Screencasting Tools
Market overview of recommendable screen recorders for creating screencasts (software videos, screen videos)
On this page:
Commercial screencasting tools
Commercial screencasting tools particularly for the Mac
Text-to-speech (TTS) engines and voices
See also: Choosing a Screencasting Tool
Captivate If there’s anything like a Swiss Army knife among the authoring systems for software demos, then it’s Captivate. The program offers a scope of functions that’s by far the largest, especially with regard to quiz functions and branching scenarios. Among its strengths are flexible customization of the output, smooth translatability (XML export and reimport), and attractive results. Currently Captivate is the only screencasting tool that comes with text-to-speech voices. On the downside are Captivate’s poor documentation and slow update cycle. Price: approx. $1099 or $30 per month Camtasia One of the most popular screencasting tools. Its approach is purely full-motion based, which makes it somewhat difficult to update existing movies. Camtasia supports a large number of output formats and is available for Windows and for the Mac. Price: approx. $199 HelpXplain Very efficiently creates simple, slide-based screencasts, but also animated images, animated screenshots, sliders, and presentations. Price: approx. €199 https://www.helpandmanual.com/hx/ Adobe Presenter Video Express Screencasting and video editing software. Price: approx. $199 Demo Builder Lying hidden behind an uncluttered user interface are more features than you’d guess at first sight. Despite the affordable price, there are hardly any requirements that DemoBuilder doesn’t meet. Texts can be exported to Microsoft Word for translation and then be reimported. DemoBuilder is straightforward, simple, and efficient to use. Another key advantage is that it’s particularly easy to update existing demos when there is a new version of the demonstrated product. Price: approx. $199 Mimic Unlike the other products listed here, Mimic focuses very specifically on the needs of technical documentation. Unique features are the possibility of using variables while working with texts, and the possibility to use individual scenes several times over, even in different projects. Price: only available in combination with MadCap Flare https://www.madcapsoftware.com VideoDetailer Essentially a simplified and streamlined version of Demo Builder made by the same manufacturer. Price: approx. $149 WinCam Simple screen recorder with some basic editing features. Price: approx. $30 https://www.ntwind.com/software/wincam.html Datango Performance Suite From a series of screen captures builds screencasts, interactive tutorials, and also printed documentation. Price: not published ActivePresenter Presentation tool to create Video or Adobe Flash interactive simulations. SCORM compatible. Price: approx. $149 (“Standard”) and $299 (“Professional”); there’s also a free version available, which exports image files and video files but not any interactive content. https://atomisystems.com/activepresenter/ FlashBack Follows a completely full-motion based approach, which makes it difficult to update existing demos. The built-in autoscroll function can automatically ensure that regions where interaction is happening are displayed in the center. Easy to use. Price: approx. $99; there’s also a free “Express” version available that lacks editing and annotation features https://www.flashbackrecorder.com filmora scrn Simple screen recording software with various editing functions. Price: approx. $30 https://filmora.wondershare.com/screen-recorder/ movavi Screen Capture Studio Simple, full-motion based screen recoding software. Also lets you edit the recorded videos to some extent. Price: approx. $50 https://www.movavi.com/screen-recorder/ ViewletBuilder ViewletBuilder was one of the first screencasting tools on the market, and is. It’s one of the few programs that are available for Linux and Mac as well. All important features are available. Comprehensive event control. Text can be exported to XML for translation and then reimported again. Price: approx. $399 (“Professional”) and $599 (“Enterprise”) AllCapture Full-motion based screen recoding software. Price: approx. €169 (“Basic”) and €249 (“Enterprise”) Gif Recorder Basic screencasting tool dedicated to the GIF format. Comes with a jQuery implementation to start and stop the animations and to play audio files in sync. Price: approx. $33 Reflector Wirelessly mirrors an iPad or iPhone to a PC or Mac so that you can record the screen or take screen captures. Price: approx. $15 https://www.airsquirrels.com/reflector
Some tools listed in other sections partly provide similar features. Also look at: |
ScreenFlow One of the market leaders for the Mac. Price: approx. $99 iShowU Studio Another well-known audio and video recorder for the Mac. Price: approx. $79 Screenium Screen recorder and video recoder. Price: approx. $50 https://www.syniumsoftware.com/screenium Screenflick Basic screen recording software. Price: approx. $29 CaptureSync Multi-camera capture software. Price: approx. £199 |
OBS Studio Can create scenes made up of multiple sources including window captures, images, text, webcam, and more. Price: free (open source) Wink Produces screencasts exclusively in Adobe Flash format. Editor lacks a timeline, therefore the flexibility is limited. Price: free (freeware) https://www.debugmode.com/wink/ CamStudio Records screen activities to AVI and Flash. Hardly any options to edit the movies. No interaction and no animation possible. Price: free (open source) https://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/ Webinaria Creates Flash recordings of the desktop and lets you add voice commentary, webcam videos, and text. Price: free (open source) Ezvid Screen recorder with also some basic editing features. Price: free (freeware); LICEcap Doesn’t create full-featured screencasts but small animated screen captures (animated GIF). Price: free (open source) https://www.cockos.com/licecap/ Debut Video Capture Records from webcam, screen, or video input device. You can also add text captions. Price: free basic version for noncommercial use; “Plus” version approx. €33 https://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/ Screencast-O-Matic Works from your web browser without installation. Price: free (adds watermark); “Pro” version approx. $15 per year xvidcap Basic screencasting application for Linux. Price: free (open source) http://xvidcap.sourceforge.net Krut Basic recording software written in Java. Saves to the QuickTime MOV format. Price: free (open source) recordMyDesktop Basic screencasting tool on Linux. Price: free (open source) http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net vnc2flv Cross-platform screen recording tool for UNIX, Windows, and Mac. Captures a VNC desktop session (either on your own screen or on a remote computer) and saves as a Flash Video file (FLV). Price: free (open source) http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/python/vnc2flv/index.html
Some free screen recorders for Andriod https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rsupport.mvagent https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hecorat.screenrecorder.free https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blogspot.byterevapps.lollipopscreenrecorder https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tianxingjian.screenshot |
Amazon Polly Acapela AT&T Natural Voices Cepstral CereProc IVONA ReadSpeaker Nuance https://www.nuance.com/omni-channel-customer-engagement/voice-and-ivr/text-to-speech.html Linguatec Voice Reader Microsoft Azure https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/text-to-speech/ IBM Watson |
Did you benefit from this guide? Did it save you some time compared to search via Google or other search engines? Please help me to keep the guide free and up to date also in the future. Buy a copy of the PDF version (approx. 120 pages).
Thank you.
This page was last updated 12/2019
Legal Notes:
This page may contain paid advertisements, which are marked as such. Apart from this, the linked web sites and their publishers are not associated with or endorsed by indoition Technical Communication Services Marc Achtelig, and do not reflect the opinion of indoition Technical Communication Services Marc Achtelig. Copyright of linked materials by their respective copyright holders. Note the license terms given on the linked pages! Any pricing and licensing information given on this page is only for prior information and without guarantee.