terminalskills OpenScreen
Overview
Open-source screen recording app for creating beautiful product demos and walkthroughs. A free alternative to Screen Studio — no watermarks, no subscriptions, MIT licensed for personal and commercial use.
Repository: siddharthvaddem/openscreen
OpenScreen captures your screen and applies post-processing effects (zoom, cursor highlighting, backgrounds, motion blur) to produce polished demo videos — the kind you'd normally need Screen Studio ($29/month) or a video editor to create.
Key Differentiators
- Free forever — MIT license, no usage limits, no watermarks
- Post-processing effects — automatic/manual zooms, motion blur, custom backgrounds
- Cross-platform — macOS, Windows, Linux
- Built with Electron — React + TypeScript + PixiJS for rendering
Instructions
Installation
macOS
Download from GitHub Releases.
If macOS Gatekeeper blocks the app:
# Remove quarantine attribute
xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Openscreen.app
Then grant permissions in System Settings → Privacy & Security for:
- Screen Recording
- Accessibility
Linux
# Download the AppImage
chmod +x Openscreen-Linux-*.AppImage
./Openscreen-Linux-*.AppImage
# If sandbox error occurs:
./Openscreen-Linux-*.AppImage --no-sandbox
Requires PipeWire for system audio capture (default on Ubuntu 22.04+, Fedora 34+).
Windows
Download and run the installer from GitHub Releases. System audio works out of the box.
Core Features
Screen Capture
- Full screen or specific window recording
- Microphone audio and system audio capture simultaneously
- Region cropping to hide unwanted areas
Zoom Effects
- Automatic zooms — follows cursor clicks and interactions
- Manual zooms — place zooms at specific timestamps
- Customizable depth — control how far each zoom goes
- Duration & position — fine-tune timing and focal point
Post-Processing
- Motion blur — smoother pan and zoom transitions
- Background options — wallpapers, solid colors, gradients, or custom images
- Annotations — add text, arrows, and images on top of recordings
- Speed control — vary playback speed at different segments
- Trimming — cut out unwanted sections
Export
- Multiple aspect ratios — 16:9, 9:16 (vertical), 1:1 (square)
- Multiple resolutions — from 720p to 4K
- Optimized compression for web or social media
Examples
Example 1: Recording a Product Demo
User request: "Record a polished product demo for our landing page."
Steps:
- Close unnecessary apps and notifications
- Set display to 1920×1080, open the app to demo
- Launch OpenScreen, select capture source (full screen or window)
- Enable microphone for narration, choose gradient background
- Record — walk through the demo naturally, clicking and interacting
- Review auto-generated zoom keyframes, adjust depth and timing
- Add manual zooms for key moments, set motion blur intensity
- Trim dead time, export at 16:9 1080p for web
Example 2: Creating Social Media Content
User request: "Create a short vertical video showing our new feature."
Steps:
- Set up recording focused on the specific feature area
- Record a concise walkthrough (30-60 seconds)
- In post-processing, add text annotations highlighting key moments
- Set aspect ratio to 9:16 (vertical) for Instagram/TikTok
- Increase speed on setup steps, slow down on the key interaction
- Export with optimized compression for social media
Guidelines
- Use a clean desktop — hide dock/taskbar icons you don't need
- Increase cursor size — makes zooms look cleaner
- Move deliberately — slow, purposeful mouse movements record better
- Use gradient backgrounds — they look professional with minimal effort
- Record at 60fps — smoother playback, especially with zoom effects
- Export twice — once for web (compressed, 1080p) and once for presentations (higher quality)
- Beta software — expect occasional bugs; no webcam overlay yet
- No CLI currently — GUI-only application