A free Loom alternative for quick screen recordings
Loom is genuinely good. It is also built around team workspaces, and its free Starter plan caps you at 25 videos per person in total, each limited to 5 minutes, a pool that never refreshes. If what you actually need is "record a tab, narrate it, send a link", tautau does exactly that from a small Chrome extension, and its free tier resets every month.
Who it is for
People who hit the 25-video wall and realised they never used the rest of the workspace. The bug report that needs thirty seconds of video, not a meeting. The design pass that is easier to narrate than to annotate. The client update that should be a link, not an attachment. If your recordings go to individuals rather than into a team library, the lighter tool is usually enough, and in this case the same extension also dictates into any text field and transcribes YouTube or podcast links.
Side by side
Loom figures are from loom.com/pricing (checked August 2026); annual billing there saves 17%. tautau figures are on our pricing page.
| Feature | Loom | tautau |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 25 videos per person, lifetime, capped at 5 minutes each | 25 recording minutes a month (refreshes monthly) and 500 MB of storage |
| Paid price | Business $18/user/month; Business + AI $24/user/month | Base $3/month (300 min, 5 GB); Pro $9/month (1,500 min, 25 GB) |
| Camera bubble | Yes, on every plan | Yes, on by default with a popup toggle |
| Audio capture | System audio, all plans | Tab audio captured together with the video |
| Share links | Yes, no viewer account needed | Yes, no viewer account; deleting the recording revokes the link |
| Capture scope | Tab, window, or full screen via the desktop app | A Chrome tab, nothing outside the browser |
| Recording transcription | Yes, 50+ languages, even on the free plan | Yes, automatic on every recording up to 24 MB, shown under the video on the share page |
| Editing | Trim and stitch on Business and up | None. Download the .webm and edit in your own tool |
| Viewer insights and comments | Yes, including on the free plan | No |
Where Loom is still better
Plenty of places, and pretending otherwise would be a strange way to earn your trust. Loom's transcription still covers more ground: on-video captions and 50+ languages, against tautau's auto-generated transcript under the share-page player. Loom has real editing (trim, stitch, thumbnails), viewer insights, comments and reactions on the video page, shared and team libraries, and deep Jira and Confluence integrations. Its desktop app captures your whole screen, while tautau records a Chrome tab. For a team that runs async video as a shared practice, Loom Business at $18 per user per month is a defensible spend.
Where tautau is better
The free tier refreshes: 25 recording minutes every month plus 500 MB of storage, instead of a lifetime pool of 25 videos that fills up and stays full. The paid tier is cheaper by a wide margin, $3 or $9 a month flat rather than $18 per user. There is no workspace to administer and no seats to manage. And the recorder shares an extension with dictation and link transcription, so one install covers three jobs that would otherwise be three tools.
Frequently asked questions
Is tautau really a free Loom alternative?
For the core job, yes: record a screen with your voice and a webcam bubble, send a link, anyone watches without an account. A free tautau account gets 25 recording minutes a month and 500 MB of storage, no credit card, and the minutes refresh monthly rather than counting down a lifetime pool. What you do not get is Loom’s team layer: editing, viewer insights, comments, and shared workspaces.
Does tautau transcribe recordings the way Loom does?
Yes. When a recording finishes, tautau transcribes the audio automatically with the same speech-to-text stack that powers dictation, and the transcript lands under the video on the share page with a copy button. Anyone holding the link can read it, no account needed. Two honest limits: recordings over 24 MB are skipped for now, and Loom still goes further with on-video captions, transcripts in 50+ languages, and transcript-based editing on its AI tier.
What do I give up switching from Loom?
A fair amount, honestly. Loom has trim-and-stitch editing, viewer insights and engagement analytics, comments and emoji reactions on the video page, shared and team libraries, deep Atlassian integrations (Jira, Confluence), full-screen capture via its desktop app, and enterprise controls like SSO. If your team lives in those features, Loom Business at $18 per user per month is probably worth it. tautau is for the person who just needs to show something and send a link.
How do the free tiers compare in practice?
Loom’s Starter plan gives you 25 videos per person in total, each capped at 5 minutes, and that pool does not refresh: a clip you recorded two years ago still occupies a slot. tautau’s free tier is 25 recording minutes a month with 500 MB of storage, and it refreshes every month. Loom is more generous per video if you stay under the cap; tautau is more forgiving over time, since every month starts clean.
Do viewers need an account to watch?
With either tool, no. tautau gives every recording a tautau.xyz/r/ link that plays for anyone holding it, signed in or not. Recordings are never publicly listed, the link itself is the permission, and deleting the recording from your dashboard revokes the link immediately.
Try the free tier that resets every month
Install takes about a minute. You get 25 recording minutes a month and 500 MB of storage with a free account, no credit card, plus the dictation and link-transcription features in the same extension.