openscreen: Create Polished Screen Recording Demos

Overview

OpenScreen is a desktop screen recorder and editor for turning screen activity into polished product demos and walkthroughs. It is aimed at people who want more presentation tools than a basic recording provides, without paying for a commercial alternative.

It suits creators, educators, and product teams making short videos for tutorials, social posts, or demos. The project is archived, so consider it a useful existing tool rather than an actively maintained option. The README points to a community-driven spin-off for continued development: https://github.com/EtienneLescot/openscreen.

Key Features

• Capture a specific window or the whole screen, with microphone and system audio.
• Add a webcam overlay and customize its position, shape, and mirroring.
• Apply automatic or manual zooms, cursor effects, and motion blur.
• Generate voiceover captions on-device, including offline use.
• Edit recordings with crop, trim, per-segment speed controls, text, arrows, and image annotations.
• Export videos as MP4 or GIF in multiple aspect ratios and resolutions.

Use Cases

• Product creators can record and polish feature walkthroughs for social media or launch materials.
• Educators and trainers can create narrated tutorials with captions and zooms to highlight interface details.
• Support teams can prepare visual explanations of workflows or troubleshooting steps.
• Developers can make quick demonstrations of desktop software without assembling a separate recording and editing workflow.

Getting Started

Download an installer for your platform from the GitHub Releases page. The README has platform-specific installation instructions and capture notes.

Alternatives

• Recordly: Recordly offers the same polished screen-recording and walkthrough editing workflow, while OpenScreen is archived and no longer maintained.

Considerations

• The repository is archived and no longer maintained. The README links to a community-driven spin-off for ongoing development.
• The README cautions that the project is not production grade and may have bugs.
• Capture capabilities vary by platform. Linux uses a browser-based capture pipeline, and some cursor options are unavailable there; system audio support may require PipeWire.
• macOS and Windows use native capture pipelines. macOS system audio requires macOS 13 or later, with an additional permission prompt on macOS 14.2 or later.
• Review the README for platform permissions and installation details before use.