Open-source screen recorder
Cap alternative — when self-hosting is not the priority
Cap answers a question most tools in this category dodge: who actually holds your recordings. It is MIT-licensed, runs against your own S3-compatible storage, and can be self-hosted end to end. If your objection to Loom is architectural rather than functional, Cap is the honest answer and Boom is not.
- Cap runs on
- macOS, Windows, self-hosted
- Boom runs on
- Windows, macOS, web, Chrome extension
The short answer
Choose Boom if…
Choose Boom if you want AI output — transcripts, summaries, action items and voice-cloned dubbing — without operating infrastructure to get it.
Cap may suit you better if…
Choose Cap if data residency, self-hosting or licence transparency are requirements rather than preferences. Boom is a managed service and cannot satisfy a self-hosting mandate.
Where Boom is better
Meetings captured automatically
Boom connects to your calendar and records scheduled calls through a bot. Cap is a manual recorder, and self-hosting it does not add this.
Nothing to operate
Boom is fully managed. There is no bucket to configure, no instance to patch and no storage bill to forecast.
Voice-cloned dubbing in 50+ languages
Boom Pro replays your recording in other languages in your own voice. Cap has no equivalent, and building one on top of a self-hosted deployment is not realistic.
Finished output, not just a file
Silence trimming, transcripts, summaries and action items happen automatically on Boom Pro, so the recording arrives as usable work.
Built-in canvas
Boom includes an infinite canvas for sketching an explanation mid-recording.
Why people look for a Cap alternative
Self-hosting turned out to be a project
Teams choose Cap for control, then discover nobody owns the deployment. A managed tool removes that work.
They wanted the AI, not the architecture
Some evaluators pick Cap on principle but actually need transcripts, summaries and translation more than they need control.
Audience is multilingual
Neither open source nor self-hosting solves a language barrier.
Side by side
Only the dimensions that change a decision. Where a claim comes from the vendor, the source is linked.
| Feature | Boom | Cap |
|---|---|---|
| Open source | No | Yes, MIT licencesource |
| Self-hosting | Not available | Supported, any S3-compatible storagesource |
| Voice-cloned dubbing | 50+ languages (Pro) | Not offered |
| Automatic summaries & action items | Boom Pro | Not a product focus |
| Infrastructure to run | None | None if hosted, yours if self-hosted |
| Free personal use | 25 recordings, ad-supported | Free, no time limitsource |
What Cap does well
MIT-licensed and fully open source
The entire codebase is public. You can audit exactly what the recorder does, which no closed competitor in this list allows.
Cap — open source and self-hostingSelf-hostable with your own storage
Cap connects to any S3-compatible backend — AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze, or a self-run MinIO — so recordings never have to leave infrastructure you control.
Cap — open source and self-hosting
Where Cap runs out
Self-hosting is real operational work
Someone has to run it, patch it and own storage costs. For a small team without infrastructure people, that cost is easy to underestimate.
No voice translation
Cap focuses on capture, sharing and control. Reaching a non-English audience means recording again in another language.
AI features are not the centre of the product
Cap offers transcripts, but automatic summarisation, action-item extraction and silence trimming are not what it is built around.
Smaller managed-service surface
If you use the hosted tier you are still buying from a young company; if you self-host you inherit the maintenance. Neither path is zero-effort.
When Cap is the better call
One case where we would point you elsewhere.
A self-hosting requirement
If policy requires recordings to stay on infrastructure you control, Cap is self-hostable and Boom is a managed service.
Who each one suits
Boom is a better fit for
- Teams who want AI output without running infrastructure
- Multilingual audiences reached from a single recording
- People who want the tool to finish the video for them
Cap is a better fit for
- Organisations with data-residency or self-hosting requirements
- Engineering teams who prefer auditable, open-source tools
- Anyone avoiding vendor lock-in on their own recordings
- Privacy-sensitive workflows
Moving across from Cap
- 1
Create a free Boom account — 25 recordings, five minutes each, 1080p and 5 GB of storage. No card required. Free recordings carry a watermark and player ads; Boom Pro removes both and the length cap.
- 2
Record your next explanation in Boom rather than migrating history. Existing Cap links keep working, so there is no cut-over moment.
- 3
If you need transcripts, AI summaries or dubbing into 50+ languages, move to Boom Pro. Everything else stays on the free plan.
- 4
Keep Cap for anything in the list above where it genuinely wins. Running two tools is a reasonable outcome.
Cap questions, answered
No. Boom is a managed service with no self-hosted deployment. If self-hosting is a requirement, Cap is the correct choice and Boom will not meet your policy.
Sources
Competitor features and plans change. These comparisons were checked against the vendors' own documentation — verify anything decision-critical directly before you commit.