8 Best Loom Alternatives in 2026 (Free and Paid Async Video Tools)
Loom's free tier changed after the Atlassian acquisition. Here are the best alternatives for async video, meeting recordings, and screen walkthroughs — matched to your actual use case.
Published 5/13/2026
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TL;DR: [Grain]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: grain]) for AI-powered meeting recordings and searchable highlights. [Tella]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: tella]) for polished async videos and creator use cases. [Scribe]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: scribe]) if you want walkthroughs that become documentation rather than video. [Veed.io]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: veed]) for editing and publishing video content. Loom is still worth keeping if you’re in the Atlassian ecosystem.
Why Teams Are Looking for Loom Alternatives in 2026
Loom wasn’t broken before the Atlassian acquisition. The core product — record your screen and camera, get a shareable link instantly, leave timestamped comments — solved a real problem for remote teams and is still one of the best implementations of async video messaging.
Three things changed after the $975M Atlassian acquisition in late 2023:
The free tier shrank. The most discussed change: Loom’s free plan was capped at 25 videos. Before the acquisition, free Loom offered unlimited video storage. Teams that relied on Loom for ongoing async communication hit this wall quickly.
Pricing restructured toward enterprise. Loom’s Starter plan ($12.50/month/creator) and Business plan ($16.50/month/creator) represent meaningful cost for teams that previously used the free tier. For a 10-person team, Business is $165/month — a line item that requires justification.
AI meeting tools caught up. The async video landscape changed significantly in 2023–2024. Tools like Grain, Fireflies.ai, and Otter.ai brought AI-native meeting intelligence (transcripts, highlights, searchable clips) to market at prices competitive with Loom. Teams reconsidering Loom often find that their actual need is meeting intelligence, not just async video messaging — and different tools serve that need better.
Loom Alternatives at a Glance
| Tool | Free tier | Paid pricing | AI features | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grain | Yes (limited recording hours) | $15/mo/member | Auto-highlights, search, summaries | Meeting recordings and AI intelligence |
| Tella | Yes (limited) | $19/mo | Backgrounds, chapters, polish | Polished async video and creators |
| Scribe | Yes | $23/mo | Auto-capture from screen actions | Process documentation |
| Veed.io | Yes | $18/mo | Captions, templates | Video editing and publishing |
| Claap | Yes | $10/mo | AI summaries | Product feedback and design reviews |
| Screencastify | Yes (limited) | $6/mo | Basic | Simple screen recording (K-12, education) |
| Loom | 25 videos | $12.50/mo | AI titles, chapters | Async messaging, Atlassian ecosystem |
Grain — Best for AI-Powered Meeting Recording and Highlights
Grain is the strongest option if you realize what you actually need is not async video messaging but AI meeting intelligence. The distinction matters: Loom is for sending async messages (“here’s a screen recording explaining the issue”); Grain is for capturing and making searchable your actual meetings.
What Grain does well:
Grain integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to automatically record, transcribe, and analyze meetings. After each meeting, Grain generates:
- Auto-generated highlight clips (the most important 30–60 second moments)
- Full searchable transcript
- AI-generated meeting summary with key decisions and action items
- Topic-tagged clips you can share as async video snippets
The searchable archive is particularly valuable: months later, you can search “Q3 pricing decision” and find the exact moment in a past meeting where that was discussed.
Grain pricing:
- Free: limited recording hours per month, transcript search
- Starter: $15/seat/month (unlimited recordings, AI highlights, shareable clips)
- Business: $25/seat/month (advanced analytics, CRM integrations, admin controls)
Where Grain falls short:
Grain isn’t a screen recording tool for async messaging in the Loom sense. If your use case is “I want to record a 3-minute walkthrough of a bug and send it to a developer,” Grain isn’t the right tool. It’s built for capturing live meetings, not creating async explainers.
Verdict: [Grain]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: grain]) is the right replacement if your Loom use was primarily recording or referencing meetings. If it was primarily sending async screen recordings to teammates, Tella or Claap are better fits.
Tella — Best for Polished Async Videos and Creator Use Cases
Tella is designed for people who care about how their videos look and feel. Virtual backgrounds, animated layouts, chapters, captions, and clean output are first-class features — not afterthoughts.
What Tella does well:
If you’re an individual creator, a consultant sending client updates, or a professional who wants async videos to look polished rather than raw, Tella’s production quality is significantly above Loom’s default output.
Features that make Tella distinct:
- Virtual scenes: Professional-looking layouts combining screen recording, camera, and branded backgrounds — no green screen required
- Chapters: Structured navigation for longer videos
- Captions: Auto-generated and customizable captions on every video
- Trim and edit: Basic editing without leaving the tool
Tella is also built with a creator-first ethos — a free Notion workspace template for video-based courses, creator-focused use case documentation, and a community of independent professionals.
Tella pricing:
- Free: limited video storage and exports
- Pro: $19/month (unlimited videos, custom domains, advanced editing)
Where Tella falls short:
Tella is solo-professional and creator-focused. For team async communication at scale — distributing screen recordings across a 50-person org — Loom or Claap are better fits. Tella lacks the team management and admin features that enterprise async video tools offer.
Verdict: [Tella]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: tella]) is the right call for freelancers, consultants, course creators, and professionals who want async video to represent them at a higher standard of production quality.
Scribe — Best for Process Documentation
Scribe is adjacent to Loom but serves a different job: instead of recording a video walkthrough of a process, Scribe captures your screen actions and automatically generates a step-by-step visual guide with text instructions.
What Scribe does well:
For onboarding documentation, SOP creation, and technical walkthroughs that need to be updated regularly, Scribe’s auto-capture approach is faster than recording a new Loom for every process change. You click through a process once; Scribe outputs a documented workflow with annotated screenshots.
The output is text + screenshots — not video — which means it’s searchable, copy-pasteable, and embeddable in Notion, Confluence, or any documentation tool.
Scribe pricing:
- Free: unlimited Scribes, basic sharing
- Pro: $23/month (custom branding, Confluence/Notion embeds, advanced permissions)
- Team: $15/seat/month (minimum 5 seats)
Where Scribe falls short:
Scribe isn’t an async video tool. If you need to communicate tone, explain a design decision, or walk through something that requires context beyond step-by-step instructions, video is still better. Scribe is for documentation workflows, not async communication.
Verdict: [Scribe]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: scribe]) is worth evaluating if a significant portion of your Loom usage was “recording how to do X so a new team member can follow along.” Scribe produces a more maintainable output for that use case.
Veed.io — Best for Teams That Need to Edit and Publish Video
Veed.io extends well beyond Loom’s scope — it’s a full video creation and editing platform with screen recording as one input. If you want Loom’s recording capability plus the ability to trim, add captions, add branding, and publish professionally, Veed.io covers the full workflow.
What Veed.io does well:
- Auto-generated captions that are accurate and easy to style
- Video trimming, cropping, and basic editing in-browser
- Branded templates for professional-looking output
- Background noise removal
- Strong free tier with meaningful recording length
For teams creating video content (product demos, tutorial videos, team announcements) that needs to look polished before being shared externally, Veed.io handles the full production cycle that Loom doesn’t.
Veed.io pricing:
- Free: up to 10-minute videos with Veed watermark
- Basic: $18/month (watermark removal, longer videos, captions)
- Pro: $30/month (team features, priority support)
Verdict: [Veed.io]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: veed]) is the right choice when your Loom recordings regularly need editing, captioning, or a more polished output before sharing with external stakeholders or customers.
Claap — Best for Async Product Feedback and Design Reviews
Claap is built specifically for product teams and designers who need async video tied to design artifacts, product builds, and collaborative feedback loops.
What Claap does well:
Claap combines screen recording with threaded comments at specific timestamps — similar to Loom, but with a product and design workflow focus. Teams can leave video replies to video recordings, creating async video conversations rather than one-way messages.
For design review workflows, Claap’s interface is better suited than Loom: reviewers can jump to specific moments, leave timestamped feedback, and thread replies directly on the video.
Claap pricing:
- Free: limited recordings per month
- Starter: $10/seat/month (unlimited recordings, video replies)
- Business: $20/seat/month (advanced admin, integrations)
Verdict: [Claap]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: claap]) is the right call for product and design teams whose async video workflow is fundamentally about collecting and tracking feedback on work artifacts, not just broadcasting information.
When Loom Still Makes Sense
Loom isn’t universally the wrong choice. Two scenarios where staying on Loom makes sense:
You’re in the Atlassian ecosystem. Post-acquisition, Loom’s integration with Jira and Confluence is native and improving. If your team uses Jira for issue tracking and Confluence for documentation, Loom records link directly into both. The integration value may outweigh the free tier restriction or the cost.
You need the simplest possible async video tool. Loom’s core UX — click, record, share link — is still the benchmark for frictionless async video. If simplicity and adoption across a non-technical team is the priority, Loom’s familiarity works in its favor.
Which Loom Alternative Is Right for You?
| Use case | Recommended tool |
|---|---|
| AI meeting recordings and summaries | [Grain]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: grain]) |
| Polished videos and creator output | [Tella]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: tella]) |
| Process docs and SOPs | [Scribe]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: scribe]) |
| Video editing and publishing | [Veed.io]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: veed]) |
| Design review and product feedback | [Claap]([AFFILIATE_LINK_PENDING: claap]) |
| Atlassian ecosystem team | Loom (stay) |
For context on where async video fits in your broader startup tech stack, see our best project management tools for startups roundup. For PM tool comparisons that often come up alongside async video decisions, see our ClickUp vs Monday comparison and Linear vs Jira comparison.
For scheduling and synchronous meeting tools that complement async video, see our Calendly alternatives guide.