Looking for an Icecream Screen Recorder alternative?
Icecream watermarks the free version and trims the paid one. Prequel exports without a watermark from the first day of the trial, and opens the editor with the zooms placed, the camera framed and a background behind the window. 4K at 120 fps, $9 a month or $29 once.
No credit card required
Icecream Screen Recorder
A small screen recorder for Windows and Mac.
- Price
- $29.95 a year, or $59.95 once
- Free
- Free, with a watermark and a cap on how long a recording runs
- Platforms
- macOS, Windows, Android
Prequel
Cinematic screen recorder for Mac
- Price
- $9 a month, or $29 once
- Free
- 7-day trial, then paid
- Platforms
- macOS 14+, Apple Silicon
Checked on 22 October 2026 against Icecream Screen Recorder, Screen Recorder: Upgrade to PRO.
What is Icecream Screen Recorder, and what is it good at?
Icecream Screen Recorder is a small, cheap capture utility for Windows and Mac. Pick an area or a window, record it with the microphone, the webcam and system audio, draw on the screen while you record, take a screenshot from the same toolbar, and trim the result afterwards. It is the kind of tool that does the job in two clicks and asks nothing of you.
PRO is $29.95 a year or $59.95 for a lifetime licence on Windows. The free version is where most people meet it, and it is the free version's limits that send them looking.
Why do people look for an Icecream alternative?
The free version watermarks and caps. The upgrade page is explicit about what PRO removes: the watermark and the limit on how long a recording can run. That is a reasonable way to sell a utility, and it is also the moment people start comparing.
It is a capture tool, not a video tool. Trimming is the edit. There is no zoom placed where you clicked, no cursor smoothing, no background, no camera framing, no captions. The file is the take.
Is Prequel a good Icecream alternative?
On a Mac, yes.
Prequel records the screen, the camera, the microphone and system audio as separate tracks and opens the editor with the first pass made: zooms on every click and every burst of typing, tilted, with focus falling away from the subject, the camera framed and cut out of its background, a wallpaper behind the window with padding and a shadow, the cursor smoothed. Captions are transcribed on your Mac with nothing uploaded.
Export is one MP4 or HEVC file at up to 4K and 120 frames a second, and nothing is ever watermarked, including in the seven-day trial. It is $9 a month or $29 once.
What do you give up by switching?
Windows, and drawing on the screen while you record. Icecream is the same small tool on both platforms, and Prequel needs an Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later.
Also screenshots from the same toolbar, which Icecream has and Prequel does not.
How do the features compare?
| Feature | Prequel | Icecream Screen Recorder |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic zoom on clicks | Included | Not included |
| Zoom on what you type | Included | Not included |
| Cursor smoothing and resizing | Included | Not included |
| Camera overlay, shaped and placed after | Included | Included |
| Backgrounds, padding and shadow | Included | Not included |
| Layouts for the screen and camera | Fourteen, per clip | Camera over the screen |
| Camera cut out of its background | Included | Not included |
| Perspective tilt and focus falloff on zooms | Included | Not included |
| Captions transcribed on your Mac | Included | Not included |
| Timeline editing | Included | Trim |
| Separate audio tracks | Included | Not included |
| System audio without a virtual driver | Included | Included |
| Reframe to vertical without cropping | Included | Not included |
| Magnifying-glass loupe over the work | Included | Not included |
| Colour looks and filters | Included | Not included |
| Microphone noise reduction | Included | Not included |
| Import a video you already have | Included | Not included |
| Records and exports without uploading | Included | Local, with 10 GB of cloud storage on PRO |
| Shareable links | Included | Included |
| Team workspace | Included | Not included |
| Records an iPhone or iPad | Not included | Not included |
| Maximum export | 4K, 120 fps | Not published |
| Download size | 104 MB | Not published |
| Platforms | macOS 14+, Apple Silicon | macOS, Windows, Android |
| Licence | $9/month or $29 once, 7-day trial | $29.95/yr or $59.95 once |
What Icecream Screen Recorder is good at
Two clicks from opening it to recording, drawing on the screen while it runs, and a screenshot from the same toolbar.
What does each one cost?
Icecream Screen Recorder
- 1 Year$29.95 billed annually
- Lifetime$59.95 one-off, listed at $79.93
Prequel
- Lifetime$29 once
- Pro$9 a month
Checked on 22 October 2026 against Icecream Screen Recorder, Screen Recorder: Upgrade to PRO.
- Record your screen and cameraPick a display, a window or an area you drag out, with your camera, microphone and system audio each on their own track.
- Zooms and layout are applied automaticallyPrequel reads where you clicked and typed, then places the zooms, frames your camera and sets a background behind it.
- Edit, export and shareMove a zoom, trim a clip or fix a caption, then export one MP4 at up to 4K or send a link that plays anywhere.
Zoom and pan
Zooms that follow the action
Prequel automatically zooms in when you click or type, then softens the rest of the window so viewers know where to look. Every zoom is added to the timeline, so you can move, retime or delete it at any time.
Layouts
Switch layouts clip by clip
Choose from fourteen layouts for the same take: camera in the corner, beside the screen, split with it or hidden entirely. Use one layout for the whole video, or change it clip by clip.
Subtitles
Subtitles you can edit like text
Prequel transcribes every word on your Mac when the editor opens. Fix captions by typing in the transcript, choose a subtitle style or delete a sentence to remove it from the video.
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thisisthecheckoutweshippedlastweek
Thanks so much for jumping on this call
Iwanttoshowyousomethingcool
[pause here]
we’ve been building for the past few months
Teleprompter
A teleprompter that follows your voice
Prequel hangs your script from the notch, just under the camera, and follows your voice — the word you're saying lights up as you say it. Wander off script and it waits for you; skip ahead or fall behind and it catches up within a couple of words.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+
Native
Built for your Mac
Prequel is a native app for Apple Silicon. It records with the system’s own capture, encodes on the video hardware and draws every frame in Metal. Your recordings stay on your disk.
The editor
Everything you would have done by hand
It opens by itself when you stop recording, on the take you just made. Nothing to import, nothing to line up.
Guide attention automatically
Prequel zooms into the part of the screen that matters: the cursor, a region you draw, or whatever you are typing into. Set the level, the speed and how much the rest of the frame blurs.
Look present without taking over the video
Your camera stays framed and out of the way: circle, squircle, rounded, wide or portrait, in any corner and any size. It is never burned into the recording, so none of it is decided while you record.
Make recordings look designed
Add a background, padding and a shadow without editing any of it by hand. Your own wallpaper by default, seven bundled presets, gradients and solids.
Cut the parts nobody needs to see
Trim the pauses yourself, slice by slice, with a waveform under every clip. Layout, background and audio can all change mid-take.
Keep the pointer out of the way
Fifteen pointer styles, resized so the cursor survives a zoom. Smoothed while it travels, and hidden after a few seconds of stillness.
Export the frame you approved
The preview and the exporter draw the same plan, so the file matches what you signed off in the editor.
Quality
Videos stay sharp at 4K
Capture and export run on your Mac's own media engine. 1080p at 60 fps records without dropping frames, and 4K is a setting you pick.
- Resolution
- Up to 4K
- Frame rate
- Up to 120 fps
- Codecs
- H.264 · HEVC
- Encoding
- Hardware, VideoToolbox
- Compositing
- Metal
- Output
- Constant frame rate MP4
Formats
Export in any frame
Turn one recording into different formats without manually reframing every element. Switch from landscape to vertical and the layout stays intact.
- Landscape 16:9
- 4K
- Vertical 9:16
- Square 1:1
- Portrait 4:5
- YouTube
- Shorts
- TikTok
- Reels
- X
Record demos worth sharing
Free for 7 days. No watermark on anything you export.
No credit card required
Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
How much does Icecream Screen Recorder cost?
PRO is $29.95 for a year or $59.95 for a lifetime licence, listed at $79.93. The free version adds a watermark and limits how long a recording can run, which is what PRO removes. Checked on 22 October 2026.
Is there a screen recorder for Mac with no watermark?
The Screenshot app built into macOS records without one, and so does OBS Studio. Prequel never watermarks anything either, including during the seven-day trial, and what it adds is the finished video: zooms on clicks and typing, a framed camera, a background and a cleaned-up cursor.
Is Prequel a good Icecream Screen Recorder alternative?
On a Mac, yes. It records screen, camera, microphone and system audio as separate tracks, makes the cinematic pass automatically, cuts and retimes on a timeline, transcribes captions on device and exports at up to 4K and 120 frames a second, for $9 a month or $29 once.
Is Icecream better for anything?
Windows, a screenshot tool in the same toolbar, and drawing on the screen while you record. It is also the cheaper annual licence. Prequel is macOS on Apple Silicon and does none of the three.