Looking for a QuickTime alternative?
QuickTime records the take and stops there: one distance, no camera, no system audio below macOS 27, and a trim at either end. Prequel opens the editor with the zooms placed, the camera framed and a background behind the window, then exports at 4K and 120 fps. $9 a month, or $29 once.
No credit card required
QuickTime Player
Plays, records and trims video, on every Mac.
- Price
- Free, with macOS
- Free
- Everything it does, with no account and no limit
- Platforms
- macOS, every Mac
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 How to record the screen on Mac, QuickTime Player User Guide.
What is QuickTime Player, and what is it good at?
QuickTime Player is already on your Mac. File > New Screen Recording, pick a
microphone, press record, and a .mov lands on the desktop. On recent versions
of macOS that menu item hands you over to the Screenshot app, which is the same
recorder with a toolbar: whole screen, one window, or a dragged region, a timer,
and a setting that draws a black circle round the pointer when you click.
Nothing to install, nothing to pay for, nothing to learn. For a bug report, a clip to send a colleague, or a recording somebody else is going to edit, it is the right tool and there is no reason to open anything heavier.
Why do people look for a QuickTime alternative?
Because the file it gives you is the take you performed, and nothing else.
There is no camera and no editing. QuickTime records the screen with a microphone. It cannot put your webcam in the corner, it holds one distance for the whole take, and the only edit it offers afterwards is a trim at either end. Every zoom, every cut and every background is somebody opening a second app.
System audio needs a workaround. The sound the Mac itself makes is not in the recorder below macOS 27, so recording a video call or an app's own audio means installing a virtual audio driver and routing output through it.
Is Prequel a good QuickTime alternative?
Yes, and it is the same keystroke to start.
Prequel records the screen, the camera, the microphone and system audio as separate tracks, with no driver to install, then opens the editor with the first pass already made. Zooms are placed on every click and every burst of typing, tilted, with focus falling away from whatever the push-in is aimed at. The camera is framed and shaped afterwards. A background goes behind the recording with padding and a shadow. The cursor is smoothed, blurred as it moves and hidden when it idles. Captions are transcribed on your Mac.
Export is one MP4 or HEVC file at up to 4K and 120 frames a second, encoded by the Mac's own media engine. It costs $9 a month, or $29 once, after a seven-day trial with the export in it.
What do you give up by switching?
Free, and already installed. QuickTime costs nothing and is on every Mac, including Intel ones and every version of macOS back years. Prequel needs an Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later, and after the trial it is a purchase.
QuickTime also plays and inspects video, records audio on its own, and captures an iPhone over USB. Prequel records a display, a window or a region, and nothing else.
How do the features compare?
| Feature | Prequel | QuickTime Player |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Not included |
| Backgrounds, padding and shadow | Included | Not included |
| Layouts for the screen and camera | Fourteen, per clip | Not included |
| 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 at either end |
| Separate audio tracks | Included | Not included |
| System audio without a virtual driver | Included | From macOS 27; a virtual driver below it |
| 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 | Opens any file it can play |
| Records and exports without uploading | Included | Included |
| Shareable links | Included | Not included |
| Team workspace | Included | Not included |
| Records an iPhone or iPad | Not included | Included |
| Maximum export | 4K, 120 fps | Screen size, no settings |
| Download size | 104 MB | Built into macOS |
| Platforms | macOS 14+, Apple Silicon | macOS, every Mac |
| Licence | $9/month or $29 once, 7-day trial | Free with macOS |
What QuickTime Player is good at
It is already installed, it costs nothing, and for a clip somebody else is going to edit it is the shortest path from idea to file.
What does each one cost?
QuickTime Player
- IncludedFree with every Mac
Prequel
- Lifetime$29 once
- Pro$9 a month
Checked on 22 October 2026 against How to record the screen on Mac, QuickTime Player User Guide.
- 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 QuickTime alternative for Mac?
For a recording that has to look produced, Prequel: it captures screen, camera, microphone and system audio as separate tracks, then 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. For a free recording with more control than QuickTime gives, OBS Studio. For screenshots and a quick clip, CleanShot X.
Can QuickTime record system audio on a Mac?
Only from macOS 27, where the Screenshot toolbar gained an Include System Audio option. On earlier versions the Mac's own sound is not available to the recorder, so capturing a call or an app's audio means installing a virtual audio driver and routing output through it. Prequel records system audio as its own track with no driver to install.
Does QuickTime record your webcam and screen at the same time?
No. QuickTime records a screen recording or a movie recording, one or the other. Putting your face in the corner of a screen recording means a second app. Prequel records both at once and lets you move, resize, reshape and cut out the camera afterwards.
Is Prequel a good QuickTime alternative?
Yes, for anything anyone else is going to watch. QuickTime hands back the take; Prequel hands back a finished video, with zooms on the clicks and the typing, a perspective tilt, focus falling away from the subject, a framed camera, a background, a cleaned-up cursor and captions transcribed on your Mac. It is $9 a month or $29 once, after a seven-day trial. QuickTime is free and on every Mac, which is the argument on the other side.