Screen recorder and editor for education
ScreenPal alternative for recordings longer than fifteen minutes
ScreenPal, formerly Screencast-O-Matic, has been a fixture in classrooms for years — affordable, approachable, strong on captions and hosting. Its free tier is unusually honest in one respect and unusually limiting in another: no watermark, but a fifteen-minute ceiling on every recording.
- ScreenPal runs on
- Windows, macOS, Chromebook, iOS, Android
- Boom runs on
- Windows, macOS, web, Chrome extension
The short answer
Choose Boom if…
Choose Boom if fifteen minutes is not enough for a lesson, or if the same lesson needs to reach students who do not share your language.
ScreenPal may suit you better if…
Choose ScreenPal if you are in education, need Chromebook support, or want strong captioning and hosting at a modest price. Its education focus is real and Boom does not target that market.
Where Boom is better
A modern studio around every lesson
Zoom regions, custom backgrounds, burned-in subtitles in four styles, and intro/outro clips — plus automatic silence trimming so a one-take lesson does not need editing.
Uncapped lesson length on Pro
ScreenPal removes its fifteen-minute cap only on paid plans, and Boom Pro likewise records without a length limit. On free tiers ScreenPal is the more generous of the two at fifteen minutes against five.
ScreenPal free screen recorderLessons in 50+ languages
Boom Pro clones the teacher voice and delivers the lesson in another language with native pronunciation — a genuine advantage for multilingual classrooms.
Automatic silence trimming
Dead air is removed without opening an editor, which matters when recording in one take.
Summaries and action items
Boom Pro turns a lesson into a transcript with extracted notes, useful as study material.
Why people look for a ScreenPal alternative
Lessons run past fifteen minutes
The free cap forces splitting content that belongs together.
ScreenPal free screen recorderEditing requires upgrading
Users discover the integrated editor and captioning are paid features after committing to the tool.
ScreenPal plansStudents speak different languages
Translated captions help; hearing the lesson in your own language helps more.
Side by side
Only the dimensions that change a decision. Where a claim comes from the vendor, the source is linked.
| Feature | Boom | ScreenPal |
|---|---|---|
| Free recording length | 5 minutes (uncapped on Pro) | 15 minutessource |
| Watermark on free | BoomShare watermark (removed on Pro) | Nonesource |
| Ads on free plan | Yes | No |
| Chromebook | Not supported | Supported |
| Voice-cloned dubbing | 50+ languages (Pro) | Not offered |
| Education licensing | Not offered | Availablesource |
What ScreenPal does well
No watermark on free recordings
Unlike several competitors, ScreenPal does not brand free output, which makes the free tier genuinely usable.
ScreenPal plansBuilt for education
Pricing, LMS-friendly hosting and school licensing are shaped around classroom use rather than retrofitted to it.
ScreenPal plans
Where ScreenPal runs out
Fifteen minutes per free recording
The free recorder stops at fifteen minutes. A full lesson or a detailed walkthrough will not fit.
ScreenPal free screen recorderEditing and captions sit behind upgrades
Unlimited recording time, automated captioning and the integrated editor require a paid plan.
ScreenPal plansNo voice translation
Captions can be translated as text, but the narration remains in the original language and voice.
Dated interface in places
The product carries a long history, and parts of it feel older than newer competitors.
When ScreenPal is the better call
One case where we would point you elsewhere.
Chromebook classrooms
ScreenPal runs on Chromebooks and offers school licensing. If your institution is standardised on Chromebooks, that settles it.
Who each one suits
Boom is a better fit for
- Lessons and walkthroughs longer than fifteen minutes
- Multilingual classrooms and international students
- Anyone wanting transcripts and summaries automatically
ScreenPal is a better fit for
- Schools standardised on Chromebooks
- Educators needing institutional licensing
- Teams wanting an ad-free free tier
- Caption-heavy accessibility workflows
Moving across from ScreenPal
- 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 ScreenPal 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 ScreenPal for anything in the list above where it genuinely wins. Running two tools is a reasonable outcome.
ScreenPal questions, answered
The free ScreenPal recorder is limited to fifteen minutes per recording, and unlimited time requires a paid plan. Boom Free is tighter still at five minutes; Boom Pro removes the cap.
Sources
Competitor features and plans change. These comparisons were checked against the vendors' own documentation — verify anything decision-critical directly before you commit.