TL;DR: The tella vs kommodo matchup is two specialists pointed at different jobs. Tella makes the most polished-looking recordings in the category: layouts, backgrounds, and editing that turn a screen capture into something you would publish. Kommodo records the same screen and then writes the documentation for you: its AI turns recordings into step-by-step SOPs. Pick Tella for content an audience will watch (demos, tutorials, marketing). Pick Kommodo for processes a teammate needs to follow (onboarding, runbooks, support docs). Tella just halved its annual prices in a June 2026 repricing, which makes it cheaper than Kommodo for individuals: $6.50/month annual vs $9. Both keep your videos on their own servers, which is the one decision neither tool lets you make.
Table of contents
- What each tool is
- Tella's June 2026 repricing
- Tella vs Kommodo pricing
- Free tier comparison
- Where Tella wins
- Where Kommodo wins
- Feature table
- Which one fits your work
- Considering a third option?
- FAQ
What each tool is
Tella is the aesthete of screen recording. Record your screen and camera, and Tella's editor gives you multi-layout scenes, custom backgrounds, smooth zooms, and clip stitching that make the output look edited even when it was recorded in one take. The "Tella look" is recognizable across SaaS product demos and creator tutorials. It runs as a macOS desktop app and a Chrome extension; there is no Windows desktop app. Note for longtime users: Tella moved from tella.tv to tella.com, so update old bookmarks.
Kommodo (formerly Komodo Decks, founded 2018) is the documentarian. It records your screen like any tool in this category, then its AI writes a step-by-step guide from the recording, screenshots included. One recording produces two artifacts: the video and the SOP. It ships wider than Tella: macOS, Windows, Chrome, iOS, and Android, plus a Google Workspace sidebar.
Same recording primitive, opposite center of gravity. Tella invests in how the video looks. Kommodo invests in what the AI extracts from it.
Tella's June 2026 repricing
Most tella vs kommodo comparisons you will find carry Tella's old prices, so start here: in June 2026 Tella cut its annual rates in half. Pro went from $13/month annual to $6.50/month annual. Premium went from $19/month annual to $9.50/month annual. Monthly rates now sit at $13 (Pro) and $19 (Premium). Verified 2026-06-11 from tella.com/pricing.
That repricing flips the affordability story. Before June, Kommodo Premium at $9/month annual undercut Tella Pro at $13. Today, Tella Pro at $6.50 undercuts Kommodo at $9. If a comparison tells you Tella is the expensive option, it predates the change.
Tella vs Kommodo pricing
| Plan | Tella | Kommodo |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0: 10 videos, 5-min cap, Tella branding | $0: 1 user, clips up to 1 hour, AI transcription |
| Paid annual | Pro $6.50/month; Premium $9.50/month | Premium $9/user/month ($108/yr) |
| Paid monthly | Pro $13/month; Premium $19/month | Premium $15/month |
| Team pricing | Contact sales, no published per-seat rate | Premium (annual listed as covering unlimited users when checked 2026-05-26) |
| Enterprise | Custom (SSO and SCIM as add-ons) | No separate public tier |
Tella verified 2026-06-11 from tella.com/pricing. Kommodo verified 2026-05-26 from kommodo.ai/pricing, corroborated 2026-06-11.
What Pro buys at Tella: unlimited videos, recordings up to 6 hours per clip, transcription in 106 languages, 4K export, silence and filler-word removal, unlimited hosting, and basic analytics. Premium adds custom domain, branding removal, 60 FPS export, and advanced analytics.
What Premium buys at Kommodo: the auto-SOP engine, branded landing pages, custom branding, team workspace, and the knowledge base where recordings and their generated docs live. The unlimited-users-on-annual listing is unusual for the category; if you are buying for a team, confirm it on their page before you commit, because models like that tend to get refined.
Free tier comparison
| Free tier | Tella | Kommodo |
|---|---|---|
| Recording length | 5 minutes per video | Up to 1 hour per video |
| Video count | 10 total | Not the limiting factor (1 user) |
| Watermark / branding | Tella branding on videos | None advertised |
| Transcription | No | Included |
| Video expiry | 7-day expiry on free videos | None advertised |
Kommodo's free tier is the more usable one by a wide margin: hour-long recordings with transcription, against Tella's 10 videos capped at 5 minutes each, with Tella branding and a 7-day expiry. Tella's free tier exists to preview the editor. Kommodo's free tier is a working tool for a solo user.
If free is the entire budget, the tella vs kommodo answer is Kommodo, full stop.
Where Tella wins
Output quality. No tool in this category makes recordings look this good with this little effort. Layouts, backgrounds, zoom emphasis, and clip stitching produce publish-ready video from a single take. For content that represents your brand publicly, this is the differentiator.
Real editing depth. Six-hour max recordings, silence and filler-word removal, 4K export, 60 FPS on Premium. Kommodo's editing is workmanlike trim-and-cut; Tella's is a lightweight production suite.
Price for individuals, post-repricing. $6.50/month annual for Pro is now the cheapest serious creator tier between the two.
Transcription breadth. 106 languages on Pro. If your audience or team spans languages, that is a real edge.
Where Kommodo wins
The auto-SOP engine. Record a process once, get a written step-by-step document with screenshots alongside the video. For internal documentation, this collapses two tasks into one. Tella gives you a transcript; Kommodo gives you a document someone can follow without pressing play.
Free tier. One-hour recordings with AI transcription at $0. Nothing in Tella's free tier competes.
Platform reach. Windows desktop support (Tella has none), plus iOS and Android apps. For mixed-OS teams, Tella's macOS-only desktop app is a hard constraint, and the Chrome extension fallback for Windows users drops the layout controls that are Tella's whole point.
Team economics. A published team model (and that unlimited-users annual listing) versus Tella's contact-sales opacity. As a category pattern, unpublished team pricing usually means "more than you hoped."
Feature table
| Feature | Tella | Kommodo |
|---|---|---|
| Polished layouts / backgrounds | Core feature | Basic |
| Auto-generated SOPs | No | Core feature |
| Max recording length (paid) | 6 hours per clip | Long-form supported (1 hr on free) |
| Transcription | 106 languages (Pro) | Included from free tier |
| 4K / 60 FPS export | 4K on Pro, 60 FPS on Premium | Not the focus |
| Silence / filler removal | Yes (Pro) | No |
| Windows desktop app | No | Yes |
| Mobile apps | No | iOS + Android |
| Google Workspace sidebar | No | Yes |
| Custom domain | Premium | Premium |
| Knowledge base for recordings | No (video library) | Yes (SOPs + videos) |
| Storage location | Tella's servers | Kommodo's cloud |
| Bring your own storage | No | No |
Which one fits your work
Pick Tella if:
- The recording IS the product: demos, tutorials, course content, launch videos
- Everyone who records is on a Mac
- You publish externally and the visual bar is high
- $6.50/month annual fits where it did not before the repricing
Pick Kommodo if:
- You record so other people can follow a process, and the written doc is half the value
- Your team mixes Windows and Mac, or needs mobile recording
- The free tier needs to do real work before any budget appears
- You want recordings to accumulate into a searchable knowledge base, not just a video list
Both tools come up constantly in Loom-alternative searches; as one Trustpilot reviewer, Alpesh Patel, put it about the category's churn: "'Loom alternative' is my Google search de jour." If that search is how you got here, the honest note is that both Tella and Kommodo share Loom's storage model: your recordings live on their servers, under their terms, at their prices. Tella's own 7-day expiry on free videos is a small taste of what vendor-controlled storage means.
Switching costs: what leaving each tool looks like
A tella vs kommodo decision is easier to reverse early than late, so it is worth knowing the exit doors before you walk in.
Leaving Tella means exporting your videos as MP4 files and losing the layout source: exports are flattened video, so the scenes and backgrounds are baked in and not re-editable elsewhere. Free-tier videos expire after 7 days, so there is nothing to migrate there.
Leaving Kommodo means the videos come with you, but the auto-generated SOPs are the sticky part: they live inside Kommodo's knowledge base. If your team has accumulated two years of process docs there, moving them into your own docs system is a documentation project, not a download. That stickiness is the business model, and it is worth pricing in before the library gets deep.
In both cases the deeper pattern is the same one that pushes people out of Loom: the recordings accumulate on the vendor's servers, and the accumulated library is the lock. The tella vs kommodo choice is also a choice about how locked you are willing to be in 2028.
Considering a third option?
Full disclosure: vyds is our tool, and it exists for exactly the gap the table above shows twice. Neither Tella nor Kommodo lets you own the files.
vyds saves every recording to your own Google Drive or OneDrive, on the free tier, as the recording is created. Cancel any time and the library is still yours, in your storage, with nothing to export. The features page covers how BYOS works in practice.
Where vyds sits in this matchup: Plus is $7/month, or $5/month annual (verified 2026-06-11 from vyds.io/pricing), below Tella Pro's $6.50 and Kommodo's $9. It records on macOS, Windows, and Chrome, trims and stitches, and shares with a link the way both tools do. What it does not do: Tella's cinematic layouts or Kommodo's auto-SOPs. If either of those is the job, buy the specialist. If the job is reliable async recording where the library belongs to you, download vyds and the free tier will answer it quickly.
Deeper side-by-sides: vyds vs Tella and vyds vs Kommodo.
FAQ
Is Tella cheaper than Kommodo?
Since Tella's June 2026 repricing, yes, for individuals on annual billing: Tella Pro is $6.50/month annual vs Kommodo Premium at $9/user/month annual. On monthly billing Tella Pro is $13 vs Kommodo's $15. Before June 2026 the order was reversed, so older comparisons get this wrong. Prices verified 2026-06-11.
Does Tella work on Windows?
There is no Windows desktop app. Windows users can record through Tella's Chrome extension, but the desktop-app layout and design controls (the reason most people choose Tella) are macOS-only. Kommodo ships native Windows support.
What is the difference between Kommodo and Komodo Decks?
Same product. It launched as Komodo Decks in 2018 and rebranded to Kommodo. Reviews and roundups using the old name refer to the same tool.
Which has the better free plan in the tella vs kommodo comparison?
Kommodo, decisively: recordings up to 1 hour with AI transcription and no advertised expiry, versus Tella's 10 videos at 5 minutes each with Tella branding and 7-day expiry. Tella's free tier previews the product; Kommodo's free tier does real work.
Can either tool save recordings to my own Google Drive?
No. Both store recordings on their own infrastructure. Automatic save-to-your-own-storage on a free tier is the specific design vyds is built around.
Which should a creator pick for YouTube tutorials?
Tella. The layouts, backgrounds, 4K export, and filler-word removal are built for published content. Kommodo's strength is internal process documentation, not audience-facing polish.
Ready to try Vyds?
Free screen recording with no watermarks. Launching soon for macOS, Windows, and Chrome.
Get early access