the subscription. I need it rarely, very few videos need zooming and motion. Anyway I love to see alternatives like OpenScreen! What I would miss the most would be presets, not sure if it’s already there, but it’s a nice quality of life feature to have a consistent look to the motion effects between videos.
- RestartKernel 6mo agoI think it's mostly just that a subscription seems weird for a tool like this. Most users would probably only need it occasionally, and with a subscription you can't just add it to your toolbox to grab when that time comes.
- edoceo 6mo agoIMO a big disservice to the universe has been done with the recurring revenue drive. Many services could/should offer a one-shot option, with the highest margin. Somehow the world got stuck on SaaS model so hard that one off is completely ignored. I know why the capital class loves MRR I'm just mad that OTC is ignored.
- gobdovan 6mo agoI am struggling with finding a good model for desktop apps. The subscription model always seems to yield the most money, but I too dislike subscriptions. One-shot option seems attractive, but the desktop (MacOS at least) app market is actually so niche that the SAM is somewhere in the low thousands. So, if I would offer a one-time 100$ app, I'd have 100k$ before taxes. And for that revenue, there's developing, marketing, plus support and maintenance. So to match a dev's salary, I'd need to make 2-3 successful apps a year, that I'd also have to maintain for a long time. I think maybe there's a mid-ground with buy forever, 1 year updates, so people get the product they paid for, and if they want updates or support the development they can re-buy, however I'm yet to hear opinions on this model.
- mjmsmith 6mo agoCurious how this compares to Recordly (https://recordly.dev https://recordly.dev)
- cheekyant 6mo agoIt seems Recordly is a fork of OpenScreen with some native MacOS features. Interesting post here https://www.reddit.com/r/software/s/bAvNP3WjgT https://www.reddit.com/r/software/s/bAvNP3WjgT
- jlarks32 6mo agoLooks awesome! Super excited to try it. What are pros / cons over Cap? https://cap.so/ https://cap.so/ - also open source https://github.com/CapSoftware/cap https://github.com/CapSoftware/cap
- csomar 6mo agoThis one is free even for commercial usage.
- SSLy 6mo agoso is cap if one has the will to build from source, no? https://github.com/CapSoftware/Cap/blob/main/LICENSE https://github.com/CapSoftware/Cap/blob/main/LICENSE
- martypitt 6mo agoFor one, OpenScreen supports Linux, whereas Cap doesn't. I appreciate it's small minority that appeals to, it's just that I'm in it.
- SoldierSacha 6mo agoI've also found https://framecapture.pro https://framecapture.pro to be a super good free alternative to Screen Studio. It's got... literally everything...
- dhruv3006 6mo agoGreat project - but screen studio is actually pretty awesome!
- fodkodrasz 6mo agoI see that this is for MacOS. Isn't there a stock feature for screen recording, like on the iPhone, or on Windows (snipping tool can do screen recordings since Windows 10 or 11)?
- stared 6mo agoOn Windows, I used to use https://www.cockos.com/licecap/ https://www.cockos.com/licecap/ Now, I see the last build is from 2022.
- addandsubtract 6mo agoThere is, using QuickTime. The repo just fails to mention the benefits of this by assuming everyone knows what Screen Studio is and does.
- JCharante 6mo agoto be fair if you don't know about screen studio why are you looking at an oss alternative?
- bigfishrunning 6mo agoI don't know about screen studio, but if I were looking for a way to edit screen recordings I wouldn't be searching for an "open source alternative", I would be searching for "open source software" Defining your project as an open source alternative to another program is a mistake I think
- addandsubtract 6mo agoFuck me for being interested in projects posted on HN, I guess.
- deadlocked 6mo agoShift+Cmd+5 brings up the built-in screen capture tool, which includes options for recording the screen (or a window, or a section of the screen). OpenScreen and its ilk seem to have more features for post-capture editing though.
- __mharrison__ 6mo agoI'd rather have the metadata from click and typing events and use that to create a davinci project...
- ramkarthikk 6mo agoI've been using this for the past month or so and have had nothing but positive experience. It's easy to use and works well. I wish the zoom was a slider instead of preset options, that way I could get finer control. Easily one of the best apps I found recently along with Handy.computer.
- gargan 6mo agoAlso checkout https://screenix.studio/ https://screenix.studio/ if you're on Linux I just tried Open Screen but it didn't work on my machine (Cachy OS) - it didn't detect the screen or my microphone. Hopefully it gets better
- KetoManx64 6mo agoGreat share, didn't know I wanted something like this until this thread. Thanks!
- vanous 6mo agoLooks great. Not FLOSS.
- jiusanzhou 6mo agoSmart choice using PixiJS for the rendering pipeline — WebGL gives you hardware-accelerated compositing for the zoom/pan effects without needing to shell out to ffmpeg for every preview frame. The auto-zoom feature alone makes this worth it for anyone doing quick product demos where you'd otherwise spend 20 minutes keyframing in a full NLE. Would love to see cursor click highlighting land at some point, that's the one Screen Studio feature I actually miss.
- avinashselvam 6mo agopixijs has been great for my saas as well. rendering is blazing fast compared to ffmpeg pipelines.
- merelysounds 6mo agoSame, only praises; I used pixijs 10 years ago in a resource constrained mobile focused project and I keep using it today.
- tuzemec 6mo agoThat's pretty cool! Btw, it seems that "How trimming works" screen has some missing translations.
- I_am_tiberius 6mo ago[dead]
- bojangleslover 6mo agoI made this with OpenScreen: https://x.com/derekdfulton/status/2015804409205125151 https://x.com/derekdfulton/status/2015804409205125151 Thought it came out pretty good
- Nexxxeh 6mo agoLooks smooth, but holy motion sickness.
- steveharing1 6mo agoThis is really useful when it comes to recording product demo videos as well as UI is so clean and minimal that it feels like modern open source.
- wei03288 6mo ago[dead]
- Alexzoofficial 6mo ago[flagged]
- volume_tech 6mo ago[dead]
- volume_tech 6mo ago[dead]
- lofaszvanitt 6mo ago"OpenScreen is your free, open-source alternative to Screen Studio (sort of)." If you rip something off, at least have the decency to not compare your product to it. I mean, why is it good to have zero revenue and at the same time killing revenue for something else, that existed for a long time? What's wrong with people, why are they biting their own hand? FOSS is a trojan horse and look, how many borderline idiotic manchildren kill their livelihood and offer their arz on a platter and at the same time killing revenue streams for others. And for what? So someone could expropriate it in an instant??? I mean what on earth is wrong with people???
- om252345 6mo agoFor non AI era, putting efforts to make software like Screen Studio and charge $30 per month might have made sense. But with AI, burning credits for Open source will become a trend. Hail oss..
- alejandrosplitt 6mo ago[dead]