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A screen recorder for Linux, with the editor built in

OpenScreen is a free, MIT-licensed screen recorder for Linux that captures a display or one window through PipeWire and the desktop's ScreenCast portal, so it records on Wayland. The same app then edits the take: automatic zooms from the Auto-enhance menu, an editable cursor, local Whisper captions and MP4 or GIF export. OBS Studio is still the better choice if you stream. Release packages are x64, and ARM64 machines build OpenScreen through its Nix flake.

This page is published by the OpenScreen project. The Screen Studio and OBS Studio details come from screen.studio and obsproject.com, and the distribution defaults from the Ubuntu and Fedora release notes. All were checked in September 2026. The sources are listed at the end.

At a glance​

PriceFree, including commercial use. MIT license, no account
PackagesAppImage, .deb, .rpm and .pacman, x64. Nix flake for x86_64 and aarch64
What it recordsA display or one window. Crop afterward in the editor
CapturePipeWire through the ScreenCast portal, at a 60 fps target. The size is whatever the compositor hands over
Encoding while recordingH.264 through VAAPI, then Vulkan, then software
System audioThe PipeWire sink monitor, mixed with the microphone
CursorPosition and shape from the portal. Left clicks with the input group
CaptionsLocal Whisper on Vulkan, with a CPU fallback. Burned into the video
ExportMP4 (H.264 or H.265) or GIF, no watermark. H.264 on the GPU through VAAPI when the driver allows it
Built-in updatesAppImage, .deb, .rpm and .pacman. Not Nix

Wayland and PipeWire​

OpenScreen records the screen on Linux with its own native helper, not with the browser engine inside the app.

  • Capture through the portal. A Rust helper records through PipeWire and the xdg-desktop-portal ScreenCast interface. Your desktop's sharing dialog picks the display or window, before the 3-2-1 countdown starts.
  • Hardware encoding while you record. The helper writes H.264 and tries VAAPI first, then Vulkan video encoding, then the libopenh264 software encoder. The first one that opens on your machine is used.
  • System audio from PipeWire. It comes from the monitor of the default PipeWire sink and is mixed with the microphone into one AAC track. It needs PipeWire as the sound server, the default on Ubuntu 22.10 and later and Fedora 34 and later.
  • Microphone choice. The HUD lists every input device, with a live level meter. The helper finds the matching PipeWire node by its description.
  • An editable cursor. In the default overlay mode, the portal reports the cursor position and shape, so you can restyle the cursor in the editor. System mode records the pointer as it is.
  • Clicks on Wayland. Wayland has no portal for input events, so OpenScreen reads left-button presses from evdev. That works when your user is in the input group, and OpenScreen reads only the left button, never keystrokes. The group itself is broader: it lets every program you run read every input device, keyboard included. Without the group, recording still works and every cursor sample is saved as a move. Mouse clicks on Wayland has the command.
  • Browser capture only as a fallback. Chromium's capture takes over only in a build that is missing the helper. A helper that fails reports an error instead of switching. See Recording.

Screen Studio-style polish on Linux​

Screen Studio supports only macOS (as of September 2026). OpenScreen offers the same kind of finishing on Linux, and its editing tools are the same on Windows, macOS and Linux.

  • Automatic zooms. Auto-enhance → Automatic zooms places zooms from the recorded cursor movement, with no network call and no model. Manual zooms have six depths. More on auto-zoom.
  • Cursor styling. Show or hide the cursor, resize and smooth it, and add motion blur and a click bounce. Click effects need recorded clicks, so the input group again.
  • Backgrounds and framing. 18 bundled wallpapers, a solid color, a gradient or your own image, with padding, rounded corners and a shadow. Output in 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 and other aspect ratios.
  • Local captions. whisper.cpp runs on your machine, on Vulkan with a CPU fallback. It uses one Whisper Small model of about 264 MB, downloaded once. Captions are burned into the video, and deleting words in the transcript cuts them from the video. More on captions.
  • Webcam layouts. Picture-in-picture and other layouts, with the camera background removed, blurred or replaced without a green screen.
  • A multi-clip timeline. Several clips per project, cuts, speed regions, text, arrow, image and blur annotations, a voice-over track and music. See Editing & timeline.
  • Export without a watermark. MP4 in H.264 or H.265 at up to 60 fps, or GIF. On Linux the compositor renders through Vulkan, and H.264 goes to the GPU through h264_vaapi when the driver exposes VAAPI and the Vulkan device can hand frames over. See Export.
  • Optional chat editing with your own key. Describe cuts, zooms or annotations in plain language. It is off until you connect a provider, and each change lands as an ordinary undoable edit. See AI editing.

Packages​

  • Four x64 packages per release. An AppImage, a .deb, an .rpm and a .pacman, on the download page and on GitHub Releases.
  • Updates from inside the app. Those four packages can update themselves. By default the app only tells you an update exists, it checks every 24 hours, and it never offers one during a recording. Installing always goes through a restart prompt.
  • A Nix flake. It builds from source for x86_64-linux and aarch64-linux, and provides a NixOS module and a Home Manager module. nix run github:getopenscreen/openscreen tries it without installing. The app's updater leaves Nix installs alone.
  • ARM64 through Nix. Release packages are x64. On an aarch64 machine, install through the Nix flake.
  • A command-line interface. The CLI records from your desktop session, and exports, captions and packs projects, with JSON output. Displays, CI and servers lists what each command needs.

When OpenScreen is not the right tool​

  • You need ARM64 packages. OpenScreen publishes x64 packages. On aarch64, it builds from source through the Nix flake.
  • You stream. OpenScreen does not stream. OBS Studio streams to an integrated service or a custom server, and it is officially distributed on Linux as a Flatpak on Flathub and as a PPA for Ubuntu 24.04 and newer (as of September 2026). See OpenScreen vs OBS Studio.

Getting started​

  1. Download the package for your distribution from the download page, or use the Nix flake.
  2. Follow the Linux installation steps. Add your user to the input group if you want clicks recorded and accept what that group allows.
  3. Make a first recording with the quick start, answer the portal dialog when it opens, then run Auto-enhance → Automatic zooms on the take.

On another system? See the Windows and macOS pages. Coming from a Mac app? See the Screen Studio alternative. Or go back to the OpenScreen home page.

Sources​

Third-party facts, checked September 2026:

OpenScreen facts describe version 1.11.0 and link to its documentation above.

Screen Studio and OBS Studio are trademarks of their respective owners. OpenScreen is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by either.

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