Loom vs Cap: Incumbent vs Open Source (2026)

I have been recording my screen for work almost every day for years, so the loom vs cap question is one I get asked a lot. They sit at opposite ends of the same market. Loom is the polished incumbent that most teams already know. Cap is the open-source upstart that wants to give you the same thing without the lock-in.

This is an honest two-way comparison. I am not going to pretend one is perfect. Loom wins on some things, Cap wins on others, and the right pick depends on what you actually need. (Quick disclosure up front: vyds is our own product, and it appears only in one short section near the end. The bulk of this post is Loom and Cap, head to head.)

TL;DR: loom vs cap category winners

If you want the answer before the detail, here is who takes each category in the loom vs cap matchup.

• Best free tier: Cap (commercial use is cheap, and local recording is unlimited)
• Most polished experience: Loom (it has had years and a lot of funding)
• Best for data ownership: Cap (open source, self-host, bring your own storage)
• Best for non-technical teams: Loom (zero setup friction)
• Cheapest paid tier: Cap ($8.16/user/month annual beats Loom's $15)
• Most integrations and AI polish: Loom
• Best for privacy-sensitive work: Cap (you can keep everything off third-party servers)

Table of contents

• Pricing compared
• Free tier face-off
• Where Loom wins
• Where Cap wins
• Feature comparison table
• Which one fits your use case
• Considering a third option?
• FAQ

Pricing compared

Pricing is where the loom vs cap gap is widest, so let us start there. Every number below is stamped with the date I verified it on the source pricing page.

Tier	Loom	Cap
Free	Starter, $0 (verified 2026-06-11 from loom.com/pricing)	Free, $0 (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing)
Entry paid	Business, $18/user/month monthly, $15/user/month annual ($180/yr) (verified 2026-06-11 from loom.com/pricing)	Desktop License, $29/year flat (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing)
Mid paid	Business + AI, $24/user/month monthly, $20/user/month annual ($240/yr) (verified 2026-06-11 from loom.com/pricing)	Cap Pro, $12/user/month monthly, $8.16/user/month annual (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing)
Enterprise	Custom (verified 2026-06-11 from loom.com/pricing)	Custom (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing)

A few things jump out. Loom's free tier is called Starter, not Free, and its paid plans bill per user. Cap's Desktop License is a flat $29/year for commercial rights and unlimited local recording, which is a different model entirely.

For a solo creator who just wants to own their recordings, Cap's $29/year is hard to beat. For a 10-person team that wants cloud links, AI summaries, and analytics, Loom Business runs $1,800 a year at the annual rate. Cap Pro for the same 10 people is about $980 a year. That is a real spread.

I pulled every number above straight from each vendor's live pricing page on the dates stamped, not from a cached table. Loom publishes its tiers at loom.com/pricing, and Cap publishes its open-source code and plans at cap.so. If you are reading this months later, check both again, because both tools have repriced before. Cap in particular shifted its annual Pro rate and dropped a lifetime license option in the months before this post went up. Pricing pages are the only source I trust for this kind of claim.

Free tier face-off

Both tools have a free plan, but they are generous in different ways. This matters most if you are a price-sensitive evaluator trying to avoid paying at all.

What you get	Loom Starter	Cap Free
Price	$0 (verified 2026-06-11 from loom.com/pricing)	$0 (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing)
Recording length	5 minutes per video	5-minute shareable links
Number of videos	25 creator videos	Unlimited local recordings
Watermark	No watermark	No watermark
Commercial use	Allowed	Personal use only on Free
Local-only recording	No	Yes, unlimited

Loom's free plan caps you at 25 videos and 5 minutes each, with everything living on Loom's cloud. Cap's free plan caps the shareable cloud links at 5 minutes, but local recording is unlimited, which is genuinely different.

The catch with Cap Free is the personal-use restriction. If you record for work, you are meant to be on the $29/year Desktop License (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing). For hobby use, Cap Free goes further than most people expect.

Where Loom wins

I am not going to both-sides this. Loom is the more finished product, and there are real reasons teams pick it.

Polish and zero setup. Loom has had years and a lot of funding, and it shows. You install the extension or app, hit record, and a shareable link is waiting before you finish your coffee. For non-technical teammates, that friction-free flow is the whole pitch.

Viewer experience. Loom's player, reactions, comments, and thread replies are mature. If your videos go to clients or stakeholders who never log in, Loom's viewing layer is smoother than Cap's today.

AI features. Loom's Business + AI plan bundles auto-titles, summaries, and chaptering at $20/user/month annual (verified 2026-06-11 from loom.com/pricing). Cap has AI features on Pro too, but Loom's are more refined right now.

Integrations. Loom plugs into Slack, Notion, Jira, Gmail, and a long list of other tools out of the box. If your team lives inside those apps, Loom's links drop in cleanly.

The honest summary: Loom is the safe choice for a team that wants a working tool today and does not want to think about where the files live.

Where Cap wins

Cap's whole reason to exist is the stuff Loom cannot offer because of how Loom is built.

Open source. Cap's code is public. You can read it, audit it, and run it yourself. For anyone who got burned by a tool changing under them, that transparency is the entire point. This is the independent angle that drew me to test it in the first place.

Data ownership. Cap lets you bring your own storage and even self-host. Your recordings do not have to sit on a vendor's servers. For privacy-sensitive work, that is a different category of control than Loom offers.

Price. Cap Pro at $8.16/user/month annual (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing) undercuts Loom Business at $15/user/month annual (verified 2026-06-11 from loom.com/pricing) by almost half. The $29/year Desktop License is cheaper still for solo use.

Local-first recording. Cap records to your machine first. There is no dependency on a cloud round-trip to get your file, which is reassuring if your internet is flaky mid-recording.

We installed and tested Cap on a MacBook on May 29, 2026. The full hands-on teardown, including the rough edges, is in our Cap screen recorder review. I am citing that real test here rather than inventing new numbers.

Feature comparison table

Here is the loom vs cap breakdown across the features people actually ask about.

Feature	Loom	Cap
Open source	No	Yes
Self-hosting	No	Yes (Pro and Enterprise)
Bring your own storage	No	Yes
Local-first recording	No	Yes
Cheapest paid plan (annual)	$15/user/mo	$8.16/user/mo
Free tier video length	5 min	5 min (cloud links)
Commercial use on free tier	Yes	No
AI summaries and titles	Yes (Business + AI)	Yes (Pro)
Native integrations	Extensive	Growing
Viewer comments and reactions	Mature	Basic
Desktop app polish	High	Good, improving

Cap is winning the ownership and price columns. Loom is winning the maturity and integration columns. Neither table cell is a lie, and that is the real shape of the loom vs cap decision.

Which one fits your use case

Rather than crown one winner, here is who I would point at each tool.

• Solo creator or freelancer on a budget: Cap. The $29/year Desktop License gives you commercial rights and unlimited local recording for less than two months of Loom Business.
• Non-technical team that wants it to just work: Loom. The setup-free flow and mature viewer experience are worth the premium for a team that will not tinker.
• Privacy-sensitive or regulated work: Cap. Self-hosting and bring-your-own-storage keep recordings off third-party servers.
• Sales or client-facing video at scale: Loom, today. The viewer layer and integrations carry it, though Cap is closing the gap.
• Anyone burned by a tool changing owners: Cap. Open source means you are never fully dependent on one company's roadmap. If you remember the Loom and Atlassian shift, this will resonate.

You can dig into the full specs on our Cap comparison page and Loom comparison page if you want the line-by-line view.

Considering a third option?

Full disclosure: vyds is our product, so weigh this section accordingly. I built it because I wanted Loom's ease without giving up Cap's ownership story.

vyds is free to start ($0), with Plus at $7/month ($5/month annual) and Pro at $12/seat/month ($9/seat/month annual). See the full pricing for the current numbers. The free tier saves your recordings to your own Google Drive, so if we vanished tomorrow, you would still have every file.

That is the bring-your-own-storage idea Cap fans care about, packaged with the record-and-share simplicity Loom users expect. If the loom vs cap tradeoff feels like a compromise either way, vyds is worth a look. You can download it and try a recording in a couple of minutes.

I would not tell you it replaces a careful Cap self-host setup or Loom's deep integration list on day one. It sits in the middle: your storage, your data, no per-seat surprise. That is the gap we are aiming at.

FAQ

Is Cap really free?

Cap Free is $0 (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing) with unlimited local recording, but it is personal use only. For work, the $29/year Desktop License unlocks commercial rights. Loom's free Starter plan allows commercial use but caps you at 25 videos of 5 minutes each.

Is Cap a real Loom alternative?

Yes. Cap covers the core record-and-share loop and adds open source, self-hosting, and a cheaper paid plan. It trails Loom on viewer polish and native integrations, so the loom vs cap call depends on whether ownership or polish matters more to you.

Which is cheaper, Loom or Cap?

Cap, clearly. Cap Pro is $8.16/user/month annual (verified 2026-06-16 from cap.so/pricing) versus Loom Business at $15/user/month annual (verified 2026-06-11 from loom.com/pricing). For solo use, Cap's $29/year flat license is cheaper than any Loom paid plan.

Can I move my videos out of Loom or Cap later?

Cap makes this easy because recordings live locally or in storage you control. Loom keeps files on its cloud, so exporting in bulk is more work. If avoiding lock-in is your priority, our own tool vyds saves to your Google Drive by default (disclosure: vyds is our product).

Does Cap work on Windows and Mac?

Cap runs on both macOS and Windows, same as Loom. We tested the Mac build on May 29, 2026; the notes are in our Cap review. Loom also ships a Chrome extension and mobile apps, so if your team records on phones too, that is a point in Loom's favor for now.

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The loom vs cap choice comes down to one question: do you want the most polished tool, or the most independent one? Loom is polish. Cap is independence. Both are honest answers.

If you want a middle path where your storage stays yours without giving up the simple record-and-share flow, your videos live in your Google Drive with vyds.