A Loom alternative that
records to your machine first.
No forced cloud account to hit record. No Loom watermark. No length or count cap. Maxisnap captures your screen and audio straight to an MP4 you own — then you decide whether to share a link.
Windows 7 / 8 / 10 / 11 · Free · No watermark
Maxisnap is a free, local-first Loom alternative for Windows. Loom is genuinely good at what it does — polished async team videos, instant cloud links, viewer analytics, and a webcam bubble. But it is cloud-first by design: it generally wants you signed in, it uploads everything to Loom's servers, and the free plan has historically capped video length and count and stamped Loom branding on your recordings. If what you actually want is "record my screen, keep the file, maybe send a link," that whole model is heavier than the job.
Maxisnap flips the order. Press a hotkey, your screen and audio record to disk, and a result window opens with the finished MP4. Sharing is optional — one click for a Maxisnap Cloud link, or save locally, or push to your own server. You are never forced to upload anything to record.
$ diff loom-free maxisnap
[LOOM FREE] to record -- account + sign-in expected [MAXISNAP] to record ++ no account needed, just press the hotkey [LOOM FREE] where the file lives -- uploaded to Loom's cloud [MAXISNAP] where the file lives ++ saved to your disk first; sharing optional [LOOM FREE] branding on video -- Loom watermark historically added [MAXISNAP] branding on video ++ none, ever [LOOM FREE] length / count -- historically limited per video + per month [MAXISNAP] length / count ++ no time limit, record as many as you like [LOOM FREE] system audio [MAXISNAP] system audio + mic ++ mixed to one track, driver-free WASAPI loopback
Loom Free vs Maxisnap
The honest split: Loom is the better choice if a webcam bubble, polished cloud library, and viewer analytics are central to how you work — that is its strength, and it earns its fans. Maxisnap is the better choice if you want to record a clean screen walkthrough with your voice, keep the file, skip the watermark, and only share a link when you decide to.
Record, keep, then maybe share
Two hotkeys cover it. Ctrl+Alt+4 records the full screen (the monitor under your cursor); Ctrl+Alt+3 records a region you drag out. A small recording badge shows while you go — and it is excluded from its own capture, so it never appears in the video. Press the hotkey again, click Stop on the badge, or use the tray icon to finish. Every hotkey is remappable.
When you stop, a result window opens with an inline player and four buttons: Save, Copy, Upload, and Drag-out (drag the clip straight into an email, a chat, or a ticket). You also get start/end trim and a Format choice — MP4, an AI-optimized MP4, GIF, or WebM — each with quality presets. The AI-optimized export downsizes to roughly 1280px, 24fps, CRF28, mono audio, producing a tiny aioptimized_*.mp4 that drops cleanly into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and similar tools.
Under the hood, hardware acceleration (NVENC, Intel QuickSync, or AMD AMF) is optional with a libx264 software fallback, and ffmpeg ships inside the installer — nothing extra to download. Recording is free, with no watermark and no time limit. Sharing a clip through Maxisnap Cloud uses the free tier (100 lifetime uploads) or Pro for unlimited; or you can keep everything local and self-host on your own server.
One small app for video and screenshots
Loom is a recorder. Maxisnap records video and is a full screenshot tool in the same ~70 MB download, idling around 35 MB of RAM in the tray. After (or instead of) a recording, you can capture a region with Ctrl+Alt+5, a full screen with Ctrl+Alt+6, or capture-and-upload with Ctrl+Alt+7, then annotate with arrows, pen, shapes, highlighter, text, blur, crop, and numbered steps — 11 tools with 50-level undo. There is native OCR (Extract Text), Pin to Desktop, multi-monitor and high-DPI support, a system tray presence, and a built-in auto-updater. For a lot of people, that replaces both Loom and a separate snipping tool with one lightweight app.
On a Mac?
Maxisnap's screen recording runs on Windows today; a native Apple-Silicon macOS build is in active development and not downloadable yet. On macOS right now, your built-in options are the Cmd+Shift+5 screen recorder and QuickTime Player — both free and solid for plain screen-plus-mic capture. The catch most people hit: capturing internal/system audio on a Mac needs an extra driver like BlackHole or Soundflower, and neither built-in tool offers annotation. If you want a heads-up the moment the Maxisnap macOS build is ready, drop a note via the contact page.
Loom alternative questions
Is there a free Loom alternative with no watermark?
Yes — Maxisnap records on Windows for free, no watermark, no time limit, no forced account. It captures system audio plus your mic, then opens a result window to save the MP4, copy it, drag it out, or trim and export to MP4, GIF, or WebM. Loom's free plan has historically added branding and capped video length and count.
Can I record without creating an account?
Yes. Press Ctrl+Alt+4 for the full screen or Ctrl+Alt+3 for a region, stop, and the file is on your disk immediately. An account only matters if you opt into a one-click Maxisnap Cloud share link — skip it and keep the MP4 or upload to your own SFTP/FTP/S3/R2/HTTP server.
Does it record system audio and microphone together?
Yes. Maxisnap mixes desktop/system audio (driver-free WASAPI loopback) and your mic into one track by default, so the viewer hears everything. No virtual audio cable or extra driver to install.
Does Maxisnap have a webcam bubble like Loom?
No. Maxisnap records screen plus audio, not a face-cam overlay. If a talking-head bubble is core to your videos, Loom does that well and is the better pick. For clean voiced screen walkthroughs, Maxisnap covers it without an account or watermark.
Does it work on Mac like Loom?
Not yet. Recording is available on Windows today; a native macOS build is in active development with no public download yet. On Mac now, use Cmd+Shift+5 or QuickTime (system-audio capture needs a driver like BlackHole). Use the contact page to be notified when the macOS build ships.
Record it. Keep it. Share it on your terms.
Free on Windows, no watermark, no account needed to hit record. The MP4 is yours.
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