18 Free Screencasting tools to Create Video Tutorials
Siva Kumar
Screencasting is a better and great way to showcase a procedure, to teach,demonstrate a service or to create video tutorials without having to write a content or an article. Screencasting tools are available both as desktop applications (Free and commercial) and web-based services. The good news is that there are a growing number of screencasting tools that are completely free to use; some do not even require a registration to let you get started.
Videos are simply great to deliver a message in a very short time and for most people bandwidth is not a problem any more.The following screencasting tools are all free to record screen but of course their features are not as much as paid ones.You can easily record your screen and add audio or edit your recorded screen videos with these tools.If you know more free tools then please denote in comments section.
Free tools
1.Aviscreen
AviScreen is an application for capturing screen activity in the form of AVI video or bitmap images.It has a unique feature called “follow the cursor”. Using this mode you can produce a video or image of relatively small dimensions while covering all mouse activity over the whole screen area.You may stop or pause the video capture at any moment. If you use the popup menu to stop/pause the capture, the process will also be captured and may need to be trimmed later. When the computer is slow or very busy, sometimes it is necessary to hit the shortcut key several times before it works.This is a free capture program that records the video into AVI files, but can also do BMP photos. It’s Windows only and does not record audio.
2.Camstudio
Free and open source streaming video software for Windows that allows you to capture screen and audio activity on your computer and create AVI video files and export to SWF. CamStudio has an easy-to-use interface and includes a video annotation feature, custom cursors and selected screen region recording.
3.Copernicus
A free program for Macs that focuses heavily on making quick and speedy films by recording the video to your RAM for quicker access. Does not include any support for audio.
4.Goview
Free Windows software from Citrix Online, that allows you to record video of your screen, capture audio, edit and host your videos without bandwidth limitations. Screencasts can be password protected, and downloaded/uploaded to other sites.
5.ISU
ISU enable people to easily Record a sequence of operations in applications.
Edit the recorded presentation, draw on it and add nice notes and stylish HTML pages.Send it to friends via Email, Messenger or any other application or Browser Email. Or even create FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) in a Center-Folder.
6.Jing
Free simplified screen recording software for Mac and Windows machines that allows users to quickly record videos (including audio) from a window or region on their desktop, including the mouse, scroll movements and clicks on websites or applications. You can record up to five minutes. Jing is a product of TechSmith, the makers of Camtasia Studio and Camtasia for Mac.
7.Krut
Krut is a screencast tool that is written in Java and well suited for making video tutorials (instructional videos) on most platforms. Krut records movie files, including sound, of selected parts of your screen. The files use the quicktime mov format. The program has an intuitive and compact user interface.
8.Freescreencast
Free software that lets you record your screen, capture audio, control the cursor, and export to FLV format. You can then upload to FreeScreencast.com for free hosting (no file size or resolution limits) and sharing.
9.Screentoaster
ScreenToaster is a free web-based screen recorder designed to capture your screen activity, audio and webcam images in real-time then publish and share your video in blogs and websites.ScreenToaster works in all browsers and doesn’t require any download so that you can use it anywhere, anytime.
10.Microsoft expression encoder
This free version of Expression Encoder 3 does not include support for IIS Smooth Streaming and H.264 encoding.
11.Screen castle
Screen Castle is an online recording tool.Of course it is not professional as the others but you can easily record your screen with one click and get the sharing codes immediately.
12.Screencast O matic
It’s like an online tool which you don’t have to download anything.You just click the Create Button and a box appears which works with Java and you adjust the screen area to start recording as you see in the below screen shot.you can send the recorded file directly to through hosting.
13.Screen jelly
A free web-based utility that lets you record your screen and audio for up to three minutes, then send it out to Twitter or in an email.
14.Screenr
A free web-based tool for Windows or Mac that lets you create screencasts without installing any software. Your screencast is published in high-definition Flash format, and can be shared on Twitter, YouTube or anywhere else on the web. Screenr is made by Articulate, the makers of Articulate Studio.
15.Oripa screen recorder
oRipa Screen Recorder is a handy tool to record your Windows desktop activities in real time and save it as a video file. oRipa Screen Recorder also captures anything you can hear on your PC, such as, music and talking through the PC’s microphone.
16.Utipu
UTipU Tipcam has 2 versions.FREE and PRO.It is another easy to use tool for recording both video and audio.You can also make smart zooming which is very useful for presentations.Click the Zoom button to zoom into closer. This type of zoom will follow your mouse. You can also zoom before you start recording.
17.UltraVNC
The screen recorder is build with the old Rendersoft camstudio source.UltraVNC boasts a chat window, a dialog for file transfer and an embedded Java viewer which allows you to open a UltraVNC session in a browser. Supports audio also.
18.Webinaria
You can easily create screen records as .avi file and turn them in to .FLV file.You can also add you voice and edit the recorded file later.It requires Windows and totally FREE.
Let us know if we have missed some awesome app for screencasting and we will update the article.:)
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Phuong
Posted 105 days ago 26How do you think about ActivePresenter: http://atomisystems.com/activepresenter
Jerry
Posted 46 days ago 29Great! Thanks!
Mr.bhavesh
Posted 110 days ago 25Great work.
thanks for this useful information.
Water
Posted 147 days ago 24Great review, really I liked the free tool called RealShow 1.0, very reliable and has quality outputs.
Paul Campbell
Posted 174 days ago 23I use camtasia recorder 7 its great. I made a video tutorial on youtube on how to build your own free website starting with getting a free domain name, free hosting service, connecting them and part 4 we got the site up and running . In part 5 im going to get into html scripts adding facebook buttons google +1 button twitter button adsense and possibley more. check out my channel name is shadough4747 or the site cashcow.co.nr for a link.
saurabh
Posted 178 days ago 22Thanks for the great post. Not many would be aware of these except for the camtasia studio.
rafeyu
Posted 192 days ago 21BSR Soft recorder is cool. But it isn’t free. I got a lot of references here, thanks.
John
Posted 203 days ago 20RealShow is free at http://www.alaasadik.net/realshow
Very reliable
Norm Gregory
Posted 458 days ago 19I used screencast-o-matic almost daily. http://bit.ly/2GKZnv
Chris Wade
Posted 502 days ago 17I do not know where the above posts got that Screentoaster was going down earlier this year, it is still working fine for me.
Jim
Posted 486 days ago 18Screentoaster has been going through some financial problems. This summer, they had posted that they were going to shut down. They have since been bought by Veodia (See this blog post: http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2010/07/screentoaster-back-from-the-brink.html).
I have had trouble with it going up and down periodically. Personally, I think it’s the best of all these since it’s feature-rich, platform and browser-independent, and hosts the created files automatically (or allows downloads).
Kevin
Posted 543 days ago 16Can we ad audio to any of this software?
Xmrcat
Posted 559 days ago 15CamStudio very nice soft
Bobby
Posted 588 days ago 14CamStudio is a perfect application for screen capturing – been using it for all my client tutorials for a couple of years now!
Boereck
Posted 588 days ago 13On Windows I like Jing too, on Linux I’ve used Wink a lot.
El Boletaire
Posted 588 days ago 12I’ve used “screentoaster” for a while and it works fine with Windows, Mac and Linux (since it’s a Java Applet).
Designerfoo
Posted 588 days ago 11Nice list, but mostly all tools I see are for Windows, Mac screencasters can use ScreenFlow and CamStudio, both are awesome, but commercial software!
WalterGR
Posted 588 days ago 10Which tool for Windows offers the best picture quality, minimizing compression artifacts?
(The screencasts I see recorded on Macs almost universally look beautiful.)
Angela Doucet Rand
Posted 589 days ago 9ScreenToaster, a fav of mine, will no longer be available after July 31! They do not allow recordings anymore at this point. I’ve begun using ScreenCastOMatic.
David Gyori
Posted 589 days ago 8i use screenflow, its not free, but a valuable screencast software, one of the bests. i was asked for make a presentation to croation clients, it was as simple as possible. only contra it doesn’t support creating a dvd…
Yurbasik
Posted 590 days ago 7Very nice stuff, tnx!
i use cam studio
RePao
Posted 590 days ago 6sadly, Screentoster will close till 31.July 2010 :-(
my favorits ar FSCaputre and Jing
thanks for sharing
have a nice weekend
Bindiry
Posted 590 days ago 5FScapture is great!
sriganesh
Posted 590 days ago 4useful and helpful, i always struggle to get video tutorials for 3d, now i can make 3d video tutorial
Pablo Lara H
Posted 590 days ago 3Thank you for the sharing. As always, very useful.
Hilmy
Posted 590 days ago 2Wow! Good addition to the all-time popular Camtasia Studio and these are free too.
I found the free Camstudio mentioned above a little unstable sometimes. Also Screentoaster recording is going down by 31st July..
Darren Nickerson
Posted 591 days ago 1Nice list, I never heard of many of these before. Kind of regretting buying screenflick a while ago!