siddharthvaddem/openscreen

What it does

OpenScreen is a desktop screen recorder and editor aimed at short product demos and walkthroughs, positioned as a free alternative to Screen Studio. It records a single window or the full screen, with microphone audio, system audio and a picture-in-picture webcam overlay. After recording, you edit on a timeline: automatic zooms that follow the cursor or manual zooms with configurable depth, duration, easing and position; cursor sizing, smoothing and click effects; backgrounds, motion blur, cropping, trimming and per-segment speed; text, arrow and image annotations. Voiceover captions can be generated on-device, offline, without uploading audio. Export goes to MP4 or GIF in multiple resolutions and aspect ratios.

The editor and export behave the same on macOS, Windows and Linux, but capture quality differs by platform: macOS and Windows record through native pipelines and also capture the real cursor and webcam natively, while Linux records through a browser pipeline and only captures cursor position (good for auto-zoom, not for cursor themes and click effects).

Install and record a first clip

Download the installer for your platform from GitHub Releases, or use a package manager:

# macOS via Homebrew
brew install --cask siddharthvaddem/openscreen/openscreen

# Windows via winget
winget install SiddharthVaddem.OpenScreen

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install ./Openscreen-Linux-latest.deb

On Linux, Arch users can install the .pacman package and other distributions can run the AppImage; Nix users can try nix run github:siddharthvaddem/openscreen or enable the flake's NixOS/Home Manager module. If a manual macOS .dmg install is blocked by Gatekeeper, the README gives an xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine command after granting Terminal Full Disk Access, then asks you to allow Screen Recording and Accessibility in System Settings.

Launch the app, grant screen recording (and accessibility on macOS) when prompted, and choose a window or the whole screen. Record, stop, then use the editor timeline to add zooms, background, annotations and captions. Export the result as MP4 or GIF.

Constraints

• The upstream repository is archived and no longer maintained. The README points readers to getopenscreen/openscreen, a community continuation.
• The author describes the project as a side project that is not production grade; bugs are expected.
• System audio: Windows works out of the box; macOS requires 13+ (permission prompt on 14.2+, unsupported on 12 and below); Linux needs PipeWire, and PulseAudio-only setups may not capture it.
• On Linux, custom cursor themes and click effects are unavailable, and webcam capture goes through the browser pipeline.
• macOS manual installs may need Gatekeeper quarantine removal; upgrading over an old install may require removing prior Screen Recording and Accessibility entries before permissions work again.
• Licensed MIT, free for personal and commercial use.

HotRepo's take

The project drew substantial attention on Hacker News in April 2026: the launch thread collected 434 points and 73 comments (discussion). Much of that discussion compared it with commercial and open-source alternatives rather than with the tool itself — one commenter noted Linux support absent from Cap (reply), another highlighted that OpenScreen is free for commercial use (reply), and a Screen Studio user argued the paid tool's editing flow was worth paying for when used occasionally (comment). Other replies pushed back on constant zoom effects as distracting (comment). A user also posted a demo made with OpenScreen that drew praise for smoothness alongside a motion-sickness remark (comment).

The one snapshot on record shows 26 stars gained on the TypeScript daily list for 2026-11-01; the repository has since been archived and handed to a successor, so that number describes the final period of the original project, not an active growth curve.