10 Free Screen Recording Softwares For Creating Attractive Screencasts

97 Responses for "10 Free Screen Recording Softwares For Creating Attractive Screencasts"

1. connectionfailure May 26th, 2009 at 5:35 am

   What platform do these run on… Linux, OSX or that other one?

2. Umut M. May 26th, 2009 at 6:02 am

   @connectionfailure,

   I have just updated the post to include the operating system support of each sotware.

3. Handry May 26th, 2009 at 6:44 am

   Most of them are run on Windows system. And there is a Mac version of Jing Project. And I think you can include ScreenToaster to this list.
   If you find there is few editing features for these free ones, DemoCreator could be an option with not much cost.

4. Olaf Nöhring May 26th, 2009 at 7:41 am

   Hi

   one click online recording:
   http://screencastle.com/

   Olaf

5. Vin Thomas May 26th, 2009 at 10:09 am

   FYI, CaptureFox doesn’t work on Mac OSX.

6. Raja Chandra Rangineni May 26th, 2009 at 11:33 am

   This post is really helpful.

   Raja.

7. caos30 May 26th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

   For Ubuntu users, i recommend this

   gtk-recordMyDesktop

   it’s easy to install from “Add and remove applications”, or from “Synaptic”.

   It’s a round tool!! i use from 2 years ago.

   Good Post!
   SERGI

8. Herramientas gratuitas para hacer screencasts | Codigo Geek May 26th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

   [...] post que va directo a los bookmarks el que leo en WRD. En él van a encontrar 10 herramientas que les van a permitir grabar lo que ven en su pantalla [...]

9. Jan May 26th, 2009 at 3:13 pm

   Hi,
   I use http://www.screentoaster.com quite a lot and it works great… will try out the one you suggest here as well, thanks!

   Jan

10. Marc M May 26th, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    Where is Adobe Captivate?

11. Umut M. May 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    @Marc,

    Captivate is amazing but as far as I know it is a paid product.

12. Varun May 27th, 2009 at 6:09 am

    Check out PSR.exe in windows 7.Less features but brilliant.

13. Alex May 27th, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    Hi! I use http://goview.com but I’ll try the ones you suggest. Nice post!

14. priyasima May 27th, 2009 at 9:57 pm

    very informative post

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    [...] el artículo 10 Free Screen Recording Softwares For Creating Attractive Screencasts, de WebResourcesDepot, encontramos una colección de 10 programas de grabación de pantalla [...]

16. LW May 28th, 2009 at 5:06 pm

    Where is Adobe Captivate?

17. Cre8ive Commando May 28th, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    Cool Post. Don’t forget Screen toaster, it’s a pretty good screen recorder and it’s free too. Here is some more info about it:

    http://www.cre8ivecommando.com/a-simple-free-online-screen-recorder-screen-toaster-71/

18. FreewareMatter June 2nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    Very good post. I’m looking for this for a long time. I used Camtasia Studio, but it needs paiding. So, these freewares are very useful. Thank you.

19. chand June 3rd, 2009 at 9:09 am

    Hi everyone,
    I never use such software any suggestion that you can give which is best for Windows XP. Any experiences.

    Thanks

20. Yami June 3rd, 2009 at 4:23 pm

    Hello Everyone!

    Thanks for the post, it will help me a lot, but i have a question: which programm is really economical (i have just 512 mb ram and i want to capture some actions in photoshop)

21. Pat June 5th, 2009 at 9:51 am

    Thanks for the links. I am trying out Jing right now. Seems like it should be decent.

22. Judith June 6th, 2009 at 5:50 pm

    What is the best inexpensive USB microphone for making screen recordings?

    Thanks.

23. Bastien June 7th, 2009 at 5:51 am

    I just tried to install CatureFox but it does not support GNU/Linux. I’m running GNU/Linux Debian Squeeze. Perhaps you could mention it on the post. Thanks

24. kouskhir June 8th, 2009 at 2:06 am

    Thanks for this post.

    Very useful.

25. Praful June 27th, 2009 at 11:47 am

    The best post I’ve seen in this site. thanks

26. Ashok June 27th, 2009 at 11:56 am

    Very helpful! Thanks for the links

27. Mr-Otto July 24th, 2009 at 2:49 am

    Well done, exactly what I needed!

28. kyle July 31st, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    @Vin: Nobody cares about the mac.

29. Nick September 3rd, 2009 at 1:19 am

    Freeware is cool, but since it has some function limits in certain aspects. For screen recording hardcores, the commercial software is still essential, like DemoCreator which I got last few weeks and now fillin deep love with it. It’s quite clear and easy to use without any tutorial, and they just offer perfect video I dream of, so I got the pro version with no hestitation. Highly recommend to every business elite!!

30. palik September 16th, 2009 at 7:39 am

    great article – i am using wing, which is great but lacks smooth video recording. Now i got more apps to test

31. Simon September 24th, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    Yeah, fantastic list, thanks! But if possible, it would be helpful to know which ones have extra editing features, such as:

    - Panning
    - Zooming
    - Mouse highlighting
    - Pen/highlighter tool
    - Audio capture (mic and/or computer output)
    - Edit videos after capture
    - Banners, callouts and on-screen annotations

    That would definitely help when comparing products. I know CamStudio has panning, mouse highlighting and screen annotations (have to be placed *while* recording) but it lacks some of the others.

32. Php October 8th, 2009 at 9:07 pm

    Great List!!! Thank You for sharing.

33. Dr. Jacqui Cyrus October 26th, 2009 at 6:10 am

    Hi: This is a great list to share with my undergraduate students. They have already assessed JingProject. This list should provide several more options for us, especially with our tight budget this year.
    -j-

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35. Nicole November 26th, 2009 at 10:54 pm

    Thanks for this, there are some here I’d never heard of?
    One bit of info about all of them I’d really like to know is which ones can record fullscreen gameplay? This has a different hardware path than recording inside a window, so some softwares won’t do it.

36. IM Videos November 27th, 2009 at 12:38 am

    Very useful, Thank You.

    Anders

37. Heather Martineau November 27th, 2009 at 1:12 am

    Thanks for the great information. Gonna check out some of the programs!!!

38. semut markoko December 6th, 2009 at 1:55 am

    CamStudio is the best of all above..

39. Steven Anderson January 12th, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    Nice article. You may also want to add Pixetell to your screen recording comparison list.

    Disclosure: I work for Ontier, the company that makes Pixetell.

40. rosie January 15th, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    i clicked on them all its not working! I wish it was working. Its not your fault its my computers!

41. miquel January 27th, 2010 at 1:22 am

    For me the best its screenr

42. Marc Achtelig January 27th, 2010 at 9:56 am

    Maybe good additions to this list are the checklist of criteria for selecting a screencasting tool at http://www.indoition.com/screencasting-tool-choosing.htm, as well as the list of screencasting tools at http://www.indoition.com/screencasting-tools-survey.htm.

43. Isaac January 27th, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    Check out Microsoft Expression Encoder versions 2/3 for doing screen capture for Silverlight (Microsoft’s equivalent to Flash)

    Starting with version 2, Microsoft began releasing an express (free) version. I’m amazed at out how much they don’t talk about these free apps, but they’re there for the takin’.

    Go to http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/try-it/default.aspx#PageTop

    Find the download free edition button at the bottom of the page.

44. Markandey singh March 16th, 2010 at 1:01 pm

    capturefox does not work on Linux and Mac

45. sneha April 10th, 2010 at 12:48 am

    I am using xVidcap on linux ubuntu which is also working fine…

46. Mike May 10th, 2010 at 10:46 pm

    Am staring a web learn project and I wondered what was out there for presentations.
    2nd Click and I found this! COOL.
    Good Job, really useful. Thanks.

47. Angie June 3rd, 2010 at 12:35 pm

    I’m trying to find the best free package to record training videos that works well with Windows 7. CamStudio did not work. HyperCam wouldn’t execute. I tired the PSR.exe as recommended, but it doesn’t record sound. Any ideas? Please e-mail me if you can help. angela.koponen@unco.edu.

48. kenny June 16th, 2010 at 9:43 pm

    Jing software is good, but it convert to swf file that i don’t know how to open it, so I install BB Flash which can have the option to export different format, it is suitable for me.

49. tim June 25th, 2010 at 4:06 am

    OS X 10.6 – built in Quicktime player now has screen recording ability, including microphone, to full screen res….

50. Tian Permana July 29th, 2010 at 4:41 am

    Thanks for share, i appreciate this

51. Marsha August 7th, 2010 at 12:04 pm

    Do you know of any that are free and don’t require registration? I would like to use a screen recorder with my middle school students and their ages prohibit them from creating accounts.

52. haider August 11th, 2010 at 6:55 pm

    dont install camstudio it dosent work

53. Veronique August 30th, 2010 at 8:06 am

    Hi!
    Does one is better to record sound easily, in the same time than video?

54. anonymus October 8th, 2010 at 12:54 am

    cam studio doesnt save files for some reason on my computer

55. SEO Nepal November 9th, 2010 at 1:04 pm

    nice list – hadn’t heard about most of them. gonna try some for presentations.

56. Jill November 9th, 2010 at 11:35 pm

    I’d like to add to the description of Jing that it only allows you to capture 5 minutes of video at a time, which may not enough for many users

57. JT November 24th, 2010 at 11:52 am

    Can you record video games you play with these software?

58. wael fareed December 16th, 2010 at 6:29 pm

    @JT : you can use fraps to record video games

59. Sylvia January 26th, 2011 at 9:40 pm

    for video games,i think fraps is the best one

    for creating tutorials with windows activities recorded,i suggest flashdemo screen recorder

    i tried it to record a 2 hour video,and it works

    i use the free trial ,but thanks that it didn’t put a big watermark in the middle space of the video like some other shareware,so it didn’t annoy me

    and it supports editing

    very useful

60. Paul Hemminger February 3rd, 2011 at 10:08 am

    I use http://www.screentoaster.com – this is an online cloud portal that links right to YoutTube, so you can either save your videos in an ever growing list of videos you’ve created, or you can upload to YouTube and share the link in minutes.

61. Matt Hawkins February 9th, 2011 at 5:57 am

    Great list. I’ve used Wink to create flash recordings of web demos. It’s quite good considering it is free.

62. Maggie March 2nd, 2011 at 2:43 am

    and i need to say that Camstudio is really bad in output effect,my desktop looks like had been in water for long time(hard to explain,ugly…) in the output video

63. Confuzzled March 9th, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    I am looking for a decent screen recorder that can handle changes in screen resolution and will record the audio that goes to the speakers… which of these would be the best?

64. Bob April 5th, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    Some of these are a little out of date (including microsoft media encoder), but overall it was very helpful. Thanks!

65. momentum sm April 15th, 2011 at 12:58 pm

    Great post. Just what I was looking for.
    Any recommendations with witch one I should start…?
    Thanks for sharing.

66. Ramin June 6th, 2011 at 6:27 am

    This is a grat post, very very helpfull ,
    but it would be greater if you rank it, or tell your reader which one does what than the other one?
    so not every one has to down load all of them to know which is better or which satisfied
    his/her needs

    Thanks a lot for your POST

67. Denmark_All2323 June 10th, 2011 at 2:00 am

    That Is Nice Screen Recorders!WOW

68. Kozan Huseyin July 18th, 2011 at 9:04 am

    Nice list of options. There is so much software out there, and being able to find a good screen recording software is good.

    I am glad you have put together this list. I look forward to checking out the best.

69. random August 12th, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    I think Blueberry Flashback express is one of the best ones made yet also Camtasia studio but this one aint free so you have to buy it !

70. Joshua September 10th, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    ScreenVirtuoso PRO is now FREE for Personal use. one of the best and finest screen recording tool.

    http://codecpack.co/download/ScreenVirtuoso-PRO.html

71. Arvindhan October 17th, 2011 at 12:20 am

    This post is really interesting and for Ubuntu i dnt thing gtk-recordMyDesktop is very good in producing the video output. Rather than that All other applications are good.
    Im using Camtesia software.

    Cheers!!!

72. Mr.bhavesh October 22nd, 2011 at 9:18 am

    Nice collection.
    I am generally using camstudio, which one do you??

73. Lindsay November 27th, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    I want a free screen and audio recording software to use for podcast interviews which have a full editing suite to insert images and edit content.

    What would you recommend for that?

74. Thom December 20th, 2011 at 12:51 pm

    Great post. Very useful list. You mentioned a couple of new ones that I’m going to try. Thank you.

75. B0B B0B February 4th, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    Which one would you say if the best out of these, aside from Camstudio? Unfortunately, my Camstudio won’t open anymore.

76. AntonK March 23rd, 2012 at 8:41 am

    Thanks for the list of the tools!
    Here are my remarks:
    1) CamStudio OpenSource is a queer tool, and I wasn’t able to use it immediately after the download: the recorded video contains coloured trash (some video decoder is needed?), I wasn’t able to find the location where the video is stored… after all I dropped this free tool.
    2) Jing by TechSmith looks nice according to the tutorial… but the application requires you to register an account (as they say “for easy video sharing”).
    3) uTIPu TipCam is free only for personal use (and it puts the watermark) – the commercial usage implies buying the license for $99.
    4) BB FlashBack Express is definitely worth trying – nice tool free of charge. It also able to highlight mouse cursor position.

77. Prodyot March 27th, 2012 at 11:57 am

    An excellent list.
    Thanks for compiling it and posting it.

78. steprock April 15th, 2012 at 10:35 pm

    Thanks!

    I tried several, but really liked Blueberry. It was able to record my screen, the speaker sounds, edit it, and upload it directly to YouTube.

    Nice!

79. Spencer April 28th, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    CamStudio can crash your computer!

80. yahaira April 30th, 2012 at 4:35 pm

    hi everyone!! IM LOOKING FOR A SCREEN RECORDER AND I CANT FIND ONE THAT IS FOR MAC…. THE SCREENCAST-O-MATIC ONLY WORKS 1 TIME AND THATS ALL:( i need help

81. Etienne May 3rd, 2012 at 11:53 am

    Witch one is the best for 3 hours recording?
    Thanks

82. MArk G May 18th, 2012 at 2:27 am

    Having downloaded several installed and tried them, the results are not as stated on the programs pages.

    uTIPu – AVI? where?
    CamStudio – Please close when I tell you too, you don’t work at all. Why did you crash my PC?
    uVNC – Thanks for killing my PC, fail to see why you and the others need to connect to the internet, unless your all snooping!

    Basically, the only one to have produces a video stream that then subsequently wouldn’t encode it… uTIPu and the quality is atrocious.

    To qualify as OPEN SOURCE, your software SHOULD NEVER PHONE HOME…. I think that developers need to either UNDERSTAND what OS is by getting the software OSI certified otherwise it is not proper OPENSOURCE WARES because OSI wouldn’t certify software like this unless it has a legitimate reason for doing, this bunch of freebie software has no reason to phone home, so I warn people to be wary of software requesting internet access.

    My PC incidentally is a 3.2Ghz machine, (dual core 1.6ghz chips) 4 Gig of ram, HS SSD with <1ms latency. LTS is an external 1TB drive thats an NAS setup. Superfast Nvidia built in card.

    The machine is rock solid, the software here is debatable.

    I am grateful for the list but it is clear that this software has a way to go before its classed as stable or opensource.

83. Mark G May 18th, 2012 at 3:51 am

    ALSO….

    uVNC is a rework of CamStudio which explains why it also does not work.

    uVNC upon attemting a recording ended up crashing.

    Clearly the selection of software here has its problems and think personally that these developers should wait a while longer before touting their warez because its clear to me that on 3 different machines of differing power and resources, the outcome is failure.

    Bet I could get out of CanStudio was 5 frames a second which is pathetic, push it beyond 5 frames and they system locks up.

    uVNC acted in the same way.

    so fat 0/10 for all of them.

84. hnb May 28th, 2012 at 3:30 am

    I suggest you download an earlier version of Ubuntu live CD with Gnome 2.0 to keep it lightweight, or make a bootable usb stick and then install Istanbul, its the best screen recorder for ubuntu in terms of frame rate and video quality up to full HD. You will not regret it. And the videos are quite small in size, with a bit of tweaking.

85. LUCIUS June 7th, 2012 at 9:54 pm

    HI THERE!!! For recording like 7 hours in a row, which of these apps would fit best? Sometimes the output is just too large!!!! thanks!

86. JJ Abrahms June 10th, 2012 at 6:55 pm

    Screenr is the business! It’s free (and not $300) and posts effortlessly to Facebook and Youtube or is downloadable into an .mp4. I eff’d around with other software for hours before I found Screenr and I want to save other people the same timesuck and hassle. Forget everything else, I tried Jing, CamStudio, and UTipU. Guess what, they all totally blue. Screenr is boss!

87. Vincent July 10th, 2012 at 12:32 pm

    Hello, guys! Can anybody recommend recorder which captures only CHANGED frames? (to reduce video size) Sound rec also must be presented.

88. Louie August 2nd, 2012 at 6:23 pm

    CamStudio went a bit crazy for me; I couldn’t open it to pause recording, and then when I quit the program my screen started flashing green and orange, of all things. I forced a restart and tentatively deleted it, but I feel like that was a close call. I DO NOT RECOMMEND.

89. Jason September 9th, 2012 at 8:50 am

    CamStudio got messed up in vr. 2.6, now it wont work. System files corrupt and Windows wont recognize it as a program

90. hemant October 1st, 2012 at 2:34 am

    of all above , the best one i found is techsmith camtasia software. records high quality of screen.

91. lllll October 8th, 2012 at 11:17 am

    Hi i need a screen recorder like camstudio which u can select where u want to record. this was helpful but i need help plz

92. Singh Sukhu October 26th, 2012 at 6:26 am

    Hey where is Snagit? it is a pretty cool software

93. qwerty November 20th, 2012 at 9:43 pm

    jing is da best

94. Phoenixaries January 14th, 2013 at 11:41 pm

    how do u make camstudio where u press the recording button then it says press anywhere on the screen to start?
    My cam studio use to do it but now it doesn’t .

    Please tell me how to use camstudio to do that

95. tu vida un reto January 15th, 2013 at 10:33 pm

    Thanks, just what I was looking for, try using Camstudio but gave me errors.

96. Abdul Kader February 17th, 2013 at 11:20 am

    I have downloaded webinarea, its really working! Thank you friend.

97. Dipiebucb March 3rd, 2013 at 10:26 pm

    Your list is fairly helpful. It seems that most of them run well on Windows system, and I have used Camstudio (is free but sometimes crash, that is, no audio in recording). As far as I know, Jing and Apowersoft Free Online Screen Recorder can run well on both Windows and Mac. So, I hope you can list much more free software that can run on Mac. Thank you.