Loom Alternative in 2026: Why I Switched to Cap

For about a year, Loom was one of the few tools I opened every working day. Bug reports went out as Loom links. Client handoffs were Loom walkthroughs. Demos for clients in the US, Singapore, Portugal and India were Loom videos they could watch in their own time zone. I never questioned it, because it worked.

Then the ground under it moved. Loom is part of Atlassian now, the free Creator Lite role is being removed as accounts migrate to Atlassian billing, and the AI features sit on the most expensive self-serve tier. So I went looking for a Loom alternative. I found Cap, an open-source screen recorder, and I’ve since moved off Loom and use Cap for my recordings.

Below: why I switched, where Cap is better, where it isn’t, and who should actually switch.

Prefer video? Here’s the 5-minute version.

Why Loom got expensive in 2026

Atlassian acquired Loom in 2023. On its own that changed nothing day to day. The billing migration is what changes things. As Loom accounts move onto Atlassian billing, the free Creator Lite role goes away. Atlassian’s support page says Creator Lite users are upgraded to paid Creator seats on the integration date. You get a grace period until your next billing date to deactivate anyone you don’t want to pay for. If your team had a few people recording occasionally on Creator Lite, some of them are about to become invoices.

Loom pricing as of September 2026:

• Starter: free, 25 videos per person, 5 minutes per recording (Loom pricing).
• Business: $18/user/month billed monthly, about $15 billed annually (Loom pricing).
• Business + AI: $24/user/month billed monthly, about $20 billed annually (Loom pricing). This is the tier with AI summaries, chapters and filler-word removal.

Run that for a 10-person team that wants the AI features and pays monthly: 10 × $24 × 12 = $2,880 a year (Loom pricing).

To be fair to Loom: it integrates with Jira and Confluence. If your team already lives in Atlassian’s tools, that integration is worth real money. More on that below.

What is Cap?

Cap is an open-source screen recorder for macOS, Windows and Linux, plus a Chrome extension. The code is on GitHub with 22k+ stars. It’s free for personal use, and commercial use needs a paid plan. It has two recording modes, Instant and Studio, and it lets you decide where your recordings are stored. It’s currently at v0.6, which matters later in this post.

Loom vs Cap: side-by-side comparison

Pricing as of September 2026. Where a Loom cell says “not compared”, I couldn’t verify it, so I left it out rather than guess.

The same 10-person team on Cap Pro, billed monthly, works out to 10 × $12 × 12 = $1,440 a year (Cap pricing), half the Loom figure above.

Instant Mode vs Loom

Instant Mode is the direct Loom replacement. It uploads while you record, so when you stop, the share link is already on your clipboard. Viewers watch in the browser and don’t need an account. That’s the Loom workflow, and for async bug reports it’s the only part that matters: record, stop, paste into the ticket.

The limits to know. On the free plan, cloud share links are capped at 5 minutes, the same ceiling as Loom’s Starter recordings. The Desktop License adds commercial rights but still gives you 20 cloud links a month, up to 5 minutes each. Unlimited cloud links need Cap Pro.

The real difference from Loom is price. On Cap Pro, every recording automatically gets a title, summary, chapters and a full transcript for $12 per user per month (Cap pricing). On Loom, that set of features is the $24 Business + AI tier (Loom pricing).

Studio Mode: the editor

Studio Mode records locally in 4K at 60fps, with screen, camera and mic on separate tracks. The separate tracks are what I care about most. You can fix a bad camera crop or a quiet mic after the fact instead of re-recording the whole take.

On top of that, the editor has auto-zoom on clicks, cursor smoothing, blur for anything sensitive on screen, backgrounds, and captions generated locally in 19 languages (Cap). Local transcription means your audio doesn’t have to leave your machine to get captions, which is useful if you record inside a client’s product.

Local Studio recordings have no time limit, even on the free plan.

Studio Mode is what got me to switch. I use it pretty much every day now, and my recordings look far more presentable than they did on Loom. I’ve recommended Cap to clients too, and they’ve liked it.

Owning your recordings

For client work, this matters more to me than price. Cap lets you store recordings on Cap Cloud, in your own S3 bucket, in Google Drive, or on a self-hosted instance. Some clients don’t want screens of their unreleased product sitting in a third-party account they don’t control. With Cap you can point recordings at the client’s own bucket or run the whole thing yourself. It also covers the worst case: with your own storage, Cap says your recordings live in your bucket “regardless of what happens to Cap’s cloud offering”.

Cap also states SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and HIPAA compliance on its site. I’m reporting what Cap says. I haven’t audited it.

If you have a Loom library, Cap has a Loom importer. Paste a Loom share link to bring over one video, or upload a CSV to bring over a whole library. Cap re-hosts each recording, keeps its title, and generates a transcript, summary and chapters for it (migration guide). The importer is part of Cap Pro, not the free plan or the Desktop License. Code MIGRATE20 takes 20% off Pro (migration guide).

The developer angle: a screen recorder for AI coding agents

This is what made Cap interesting to me as a developer, not just cheaper.

Cap ships a CLI and a local MCP server that exposes 76 tools over stdio (Cap for agents). It works with Claude Code, Cursor and Codex. The tools cover recordings, transcripts, comments, sharing and analytics. The agent asks before it records, uploads or spends money, so it can’t quietly start a screen capture or run up a bill. Credentials stay out of the conversation too. Cap’s setup guide says passwords and storage credentials should not appear as MCP inputs, so your keys never pass through the model.

Setup starts with the CLI, per Cap’s download page and agent docs:

# Install the Cap CLI
curl -fsSL https://cap.so/install-cli.sh | sh

# Expose Cap's tools to your agent over local stdio
cap mcp serve

Here’s what that makes possible. Your agent fixes a bug, records a demo of the fix, and adds the video link to the pull request. There’s no call and no long written explanation, because the proof is right there in the PR. It works the other way too: the agent can read a recording’s transcript back, so a client’s bug-report video becomes context it can work from. To be clear, I haven’t wired this into my own agent setup yet, so this is what Cap supports, not something I’m reporting results on. If you’re setting up agents in your editor, I covered that in Using AI Agents in VS Code.

Honest downsides

• It’s v0.6. It’s a young product, so expect the occasional rough patch. It’s improving, but you’re adopting something still in early versions.
• Free doesn’t cover client work. The free plan is for personal use. If you record for clients, the cheapest legal option is the Desktop License at $29/yr (Cap pricing).
• The Desktop License is tight for heavy async use. 20 cloud links a month, 5 minutes each, runs out fast if Loom-style links are how you talk to clients.
• The good parts cost extra. The Loom importer, AI summaries and unlimited cloud links all need Cap Pro.
• Switching has a social cost. Clients and teammates have to get used to a new kind of link. That cost doesn’t show up in a pricing table.
• Jira and Confluence. If your team runs on Atlassian, Loom’s integration is a real advantage.

Who should switch to Cap, and who should stay on Loom

Switch to Cap if:

• You’re a solo developer or creator. For personal use it’s free, so download it and try it. If you record client work, budget for the Desktop License.
• Your team pays Loom for AI features. Cap Pro gives you titles, summaries, chapters and transcripts at half the per-seat price on monthly billing, $12 against $24 (Cap pricing, Loom pricing).
• You pay for Loom yourself or for a small team, and per-seat pricing hurts.
• You’re on a Creator Lite seat that’s about to become paid.
• You need control over where recordings live, such as a client’s S3 bucket or a self-hosted instance.
• You make polished demos and want a real editor with separate tracks.
• You work with AI coding agents and want recordings they can reach.

Stay on Loom if:

• Your company runs on Jira and Confluence and actually uses the integration.
• Your organisation already pays for Loom and the switching effort outweighs the savings.
• You can’t tolerate v0.6 rough edges in a tool you use every day.

My call: I’ve moved off Loom, mostly for Studio Mode and for control over where client recordings live. If your organisation runs on Atlassian, staying on Loom is a perfectly reasonable decision.

FAQ

Is Cap really free?

For personal use, yes. Local Studio recordings have no time limit, and free cloud share links are capped at 5 minutes. Commercial use needs the Desktop License ($58 one-time or $29/yr) or Cap Pro (Cap pricing).

Can I import my Loom videos into Cap?

Yes. Paste a single Loom link, or upload a CSV to import in bulk. The importer is a Cap Pro feature, and MIGRATE20 takes 20% off Pro (migration guide).

Is Cap better than Loom?

It depends on what you need. Cap is cheaper, and it offers a local 4K editor, a choice of where your recordings are stored, and support for AI coding agents. Loom wins on maturity and on its Jira and Confluence integration. Cap is at v0.6, and Loom is a mature product backed by Atlassian.

How much does Loom cost in 2026?

As of September 2026, Starter is free (25 videos, 5 minutes each). Business is $18/user/month and Business + AI is $24/user/month on monthly billing, a bit less on annual billing (Loom pricing).

Does Cap work on Linux?

Yes. Cap offers Linux builds alongside macOS 13.1+ and Windows 10+, plus a Chrome extension (Cap download).

The short version

Loom is still a good product. Under Atlassian billing it costs more for small teams, and the free seats that made it easy to spread are going away. Cap covers the Loom workflow with Instant Mode and adds a real editor, control over where recordings live, and support for AI coding agents. The trade-off is a v0.6 product and paid plans for anything commercial.

If you’d rather see it than read it, the 5-minute video covers the same ground. And if you’re building a product and want an engineer who ships fast and documents the work clearly, get in touch.

Sources

1. Loom pricing
2. Loom customer integration with Atlassian: pricing, billing and role changes
3. Atlassian is acquiring Loom (Atlassian blog, October 2023)
4. Cap homepage: Instant Mode, Studio Mode, platforms, storage
5. Cap pricing and compliance
6. Cap download page and CLI install
7. Cap FAQ
8. Cap self-hosted screen recording
9. Cap agent setup guide
10. Migrate from Loom to Cap
11. Cap for AI agents
12. Cap agent docs
13. Cap on GitHub