Image and video decision
Loom
A small team or single developer can build a usable screen-recording + share/playback service, but recreating Loom’s AI workflows, enterprise security, integrations, and polished UX at scale is non-trivial—so build a narrow replacement for internal use but keep paying for Loom for full-featured, enterprise-ready capabilities.
Visit website↗$18/mo
$216/yr
Per seat. Read off the official pricing page.
$100one-off80 h to build
$100/mo10 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 7 seats.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Loom alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Record screen+camera, upload and store video, generate shareable link/embed, provide playback with basic analytics and (optional) automated transcript.
What it still won’t have
- Loom AI workflows and auto-video enhancement (auto-summaries, auto-chapters, filler-word removal)
- Advanced browser/editor features (trim & stitch, edit by transcript, advanced editing UI)
- Enterprise features: SSO/SCIM, 99.95% uptime SLA, advanced admin controls and compliance
- Polished integrations catalogue and built-in CRM/analytics syncs
- Scale reliability and polished UX present in the commercial product
What remains hard
- Brand trust
Millions of people across 400,000 companies choose Loom
- Execution quality
The easiest screen recorder you’ll ever use
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 7 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal self-hosted Loom-like service using React for frontend, Node.js + Express for API, PostgreSQL for metadata, and AWS S3 + CloudFront for video storage/delivery. Implement: (1) browser screen+webcam recorder using MediaRecorder and upload to S3 with resumable chunks, (2) server endpoints to create/manage recordings, generate shareable unlisted/password-protected links and embed pages, (3) playback page using HLS/MP4 served from CloudFront, (4) background worker that calls a speech-to-text API (Whisper/OpenAI) to produce transcripts and captions and attach them to the recording, (5) basic viewer analytics (view count, watch time) and a webhook/notification when a video is viewed. Out of scope: multi-space/team admin, SSO/SCIM, advanced AI video editing, enterprise SLAs, and polished native desktop apps. Include error handling, input validation, retries for uploads, and unit/integration tests for API endpoints and recorder integration.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score67
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productLoom - official product
- official pricingLoom Pricing
- official productLoom for Sales use case
- open sourceCapSoftware/Cap
- open sourcescreenpipe/screenpipe
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
