A free Loom alternative that records your screen into your notes

If you want a Loom alternative that costs nothing to record with, Barside is worth a look. Barside is a free desktop app with a screen recorder built into its notes. It runs on Windows, Linux and Mac. Record a screen or one window with your voice, your computer's sound and a round webcam bubble, and the video lands in the note it belongs to. Trim it, cut short clips from it, or share a link that anyone can watch in a browser.

It works differently from Loom, and it does less for the people who watch. This page compares the two honestly, so you can decide in a few minutes which one fits the way you record and share.

The short answer

Loom is built for video messages that people react to. Even on the free plan, viewers leave comments and emoji reactions and read a transcript, the sender gets viewer insights, and Loom writes each video's title. Business + AI adds AI summaries and chapters. Loom records on a Mac or a Windows computer, in Chrome and on phones.

People look for a Loom alternative mostly because the free Starter plan allows 25 videos per person and 5-minute screen recordings, because Business costs US$18 per user a month, because free accounts cannot download their videos, or because Loom has no desktop app for Linux.

Barside answers those in its own way:

• Recording is free, with no minute limit. Each recording can be up to 1 GB, and it is saved on your computer, in a note.
• Editing is free. Trim the start and end, or cut clips by their words, remove filler words and add captions.
• It records on Linux too. The recorder, computer sound included, works on Windows 10 and 11 and on Linux, and in Barside for Mac, recording computer sound needs macOS 14.2 or later.
• Sharing is a link. Viewers watch on barside.space in a web browser, without Barside.

The honest limit is sharing: free links take files up to 50 MB (about five minutes of Share-friendly video) and play for 7 days. Longer videos and links that stay need Barside Plus. If your viewers need comments, transcripts or AI summaries, stay with Loom.

Why people look for a Loom alternative

These are the reasons that come up most, stated fairly. Loom's prices and limits are from its pricing page and help center, as of September 2026.

• The Starter limits. Loom's free Starter plan allows up to 25 videos per person, and each screen recording can be up to 5 minutes.
• The price per user. Loom Business costs US$18 per user a month, and Business + AI costs US$24, on monthly billing. Loom says paying yearly saves up to 17%.
• Downloads on the free plan. Loom's help center says admins and creators on the free Starter plan cannot download their videos, and Creator Lite members cannot download on any plan.
• No Linux app. Loom records with desktop apps for Mac and Windows, a Chrome extension and phone apps. It says it has no desktop app for Linux or ChromeOS.
• Videos far from the work. A Loom lives in a video library. Some people want the recording inside the note about the bug, the lesson or the client, next to the written steps.

Barside screen recording at a glance

Start a recording from the video icon in any note's toolbar, Record screen or audio into this note, or choose Create → New recording. In the search bar, rec does the same. Recording needs no account.

1. Choose Screen + audio or Audio only.
2. Tick Microphone, Computer audio, or both. Computer audio includes every app that plays sound, even when you record one window.
3. Under Choose a screen or window, pick a monitor or a single window.
4. Pick a Quality: Standard records up to 1920 × 1080 at 30 fps; Share-friendly fits within 1280 × 720 at 24 fps, about 45 MB for five minutes, which is quicker to upload.
5. Turn on Webcam bubble if you want your face on the screen, then press Start recording.
6. Pause and resume as you go, then press Stop & save. The tray menu can stop and save too.

The recording plays inside the note right away. You can keep working while you record: the recorder stays open when you move to another note, and the video is added to the note you started in without touching what you typed there.

The webcam bubble. It is round, stays on top and never takes the keyboard. Choose a camera, a size (small, medium or large) and whether to mirror it. As soon as you pick a whole screen, the bubble shows there as a preview, so you can place it before you record. Background offers None, Blur, Remove (only you) and five ready-made backgrounds: Studio, Sunset, Ocean, Mint and Paper. Filter offers Touch up, Bright, Warm, Cool, Vivid, Mono and Vintage. Barside finds you in the picture on your computer; camera frames are never uploaded. The bubble needs a whole screen: recordings of one window do not include it.

The full walkthrough is in the guide to the free screen recorder for Windows, Linux and Mac.

Loom vs Barside: feature comparison

The Loom column comes from Loom's pricing page and help center, as of September 2026.

Pricing compared

For one person who records often but shares little, Barside costs nothing. The math changes for a team where everyone shares long videos: five Barside Plus subscriptions cost US$100 a month, while five Loom Business seats cost US$90 a month on monthly billing, with comments, passwords and engagement insights included. Barside Plus is a personal subscription that also covers cloud backup, sync and agents, so compare what each person really needs.

How sharing works in Barside

Under every recording in a note you see its length, Trim, Share link and, for videos, Make clips. Share link opens Share a private link: give it a Title for the watch page, choose how long the Link lasts, add a Password if you have Barside Plus, and choose Create link. Barside uploads the file and copies a barside.space/watch link. You need a free Spaces sign-in to upload, with Google or an email code.

A few details worth knowing:

• The file is never public. Each viewer gets an address that works for 10 minutes, and the watch page renews it while they watch. A link with a password does not even show its title until the password is right.
• View counts are private by design. Barside counts a viewer at most once a day per link, keeps only a salted one-way hash of their network that changes every day, stores no IP address and sets no cookies.
• Removing a link stops it at once, and the file is deleted from storage within a day. It cannot take back a copy someone already saved.
• Shorter files share better. Record in Share-friendly quality, or trim the start and end, to fit the free 50 MB.

The share links section of the privacy guide has the details.

Where Loom is better

Loom does a lot that Barside does not try to do. If any of these matter to you, it is the better choice.

• A viewer experience made for feedback. Comments, emoji reactions and transcripts in more than 50 languages, even on the free plan. Barside's watch page plays the video with its title, and that is all.
• AI on every video. Loom writes a title for each video on every plan. Business + AI adds summaries and chapters, removes filler words and silences, writes meeting notes and recaps, and edits by transcript. Barside has no AI of its own.
• Mac, Chrome and phones. Loom records on a Mac, in Chrome and on iOS and Android. Barside records on Windows, Linux and Mac.
• Viewer insights and branding. Loom shows viewer insights on every plan, and Business adds engagement insights, custom thumbnails, links inside the video and your own branding on the player. Barside Plus gives a view count and the last viewed date.
• Free sharing of longer videos. Barside's free links hold about five minutes of Share-friendly video and play for 7 days. Longer videos, and links that stay, need Barside Plus.
• One library for a team. Loom keeps a team's videos in one online workspace. Barside recordings live in each person's notes.

Edit and reuse: trim, clips and captions

This is where Barside gives you more for free, because the video file is yours and the tools run on your computer.

• Trim. Drag the start and end handles, type exact times like 01:23.4, and choose Save trimmed clip. Barside copies the recorded data without encoding it again, so trimming is fast and loses no quality, and Ctrl+Z brings the original back. A video can only start on a keyframe, so the start snaps to the nearest one, at most about a second earlier.
• Make clips. The first time, Install video tools downloads them (about 70 MB). Clips also needs the speech engine from Assistant settings (about 150 MB, no AI key), which writes down every word on your computer. Select words to cut, choose Remove filler words and Shorten pauses, add animated captions (Bold, Karaoke, Boxed or Clean), and reframe to 9:16, 1:1 or 16:9 with the frame following the speaker. Make clip renders an MP4 into the note. See turn long videos into short clips.
• Export. The export button saves the recording as a WebM file, and Save as MP4 copies a clip anywhere.

If you use Claude or ChatGPT, you can let it find the best moments and make the clips through Barside's AI connections, after you turn on Allow making video clips in the connection's permissions. The AI never receives the video file.

How to move from Loom to Barside

Barside has no Loom importer, but Loom lets paid plans download videos, and Barside plays them in notes.

1. Download Barside for Windows, Linux or Mac.
2. In Loom, download the videos you want to keep. On Business, Business + AI and Enterprise, open your Library, open the menu above a video and choose Download; it saves an MP4. Loom's help center says Starter accounts cannot download, and Creator Lite members cannot download on any plan.
3. In Barside, make a workspace for videos, or add each video to the note of the project it belongs to: drag the MP4 into the note or use the media button. MP4 files play when Barside supports the codec inside them.
4. Open the Clips tab. It lists every video and recording in your notes, with the clips made from each, and you can make clips or share a link right from there.
5. Record new videos in Barside. Choose Share-friendly quality for anything you plan to share.
6. Share with Share link, and paste the watch link wherever you used to paste Loom links.
7. Keep your Loom account until everything you need is downloaded.

Barside's call transcription is worth a look too if you used Loom to capture calls: it records your microphone and your computer's sound and writes the conversation into a note, on your computer.

Who should switch, and who should stay

Barside is a good fit if you:

• record on Windows, Linux or Mac, and want no 5-minute cap and no video count;
• want your recordings on your own computer, inside the notes they belong to;
• mostly share short updates, tutorials or bug reports, or share with a few people for a week;
• want free trimming, clips and captions without an upload.

Stay with Loom if you:

• need comments, reactions and transcripts for your viewers;
• want AI titles, summaries and chapters on every video;
• record in Chrome or on a phone, or on a Mac;
• run a team library with viewer insights, branding and admin controls.

Other Loom alternatives worth a look

If Barside does not fit, these are the tools we would check first. Prices are as of September 2026.

• OBS Studio. Free and open-source video recording and live streaming for Windows, Mac and Linux. It records to files on your computer, with no share links or notes built in.
• ShareX. A free and open-source screenshot tool for Windows, with screen capture, screen recording, file sharing and productivity features in one app.
• Vidyard. Video messages for sales and revenue teams. The free plan allows 5 videos a month, each up to 30 minutes.

For a wider list, see the best screen recorders. If you mostly turn long videos into short social clips, read the OpusClip alternative. If your videos are really meetings, see the Zoom alternative.

Works well with screen recording