Looking for a Movavi alternative?
Movavi captures the take, watermarks the trial and points at a second product for the editing. Prequel finishes the video where it recorded it: zooms placed, camera framed, background applied, cursor cleaned up, 4K at 120 fps. $9 a month, or $29 once.
No credit card required
Movavi Screen Recorder
Screen capture with a scheduler, for Windows and Mac.
- Price
- $44.95 a year, or $74.95 once
- Free
- A trial that watermarks the export
- Platforms
- macOS, Windows
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 Movavi Screen Recorder, Movavi Screen Recorder for Mac.
What is Movavi Screen Recorder, and what is it good at?
Movavi Screen Recorder is a capture utility for Windows and Mac, from a company that sells a suite of them. It records a full screen or a region with the webcam, the microphone and system audio, draws on the picture while you record, shows keystrokes and mouse clicks, schedules a recording for a webinar you will be asleep for, takes scrolling screenshots and reduces microphone noise. Capture goes up to 4K and there is a light editor for trimming and joining.
It is $44.95 a year or $74.95 once, with a free trial that watermarks the export.
Why do people look for a Movavi alternative?
The upsell is the product. Screen Recorder trims and joins. Anything beyond that points at Video Editor, Video Converter or the bundle, each with its own price, and the free trial puts a watermark on the file so the first real export is after the purchase.
Nothing is automatic. Clicks are drawn as rings, which is useful, but there is no zoom placed where you clicked, no cursor smoothing, no background behind the window and no camera framing. The recording is the take.
Is Prequel a good Movavi alternative?
On a Mac, yes, and for less.
Prequel records the screen, the camera, the microphone and system audio as separate tracks and opens the editor with the pass already made: zooms on every click and every burst of typing, tilted, with focus falling away from the subject, the camera framed, shaped and cut out of the room behind you, a background with padding and a shadow, the cursor smoothed and hidden when it idles. Apple's own sound isolation cleans the microphone. Captions are transcribed on your Mac.
Export is one MP4 or HEVC file at up to 4K and 120 frames a second, for $9 a month or $29 once, and the seven-day trial exports without a watermark.
What do you give up by switching?
Windows, and the scheduler. Movavi is the same product on both platforms and will start a recording at a time you set, which is genuinely useful for webinars. Prequel records when you press record, on an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14 or later.
Also drawing on the screen while recording, which Movavi does and Prequel does not.
How do the features compare?
| Feature | Prequel | Movavi 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 and join |
| 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 | Included |
| Import a video you already have | Included | In Movavi Video Editor, sold separately |
| Records and exports without uploading | Included | Included |
| Shareable links | Included | Not included |
| Team workspace | Included | Not included |
| Records an iPhone or iPad | Not included | Not included |
| Maximum export | 4K, 120 fps | 4K |
| Download size | 104 MB | Not published |
| Platforms | macOS 14+, Apple Silicon | macOS, Windows |
| Licence | $9/month or $29 once, 7-day trial | $44.95/yr or $74.95 once |
What Movavi Screen Recorder is good at
A scheduler that records a webinar while you sleep, keystrokes and clicks drawn on screen, and drawing on the picture while the recording runs.
What does each one cost?
Movavi Screen Recorder
- 1-year licence$44.95 per year
- Lifetime licence$74.95 one-off
Prequel
- Lifetime$29 once
- Pro$9 a month
Checked on 22 October 2026 against Movavi Screen Recorder, Movavi Screen Recorder for Mac.
- 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
What is the best Movavi Screen Recorder alternative on a Mac?
Prequel, if the recording is a demo or a tutorial: it records screen, camera, microphone and system audio as separate tracks and opens the editor with zooms already placed on every click and every burst of typing, the camera framed over a background and the cursor smoothed, then exports at up to 4K and 120 frames a second.
How much does Movavi Screen Recorder cost?
$44.95 for a one-year licence or $74.95 for a lifetime one, with a free trial that puts a watermark on the export. Checked on 22 October 2026.
Does the Movavi trial watermark your video?
Yes, which means the first clean export is after the purchase. Prequel's seven-day trial is the whole app with export in it, at every size and frame rate, and nothing it writes is ever watermarked.
Is Prequel a good Movavi alternative?
On a Mac, yes, and for less: $29 once against $74.95, or $9 a month. It makes the cinematic pass automatically, cleans the microphone with Apple's own sound isolation and transcribes captions on device. What Movavi keeps is Windows, the recording scheduler and drawing on the screen while you record.