Loom built a category. Record your screen, get a shareable link, send it instead of scheduling a call. It genuinely changed how async communication works in tech teams. The problem is the price, the data ownership question, and the fact that every recording goes through Loom's servers whether you want it to or not.

Cap is the open source answer to that problem. Same workflow — record, share, done — but AGPL-3.0 licensed, self-hostable, and built to give you full control over where your recordings live.

What Cap is

Cap is an open source screen recorder and async video messaging tool for macOS and Windows. It gives you fast screen recording, polished local editing, instant share links, comments, transcripts, analytics, team workspaces, custom domains, custom S3 storage, and full self-hosting when you need complete control.

The source is AGPL-3.0 licensed, fully open on GitHub — inspect every line, contribute the feature you've been waiting for, or self-host the entire stack. With 18,900+ GitHub stars it's one of the fastest growing tools in the screen recording space.

Recording modes

Cap has two core recording modes built for different situations:

Instant Mode — hit record, stop, and share. Your recording uploads as you record, so you can share it immediately when you're done. An AI-generated title, summary, chapters, and transcript are created automatically. This is the Loom-replacement workflow — zero friction, link in seconds.

Studio Mode — record locally with full editing power. Timeline editing, chapter markers, zoom effects, annotations, and export to a finished video file. For tutorials, product demos, and anything where the final result needs to look polished.

Cap records up to 4K at 60fps with hardware-accelerated encoding — crisp text, smooth motion, and sane file sizes. Screen only, camera only, or combined — with webcam overlay positioning you control.

Data ownership and S3 storage

This is where Cap makes its most compelling argument. Cap supports custom S3 bucket configuration to store videos in your own AWS account rather than on a third-party server. There is no per-user fee for teams using custom S3, and the full source is open under AGPL-3.0.

Connect your own S3 bucket, and your recordings never touch Cap's servers. Shareable links work the same way regardless — recipients get a clean browser-based viewer, you keep the data. For teams with compliance requirements or strong opinions about where their content lives, this changes the calculus completely.

No telemetry, no tracking, no data harvesting. Local recordings stay on your machine until you choose to share them.

Sharing and collaboration

The sharing experience is what makes async video communication actually work — and Cap gets this right. Share links work instantly. Recipients can watch in any browser without installing anything, leave time-stamped comments directly on the video, and reference specific moments in discussions.

Shareable links include time-stamped comment threads for async video review, and team workspaces for organizing and finding shared recordings. For distributed teams doing async code reviews, design walkthroughs, or client updates, this covers the core workflow without needing Loom or Notion Video.

Self-hosting

Cap is fully self-hostable — the recording client, the sharing infrastructure, the viewer, all of it. For teams that can't use SaaS tools for compliance reasons or simply want everything on their own infrastructure, Cap's self-hosted path covers the full feature set.

The self-hosted setup uses Docker and requires a server with storage (or S3-compatible storage), a database, and an email service for sharing links. It's more involved than the managed cloud option but well-documented, and the Cap community actively maintains the self-hosting path — it's not an afterthought.

Cap vs Loom

Cap starts at $8.16/month compared to Loom's $18/month. Cap is open-source, lets you connect your own S3 storage for full data ownership, and offers a more generous free plan with Studio Mode included.

The honest comparison:

  • Cap wins on — data ownership, pricing, open source transparency, S3 integration, self-hosting, no per-user fee for teams using custom storage
  • Loom wins on — polish and maturity, deeper integrations (Notion, Jira, Slack), larger team ecosystem, AI features that are more developed, name recognition (clients know what a Loom link is)

For internal team communication, async standups, and bug reports — Cap is more than capable. For client-facing content where the Loom brand carries weight, or for teams deeply integrated into Loom's ecosystem, switching has a real cost.

Cap vs OBS

OBS is powerful but complex. Cap delivers a simpler experience with instant sharing links, cloud storage, and a clean interface — no configuration needed. OBS is for live streaming and high-production recording. Cap is for async communication. They don't really compete — they solve different problems.

Use cases where Cap shines

  • Bug reports — record the issue, share a link in the ticket. No screenshots, no long descriptions, no back-and-forth.
  • Code reviews — walk through the PR instead of writing a wall of comments
  • Async standups — short video updates instead of synchronous meetings
  • Client updates — send a recorded walkthrough instead of scheduling a call
  • Onboarding — record process walkthroughs once, share the link repeatedly
  • Design reviews — annotate and walk through mockups with voice narration
  • DevOps walkthroughs — show infrastructure changes, deployment processes, runbooks in video form

My take

Cap fills the gap between "I need to record something quickly and share it" and "I care about where that recording lives." Loom is the polished default. Cap is the option for teams that want the same workflow but with data sovereignty, open source transparency, and economics that make sense at scale.

The AGPL-3.0 license means you can self-host the full stack. The S3 integration means your recordings stay in your own storage. The free local recording tier means you can use it indefinitely for internal use without paying anything. That combination makes it worth evaluating for any team currently paying for Loom or considering async video communication for the first time.

PIPOLINE · DEVOPS CONSULTING

Want to self-host Cap on your own infrastructure?

Running Cap self-hosted gives you complete control — your recordings, your S3 bucket, your domain. I can handle the full setup: server provisioning, Docker deployment, S3 configuration, custom domain and SSL. You get a production-ready Cap instance without spending a day on it.

Get in touch at pipoline.com →