Looking for a Recordly alternative?
Recordly is free, open source and good at the basics of the cinematic pass. Prequel takes it further: zooms on what you type, a perspective tilt, focus falling away from the subject, a camera cut out of the room, captions on device, 4K at 120 fps. $9 a month, or $29 once.
No credit card required
Recordly
Open-source app for incredible screen recordings.
- Price
- Free, open source
- Free
- All of it, with no watermark
- Platforms
- macOS, Windows, Linux
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 Recordly, Recordly 1.4.0 installer.
What is Recordly, and what is it good at?
Recordly is a free, open-source screen recorder with the cinematic pass built in. Auto-zoom on your clicks, an animated cursor with motion blur, a background behind the recording, a webcam bubble that grows when you need it, a timeline for speed, zooms, annotations and audio tracks, and an export to MP4 or a looping GIF. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.
It costs nothing, the source is public, and there is no watermark and no paywall anywhere in it. For a side project, a student, or anyone who wants to read the code that touches their screen, that is a complete answer.
Why do people look for a Recordly alternative?
It is a young project with a small team. Releases come when they come, and the surface it covers is the core of the idea rather than the whole of it.
Free software and finished output are different goals. The zooms and the cursor are there. The perspective tilt, the focus falling away from the subject, zooms on what you type, a camera cut out of the room behind you, captions transcribed on device and seventeen colour looks are not.
Nothing to call when it breaks. That is the deal with free software, and it is a real cost on the morning a launch video will not export.
Is Prequel a good Recordly alternative?
If the video is going in front of customers, yes.
Prequel records the screen, the camera, the microphone and system audio as separate tracks on ScreenCaptureKit, and opens the editor with the pass already made: zooms 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, shaped and cut out of its background by a model that runs on your Mac. Apple's sound isolation cleans the microphone. Captions are transcribed on device.
Export is one MP4 or HEVC file at up to 4K and 120 frames a second, encoded by the Mac's own media engine, at $9 a month or $29 once.
What do you give up by switching?
Free, open source, Windows and Linux. Recordly costs nothing and runs on three platforms; Prequel is a paid Mac app on Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or later.
If free is the hard requirement, Recordly is a good answer and so is OpenScreen, and this page is not trying to talk you out of either.
How do the features compare?
| Feature | Prequel | Recordly |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic zoom on clicks | Included | Included |
| Zoom on what you type | Included | Not included |
| Cursor smoothing and resizing | Included | Included |
| Camera overlay, shaped and placed after | Included | Included |
| Backgrounds, padding and shadow | Included | Included |
| Layouts for the screen and camera | Fourteen, per clip | A webcam bubble that grows and shrinks |
| 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 | Speed, zooms, annotations and audio tracks |
| Separate audio tracks | Included | Imports audio and webcam as their own tracks |
| 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 | Audio and webcam footage |
| 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 | MP4 or a looping GIF |
| Download size | 104 MB | 188 MB |
| Platforms | macOS 14+, Apple Silicon | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Licence | $9/month or $29 once, 7-day trial | Free, open source |
What Recordly is good at
The cinematic pass, free and open source, on three platforms, with no watermark and nothing held back for a paid tier.
What does each one cost?
Recordly
- Recordly$0 free and open source
Prequel
- Lifetime$29 once
- Pro$9 a month
Checked on 22 October 2026 against Recordly, Recordly 1.4.0 installer.
- 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 Recordly alternative?
If you want another free one, OpenScreen is the closest: MIT-licensed, on three platforms, with click zooms, cursor packs and captions from whisper.cpp. If the video is going in front of customers, Prequel: zooms on clicks and typing, a perspective tilt, focus falling away from the subject, a camera cut out of the room, and export at up to 4K and 120 frames a second for $9 a month or $29 once.
Is Recordly free?
Yes, free and open source, on macOS, Windows and Linux, with no watermark and no paid tier. Checked on 22 October 2026.
Is Prequel worth paying for when Recordly is free?
It depends how much the output matters. Recordly gives you auto-zoom, an animated cursor and a background, which is most of the look. Prequel adds zooms on what you type, a tilted push-in with focus falling away from it, a camera framed and cut out of the room, seventeen colour looks, captions transcribed on device, and export at 4K and 120 frames a second through the Mac's own media engine. For a launch video, that is $29. For a weekly clip for a team chat, Recordly is a good answer.