Best free screen recorder for Windows: 9 options compared

The nine at a glance

This isn’t a ranking. Each tool is the right pick for a different job, and often the honest answer is something already on your PC. Bandicam and Camtasia are paid apps with a free version or trial, included because people weigh them against the free ones. Limits were checked on each maker’s site in October 2026.

Tool	Best for	Free limits	Watermark	Editing
screenrecordwindows.com (ours)	Polished tutorials and demos	No time limit	Small one, Pro removes it	Automatic zooms and cursor, full timeline
Snipping Tool	A quick clip on Windows 11	Windows 11 only	No	Trimming at most
Xbox Game Bar	Games	One app window, up to the length you set	No	None
OBS Studio	Streaming and full control	None	No	None
ShareX	Clips and GIFs to share at once	None	No	Trim and convert tools
Clipchamp	Editing on a budget	30 min per recording, 1080p export	Only on premium features	Full timeline
Loom	Team async video	5 min per video, 25 videos, 720p	No, but Loom branding on the player	No trimming on the free plan
Bandicam	Gameplay, if you’ll pay	5 min per recording	Only on edited exports	Edit and subtitle
Camtasia	Full production	Trial with no end date	Yes, until you buy	Full editor

screenrecordwindows.com: best for polished tutorials and demos

This is our own app, so read this section with that in mind. It’s for when you need to screen record Windows apps and websites for other people to watch: tutorials, product demos, onboarding videos and bug reports.

Press Alt R from anywhere, choose Screen, Window or Area, and record with your microphone, computer sound and webcam. When you stop, the editor opens with the video already edited. It zooms in on your clicks and typing, turns a shaky mouse into a smooth cursor, and finds email addresses, API keys, card numbers and phone numbers and blurs them. Loading spinners and pauses are detected and can be sped up to 4×.

Then split, trim, add a background, and export in 16:9, 1:1, 4:5 or 9:16 as an MP4 up to 4K at 60 fps, or a GIF. It all happens on your PC with no account, and nothing is uploaded unless you choose to share a link, which expires after 7 days.

What it doesn’t do: it isn’t built for games, it can’t stream or save the last 30 seconds, it doesn’t make captions, and it runs only on 64-bit Windows 10 (version 2004 or newer) and Windows 11.

Price: free. Watermark: a small one; Pro removes it. Time limit: none.

Snipping Tool: best for a quick clip on Windows 11

If you have Windows 11, it’s already installed. Press Win Shift R, drag over an area (newer versions can also take the whole screen), and click Start. It records your microphone and system sound, if you switch them on in the toolbar, and saves an MP4 to Videos\Screen Recordings.

It’s the fastest way to show someone a bug. There’s no webcam and no zoom, editing is trimming at most, and Windows 10’s Snipping Tool can’t record video at all.

Price: free, built in. Watermark: no. Time limit: none documented by Microsoft.

Xbox Game Bar: best built-in option for games

The Game Bar comes with Windows 10 and 11. Press Win Alt R to start and stop, and Win Alt M to switch the microphone, which is off by default. It can also record in the background so you can save something that just happened: turn that on under Settings › Gaming › Captures.

The catch is that it records one app window only. It can’t record the desktop or File Explorer, and it doesn’t follow you if you switch apps. Clips also need a graphics chip with a hardware video encoder (Intel Quick Sync, NVIDIA NVENC or AMD VCE). There’s more in our guide on how to record gameplay on PC.

Price: free, built in. Watermark: no. Time limit: the maximum you set, from 30 minutes to 4 hours.

OBS Studio: best for streaming and full control

OBS Studio is free, open-source software for recording and live streaming, on Windows, macOS and Linux. You build scenes from sources such as a screen, a window, a webcam, images, text or a capture card, and switch between them while you record or stream. The audio mixer has per-source filters like noise suppression, and the replay buffer saves the last stretch of footage when you press a hotkey.

Nothing here gives you more control over the picture and the sound. The price is time: you set up scenes before it’s useful, and there’s no editor, so what you record is what you get.

Price: free. Watermark: no. Time limit: none.

ShareX: best for clips and GIFs you share straight away

ShareX is a free, open-source screenshot tool for Windows that also records video. By default, Shift Print Screen records a region as video and Ctrl Shift Print Screen records it as an animated GIF, using the FFmpeg encoder that comes built in. After each capture it can copy, save or upload the file automatically.

The settings run deep, and sound takes setup: you pick an audio source in the screen recording options, and computer sound usually means installing the extra recorder devices offered there. Editing stops at trimming and converting.

Price: free. Watermark: no. Time limit: none.

Clipchamp: best for editing on a budget

Clipchamp is Microsoft’s video editor. It comes with Windows 11 and also runs in Edge or Chrome. On the Record & create tab you can record your screen, your camera, or both at once, then edit the result on a proper timeline.

You need to sign in with a Microsoft account, and recordings stop at 30 minutes. With a personal account, Microsoft’s help says computer sound is only recorded when you share a browser tab, which makes it weaker for desktop apps with sound.

Price: free; premium features such as 4K export come with Microsoft 365 Personal or Family. Watermark: none on free exports up to 1080p, but premium features used on the free plan are watermarked. Time limit: 30 minutes per recording.

Loom: best for team async video

Loom, owned by Atlassian, records your screen with a camera bubble and gives you a link to share as soon as you stop. Viewers can comment and react, and videos are transcribed. For explaining something to a colleague instead of booking a meeting, it’s the smoothest workflow here.

The free Starter plan is tight: 25 videos per person (archived ones count), 5 minutes per recording, and up to 720p. Trimming and downloading your videos are paid Business features.

Price: free Starter plan; paid plans are charged per user. Watermark: none in the video, but the player shows Loom branding unless you pay. Time limit: 5 minutes per video on the free plan.

Bandicam: best for gameplay if you’re happy to pay

Bandicam is a long-running Windows recorder, now with a Mac version too. It has modes for games, the screen, and webcams or HDMI devices, plus a frame-rate overlay for games.

The free version works more like a trial. In the current Bandicam 2027, each recording stops at 5 minutes. Recordings carry no watermark, but videos you edit or subtitle in it are exported with one, and work use needs a Business licence. Versions 2024 and 2025 allowed 10 minutes with a watermark, which is why you’ll see different numbers online.

Price: paid licences per PC, yearly or one-off for personal use. Watermark: not on recordings; yes on edited exports. Time limit: 5 minutes per recording on the free version.

Camtasia: best for full production

Camtasia, from TechSmith, is a screen recorder and full video editor for Windows and Mac. It records the screen, webcam, microphone and system audio as separate layers, then gives you zooms, callouts, cursor effects, annotations, automatic captions and text-based editing, where deleting words from the transcript cuts them from the video.

It isn’t free. The paid plans are yearly subscriptions, and the cheapest, Starter, still adds a watermark; Essentials and above remove it.

Price: yearly subscription, with a free trial. Watermark: yes on the trial and Starter. Time limit: the trial doesn’t expire.

Which ones have no watermark?

If “free with no watermark” is your main rule, the nine split three ways:

• No watermark, no strings: Snipping Tool, Xbox Game Bar, OBS Studio and ShareX.
• No watermark, with limits: Clipchamp (up to 1080p, unless you use premium features), Loom (5 minutes, 25 videos) and Bandicam (5 minutes per recording, unedited).
• Watermarked: the free version of screenrecordwindows.com (small, removed by Pro) and Camtasia’s trial and Starter plan.

The trade-off is editing: those four give you the raw recording, and polishing it is up to you.

How to choose

• A quick clip: the Snipping Tool on Windows 11, or ShareX if you want a GIF or an instant upload. Windows 10 has no built-in way to record the whole screen; our guide to the screen recorders built into Windows covers what each one can’t do.
• Gameplay: start with the Xbox Game Bar. Move to OBS Studio when you want a webcam overlay, scenes or streaming. Our app isn’t the right tool here.
• Tutorials and demos: screenrecordwindows.com, because the zooms and smooth cursor are done for you and you can download it free. For planning the script and the take, see how to make a demo video on Windows.
• Team async video: Loom, as long as 5-minute videos suit how your team works.
• Full production: Camtasia if you’ll pay for an editor built around screen recordings, or record with OBS Studio and edit in Clipchamp for free.