Loom made async video normal. It also made it expensive. If you record a handful of walkthroughs a week and your team keeps bumping into the 5-minute cap or a $18-per-seat invoice, it is worth knowing what else is out there.

This guide covers eight Loom alternatives, what each one is actually good at, and where each falls down. Pricing is accurate as of July 2026 — every vendor changes plans, so check the current page before you buy.

First: what does Loom actually cost in 2026?

Knowing the baseline makes the comparisons useful.

Loom plan	Price	What you get
Starter	Free	25 videos per person, 5-minute recording cap, 720p, up to 50 members
Business	$18/user/mo	Unlimited videos and length, up to 4K, trim and stitch, remove Loom branding
Business + AI	$24/user/mo	Everything in Business plus AI summaries, filler-word removal, meeting notes
Enterprise	Custom	SSO, SCIM, 99.95% uptime SLA, advanced admin controls

Two things drive most people to look elsewhere. The free tier is a trial in disguise — 25 videos and 5 minutes each goes fast. And the first real plan is $18 per creator per month, billed per seat, which means a five-person team is looking at over $1,000 a year before anyone has recorded anything.

1. easyrec — the closest like-for-like swap

Best for: individuals and small teams who want Loom's workflow without Loom's per-seat bill.

easyrec does the thing Loom does: hit record, capture your screen with webcam and mic, and get a shareable link the moment you stop. The recording uploads while you are still talking, so the link is live seconds after you finish. Videos play in the browser with no plugin, no app install for viewers, and an embeddable player if you want to drop them into a doc, a help centre, or a landing page.

The difference is the price shape. Pro is $7.50/month billed annually ($90/year) and includes unlimited videos, 30-minute recordings, 1080p, 50 GB of storage, AI transcription in 36+ languages, audio enhancement, background blur, video comments, downloads, and no watermark. That is roughly the Loom Business feature set at a bit over 40% of the price. Business is $12 per seat per month ($144/year) and adds unlimited recording length, 4K, 500 GB of shared team storage, AI background swap, up to 10 team members with roles and permissions, and analytics export.

Where it falls short: the free tier is 10 videos rather than Loom's 25, and it carries a watermark. If free-forever is the requirement and you record rarely, Loom's Starter plan is more generous. easyrec is built for the point where you outgrow free.

Try easyrec free — no credit card required.

2. OBS Studio — free, powerful, and entirely your problem

Best for: technical users who want total control and pay nothing.

OBS is open source, genuinely free, and more capable than any of the paid tools on this list at the capture stage: multi-source scenes, custom layouts, filters, streaming to anywhere. It is what most streamers use.

Where it falls short: OBS records to a file on your disk. There is no hosting, no link, no viewer analytics, no comments. Every share becomes upload-to-Drive-and-paste-a-link, which is exactly the friction async video was supposed to remove. The setup curve is real, too. Great tool, wrong job — unless you are willing to bolt hosting on yourself.

3. Vidyard — video for sales teams

Best for: sales and marketing teams who need CRM integration and pipeline attribution.

Vidyard is less "quick walkthrough for a colleague" and more "video as a revenue channel." It has strong viewer analytics, email and CRM integrations, and landing-page hosting. If your videos are prospecting touches and you need to know who watched what for how long inside Salesforce, this is the category leader.

Where it falls short: the free plan is limited (5 recorded videos per month, up to 30 minutes each) and the Starter plan runs around $59/month, with CRM integrations gated behind custom-priced Teams plans. For internal team communication it is heavy and expensive.

4. Screen Studio — the best-looking output on Mac

Best for: product demos, launch videos, and anything that will be seen by customers.

Screen Studio automatically adds smooth zooms, cursor smoothing, and polished backgrounds. Recordings look like they were edited by a motion designer without any editing. For demo videos and social clips it is genuinely excellent.

Where it falls short: macOS only, with no Windows version. There is no free tier — around $9/month billed annually. And it is an editor that exports files, not a share-a-link tool: no hosting, no viewer analytics, no comments. It complements a Loom alternative rather than replacing one.

5. Zight (formerly CloudApp) — screenshots, GIFs, and quick clips

Best for: support and QA teams who mostly need annotated screenshots and short captures.

Zight is strongest on the quick-capture end: screenshots, annotations, GIFs, and short screen recordings, all with instant links. If most of your "video" is really "here's a picture of the bug with an arrow on it," Zight is faster than any full recorder. Pro runs around $9.95/user/month billed annually.

Where it falls short: as a long-form video tool it is thinner than Loom — weaker editing and less depth on transcription and video analytics.

6. Descript — record and edit by editing text

Best for: podcasts, tutorials, and anything that needs real post-production.

Descript transcribes your recording and lets you edit the video by editing the transcript. Delete a sentence and the footage goes with it. Filler-word removal, overdub, and multitrack editing make it the best tool here for polished, scripted content.

Where it falls short: it is an editing suite, not a fire-and-forget recorder. For "let me just show you this in two minutes" the workflow is far more than you need, and the price reflects the editing power.

7. ScreenPal (formerly Screencast-O-Matic) — the budget workhorse

Best for: educators and training teams on a tight budget.

ScreenPal has been around a long time and is priced accordingly. The free tier allows recordings up to 15 minutes — longer than Loom's 5 — and the paid plans are inexpensive with decent editing and hosting.

Where it falls short: the interface and player feel dated next to Loom, and the sharing and team collaboration experience is noticeably less slick.

8. Scribe — when the answer isn't a video at all

Best for: repeatable step-by-step processes and documentation.

Scribe watches you do a task and produces a written, screenshot-illustrated guide. For SOPs and onboarding docs this beats video outright: readers can skim, search, and copy text out of it, which no video allows.

Where it falls short: it is not a screen recorder. There is no voice, no personality, no "here's what I'm thinking." And Scribe's team plans have a five-seat minimum, so small teams pay for seats they don't use.

How to pick

You want Loom, cheaper, with no workflow change: easyrec.
You need free above all and record rarely: Loom Starter or OBS Studio.
Video is a sales channel and it must sit inside your CRM: Vidyard.
The video is a customer-facing demo and must look beautiful: Screen Studio.
Mostly screenshots, GIFs, and bug reports: Zight.
You need to actually edit — cut, script, polish: Descript.
Tight budget, lots of long training content: ScreenPal.
It's a repeatable process, not a story: Scribe.

The honest summary

Loom is a good product. Most teams don't leave it because it's bad — they leave because $18 to $24 per creator per month is a lot for what is, in daily practice, a record button and a link. If that's your situation, the shortest path is a tool that does the same job with the same workflow at a fraction of the cost.

easyrec Pro is $7.50/month, includes unlimited videos, 1080p, AI transcription, and no watermark, and takes about thirty seconds to try. Start recording free — no credit card needed.

The 8 Best Loom Alternatives in 2026 (Free and Paid)