Loom

ALMOST

A weekend of work, and real gaps remain.

Records your screen and camera and turns it into a link you can send. The point is the round trip: hit record, stop, and the video is already uploaded, transcribed and watchable — with viewer counts and comments underneath.

Promptfree, for everyone, and the only version there is

Build me a screen recorder that produces a shareable link almost as soon as I stop.

STACK
- A browser recorder using getDisplayMedia and MediaRecorder, in vanilla JS
- Astro with a Node adapter for hosting and playback, SQLite, ffmpeg on the server

RECORDING
- Screen plus microphone, with an optional webcam bubble composited onto a canvas
- A live timer, and a WebM file produced locally

UPLOAD WHILE STILL RECORDING
- Chunks uploaded as they are produced, not at the end
- The share link is ready within a second or two of stopping, which is the whole product

TRANSCODING
- A server-side ffmpeg job to H.264 MP4 at two resolutions, plus a poster frame
- Job state in the database, retried on failure, never run inside a request

THE SHARE PAGE
- HTML5 player, copy-link button, optional expiry date and optional passphrase

WATCHING, MEASURED HONESTLY
- View events appended: timestamp, coarse referrer, watched duration
- Per-video average watch percentage and a drop-off curve

CAPTIONS
- whisper.cpp locally, stored as WebVTT, rendered as clickable captions that seek the player

Include a README with object storage pricing per gigabyte and egress, because that number decides whether this is worth self-hosting.

What you lose

A desktop recorder that handles system audio, multiple monitors and permission dialogs on both macOS and Windows
A transcoding pipeline and a CDN, which is where the recurring cost of self-hosting video actually lands
Automatic transcripts, captions and searchable text across a video library
The share link that works the instant you stop recording, while the upload is still finishing
Viewer analytics: who watched, how far they got, and where they stopped

If you would rather not build

OBS Studio plus any file host, for the low-effort version

The escape hatch

open source · no votes, no paid placement

Cap

Screen and camera recording that ends in a shareable link.

CapSoftware/Capfree · open source

Screenity

Browser extension that records the screen with annotations, saving locally.

alyssaxuu/screenityfree · open source

Why this verdict

our own opinion · changed only by a person

52/100

Verdict kinda at 52: browser recording and playback are genuinely one session, but transcoding, storage and egress are an ongoing bill, and matching Loom's instant-share-while-uploading takes real engineering. Score sits mid-range because the economics, not the code, decide this one.

History

tracked since 6 Aug 2026 · nothing is ever overwritten

Interest · last 30 days

Nothing recorded yet. This chart fills in once the page has visitors, votes or prompt copies — it will not draw a flat line to look busy.

Questions about Loom

answered from the record above

Is Loom free?

No — the plan we track is $18 a month. Business plan on monthly billing, per user. Roughly $14.94 per user per month if billed annually.

Can you replace Loom by building your own?

ALMOST. A weekend of work, and real gaps remain. Replacement score 52 out of 100, build time a weekend. Read what you lose before you decide.

How much does Loom cost?

$18 a month on Business — $216 a year. Recorded 6 Aug 2026.

What do you lose by replacing Loom?

A desktop recorder that handles system audio, multiple monitors and permission dialogs on both macOS and Windows; A transcoding pipeline and a CDN, which is where the recurring cost of self-hosting video actually lands; Automatic transcripts, captions and searchable text across a video library; The share link that works the instant you stop recording, while the upload is still finishing; Viewer analytics: who watched, how far they got, and where they stopped. If any of those carry weight for you, keep paying.

Is there an open-source alternative to Loom?

Yes: Cap, Screenity. The prompt on this page is for when you want it your way instead.

Related entries

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All 16 in Screen recording & video

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