A solo developer built a free, open-source alternative to Screen Studio and the internet responded: OpenScreen has climbed past 21,000 GitHub stars, with nearly 1,600 stars added in a single day, placing it at the top of GitHub's trending charts.

What It Does

OpenScreen handles the use case Screen Studio popularized — turning raw screen recordings into polished product demos. It supports manual and automatic zooms, motion blur, custom backgrounds, annotations, audio capture (microphone and system), and export in multiple aspect ratios and resolutions. It runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

The core pitch is simple: zero cost, zero watermarks, zero subscriptions. The app is released under the MIT license, meaning commercial use is fully allowed.

The Price Comparison That Made It Go Viral

Screen Studio costs $29/month or $229 as a one-time purchase. Loom's paid tier runs $12/month. OpenScreen is free. For indie developers and small teams cutting product videos, tutorials, and bug reports regularly, the cost difference is immediately compelling.

The tool is in public beta and has some rough edges — macOS requires manually bypassing Gatekeeper with a terminal command, and Linux system audio only works on PipeWire-based setups. But the core recording and editing workflow is functional and growing fast.

Install

OpenScreen installers for all platforms are on GitHub Releases. The project is accepting contributions, and a Discord is active for feedback and bug reports.

Creator Siddharth Vaddem is quick to note it's not a 1:1 Screen Studio clone — "if you need all the fancy features, your best bet is to support Screen Studio." But for the majority who just want clean demos without a subscription, OpenScreen lands squarely in that gap.