Comparison of screencasting software

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 Open source
ActivePresenter Atomi Systems 5.5 2015-08-07 Windows Proprietary commercial No
ActivePresenter Free Edition Atomi Systems 5.5 2015-08-07 Windows Freeware No
Adobe Captivate Adobe Systems 9.0 2015-08-03 Windows
OS X 		Proprietary commercial No
Any Video Recorder Anvsoft Inc. 1.0.4 2013-01-31 Windows Freeware No
Bandicam Bandisoft 2.1.1.731 2014-11-26 Windows Proprietary commercial No
BSR Bsrsoft 6.1.9 2000 Windows Proprietary commercial No
BB FlashBack Blueberry Software 5.4.0.3442 2014-12-18 Windows Proprietary commercial No
BB FlashBack Express Blueberry Software 5.4.0.3442 2014-12-18 Windows Freeware No
CamStudio CamStudio.org 2.7 r316 2013-02-15 Windows GPL Yes
Camtasia Studio TechSmith 8.6.0 2015-08-25 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Camtasia for Mac TechSmith 2.10.2 2015-05-12 OS X Proprietary commercial No
Captura Mathew Sachin 2.4 2015-10-23 Windows Freeware Yes
Capture Fox Zafer Gurel 0.7.0 2009-11-25 Windows Freeware Yes
D3DGear D3DGear Technologies 4.93 2015-04-28 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Fraps Beepa Pty Ltd 3.5.99 2013-02-26 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Freeseer FOSSLC 3.0.1 2013-12-15 Windows
OS X
Linux 		GPL v3 Yes
Grabilla Grabilla 1.22 2014-07-04[1] Windows
OS X 		Freemium Yes
HyperCam Solveig Multimedia 4.0.1511.06 2015-11-06 Windows Proprietary commercial No
HyperCam Hyperionics 2.28.01 2013-07-24 Windows Freeware No
Jing TechSmith 2.8   Windows
OS X 		Freeware No
Kazam Launchpad 1.4.5 2014-08-18 Linux GPL Yes
Microsoft Expression Encoder Microsoft Corporation 4 2010-06-08 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Nero Vision Nero AG 10.6.10800 2011-04-19 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Open Broadcaster Software OBS Project 0.12.4 2015-12-11 Windows
OS X
Linux 		GPL v2 Yes
Pixetell Ontier Inc. 1.3.11913 2010-01-15 Windows Proprietary commercial No
QuickTime X Apple Inc. 10.0 (118) 2010-03-29 OS X Proprietary (Part of OS X) No
RecordMyDesktop SourceForge 0.3.8.1 2008-12-13 Linux GPL Yes
Screencam SmartGuyz Inc. 3.3.0 2009-03-24 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Screencast-O-Matic FFmpeg 2.0.73 2015-10-05 Windows
OS X 		Freemium No
ScreenFlow Telestream 5.0.42015-01-05 OS X Proprietary commercial No
ShareX GitHub 10.1.0 2015-08-02 Windows GPL v3 Yes
SimpleScreenRecorder maartenbaert 0.3.3 2015-01-17 Linux GPL v3 Yes
Snagit for Windows TechSmith 12.0.0 2014-04-18 Windows Proprietary commercial No
Snagit for OS X TechSmith 2.1.7 2013-05-13 OS X Proprietary commercial No
Snapz Pro X Ambrosia Software 2.2.3 2011-07-14 OS X Proprietary commercial No
VirtualDub SourceForge 1.9.11 2012-12-27 Windows GPL Yes
VLC media player VideoLAN 2.2.0 2015-02-27 Windows
OS X
Linux
BSD
Solaris
Android
iOS
Windows Phone
QNX
Haiku
Syllable
OS/2 		GPL Yes
Vokoscreen http://www.kohaupt-online.de/ 2.4.0 2015-06-16 Linux GPL Yes
Windows Media Encoder Microsoft Corporation 9.00.00.3352 (x86)
10.00.00.3809 (x64) 		2002 Windows Freeware No
Wink Satish Kumar 2.0 2008-07-14 Windows
Linux 		Freeware No
XVidCap SourceForge 1.1.7 2008-07-13 Unix-like GPL Yes
XSplit Broadcaster SplitmediaLabs 2.4.1506.2436 2015-07-13 Windows Rentware No

Comparison by features

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

  1. 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. DirectX: Specifies whether the product supports recording from video games or software that employ DirectX (particularly Direct 3D) 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 (non-video output types are omitted)
Product name Audio Entire
desktop		 OpenGL DirectX Editing Output
ActivePresenter[2] Yes Yes No No Yes
ActivePresenter free edition[2] Yes Yes No No Yes
Adobe Captivate[3] Yes Yes ? ? Yes SWF, EXE, MP4
Bandicam Yes Yes Yes Yes No
BB FlashBack Yes Yes ? ? Yes AVI, FLV, SWF[4]
BB FlashBack express Yes Yes ? ? No AVI, FLV, SWF, MP4 (H.264 or MPEG-4 ASP), WMV, Animated GIF, PowerPoint slideshow, self-extracting EXE[4]
CamStudio Yes Yes ? ? Yes AVI, SWF
Camtasia Studio Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes .camrec, AVI
Camtasia for Mac Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Capture Fox Yes Yes ? ? No Motion JPEG or Xvid in AVI
D3DGear Yes Yes Yes Yes No AVI, WMV
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
Grabilla Yes Yes Yes No Yes WMV, mp4 on website.
HyperCam Yes Yes ? ? No AVI, WMV
Jing Yes Yes ? ? No SWF
Microsoft Expression Encoder Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Nero Vision Yes ? ? ? Yes
Open Broadcaster Software Yes Yes Yes Yes No FLV, MP4, MOV, MKV, TS
Pixetell Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
QuickTime X Yes Yes ? ? No
RecordMyDesktop Yes Yes ? N/A No Theora in Ogg
Screencam Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
ScreenFlow Yes Yes Yes N/A Yes
ShareX Yes Yes No No No AVI, MP4, GIF
SimpleScreenRecorder Yes Yes Yes N/A No Formats supported by libavformat
Snagit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes MP4
Snapz Pro X Yes Yes ? ? No
VirtualDub Yes ? ? ? Yes
VLC Yes Yes Yes ? Yes
Windows Media Encoder Yes Yes ? ? No
Wink Yes Yes ? No Yes SWF, PDF
XVidCap Yes ? ? N/A No
XSplit Broadcaster Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes MP4, FLV

References

  1. ↑ http://grabilla.com/grabilla-1-22
  2. 1 2 "Feature Comparison". ActivePresenter website. Atomi Systems. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
  3. ↑ "Supported file formats". Adobe Captivate Help. Adobe Systems Incorporated. Retrieved 2013-06-03.
  4. 1 2 "Feature Comparison". bbsoftware.co.uk. Blueberry Software. Retrieved 13 January 2015.

External links

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