Screen recording · checked 2026-10-19

Can I vibecode Screen Studio?

KINDA· weekend project

The idea that makes Screen Studio good is simple to describe: record the screen without the cursor, log mouse events, and add zooms and a smooth cursor afterwards. ScreenCaptureKit, an event tap, a zoom curve and a Core Image export put a usable version within a weekend for an agent. What takes longer is polish: zooms that feel deliberate, 4K 60 fps exports that don't take forever, audio, and the macOS permission and signing dance. OpenScreen and Recordly already do much of it for free if you only need it for your own demos.

$29/moprice

$348you'd save a year

weekendbuild time

—people replaced it

Before you start

What you need on hand.

DifficultyAdvanced · Real infrastructure or OAuth work.

TimeA weekend, then more time if you want zooms that look deliberate

Claude Code, Codex or CursorAny of them can run the prompt.
A Mac with XcodemacOS 14 or later; the app needs an Xcode project, not just command-line tools.
Screen Recording and Input Monitoring permissionmacOS asks on first run and may ask again after you rebuild an unsigned app.
A short test recordingRecord a minute of clicking around to tune zoom timing.

Before you buildScreen Studio has no free plan, but OpenScreen and Recordly are free and already add automatic zoom. Try one of them before building your own.

1. Install one agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
2. Make an empty folder and open it in the agent.
3. Paste the prompt below, press enter, and answer its questions as it builds.

The prompt

Build me a macOS screen recorder with automatic zoom to replace Screen Studio. Requirements:

- Swift 6 + SwiftUI, a menu bar app for macOS 14 or later, built in Xcode and run from the project. No third-party
packages.
- Capture: ScreenCaptureKit (`SCStream`) records one display or one window at native resolution with the system
cursor hidden (`showsCursor = false`), through `AVAssetWriter` as HEVC at 60 fps into
~/Movies/ScreenLocal/<project>/raw.mov. Record the microphone with `AVAudioEngine` into mic.m4a next to it.
- Cursor log: while recording, write events.json: cursor position at 120 Hz, mouse clicks, and the time of each key
press without which key it was, so typed passwords are never stored. Use a listen-only event tap
(`CGEvent.tapCreate`) and stamp every event on the same clock as the video frames. Explain the Screen Recording
and Input Monitoring permissions on a first-run screen before asking for them.
- Auto zoom: after recording, turn clicks into zoom segments. Zoom to 1.8x centred on the click 0.3 s before it,
merge clicks less than 2 s apart, hold 1.5 s after the last one, and ease out over 0.5 s with a critically damped
spring. Inside a zoom the camera follows the cursor. Show segments as blocks on a timeline that I can drag,
resize, delete or set between 1.2x and 3x.
- Cursor: redraw it from the log as an overlay (arrow and pointing hand) with path smoothing (Catmull-Rom or a
spring), a click ripple and a size slider from 1x to 3x.
- Look: solid, gradient or image background, padding, corner radius and drop shadow, previewed live with
`AVPlayer` and a Core Image compositor.
- Export: MP4 (H.264) at 1080p or 4K and 30 or 60 fps through `AVAssetReader`, Core Image and `AVAssetWriter` with
a progress bar, and a GIF at 15 fps through ImageIO.
- Project: project.json (zoom segments, look settings) beside raw.mov so a project reopens and re-exports.
- Single user. No accounts, no telemetry, local-first.
- Out of scope: Windows and Linux, iPhone or iPad recording, webcam layouts, share links, transcript editing, AI
voiceover, key-press captions.
- README: Xcode setup, which permissions to grant, how long a one-minute 4K export took on this Mac, and that a
locally built app is unsigned, so opening it elsewhere needs right-click and Open.

Opens your agent with the prompt filled in, you press enter. Or copy it and paste it into an empty folder.

Share on X

Max MiskowSponsoredAI agents, automations and MVPs, built for your company.Visit site ›

Then keep going

Next prompts, same folder.

The first prompt builds the core. Run these one at a time in the same folder to grow it into your own Screen Studio.

Add a webcam overlay to the screen recorder in this folder. Requirements:

- Record the chosen camera with `AVCaptureSession` into webcam.mov beside raw.mov, starting on
  the same clock as the screen capture.
- In the editor, show the camera as a circle or rounded square with a border, a size slider and
  four corner positions, plus a mirror toggle.
- Let me hide the camera for chosen time ranges on the timeline.
- Export composites the camera with Core Image at the same quality as the screen.
- Update the README with the Camera permission and the expected sync drift in milliseconds you measured.

Add captions to the screen recorder in this folder. Requirements:

- Transcribe mic.m4a on-device with the `WhisperKit` Swift package and store word timings
  in transcript.json.
- Show the transcript beside the timeline; click a word to jump there and edit the text without
  changing its timing.
- Burn the captions into the exported MP4 with a font, size and position I choose, two lines at most.
- Export an .srt file as well.
- Update the README with the model download and how long a minute of audio took to transcribe.

Add a vertical export to the screen recorder in this folder. Requirements:

- A 9:16 output at 1080x1920 that crops from the screen recording and follows the cursor with
  the same spring used for zoom, never leaving the frame.
- In zoom segments the crop zooms too; between them it stays on a wider area I can drag in the
  preview.
- Keep the background, padding and rounded corners from the project look settings.
- A preview toggle between 16:9 and 9:16, and an export button for each.
- Update the README.

Add trim and speed controls to the screen recorder in this folder. Requirements:

- Split the timeline at the playhead, delete a range, and set a range to 2x, 4x or 8x speed.
- Suggest cuts automatically: stretches over 3 s with no clicks, no keys and a cursor that moved
  less than 20 px, shown as proposals I accept or reject one by one.
- Keep the zoom segments and cursor overlay aligned after every edit, and make the audio follow the cuts.
- Undo and redo for every change, saved in project.json.
- Update the README.

What you lose

Zoom and cursor motion refined across four major versions
iPhone and iPad recording over USB with device frames
Camera layouts, editing by transcript and filler-word removal
Shareable links with comments, and project sharing
A signed, auto-updating app that opens on any Mac

Why people still pay

People pay for videos that look edited with no editing: the zooms land where the clicks are, the cursor glides, and the export is ready for a landing page. The finish is the product, and it costs less per video than an hour of editing in a timeline.

Moatexecution polish

Do the math

Screen Studio or your own copy?

Over

Your usage

Count my time12h ×$/h

Screen Studio, 1 yr$348

Your own copy, 1 yr$18running + build session

You keep$331pays for itself in the first month

Estimate · Free to run once built, and an Apple developer account is only needed to share a signed copy. A native video app takes more iterations than most entries here, so expect more token usage on your agent plan.

Leaving Screen Studio

Take your data, then cancel.

1 · Take your data out of Screen Studio

1Export the finished video from the editor: MP4 in 720p, 1080p or 4K at up to 60 fps, or a looping GIF up to 1080p.
2A whole project, with zooms, cuts and layouts, can also be downloaded as one file of up to 20 GB.
3We found no way to open a Screen Studio project in another editor, so export an MP4 of everything you want to keep.
4Recordings and processing live on your Mac; videos you shared by link sit on Screen Studio's servers, so download those first.

2 · Cancel Screen Studio

1Open the Manage subscription link in the Screen Studio FAQ: it goes to Lemon Squeezy's My Orders page.
2Sign in with the email you bought with, find the Screen Studio subscription and cancel it there.
3We could not read Lemon Squeezy's cancel screen from the Screen Studio side, so check the steps and the date your access ends on that page.

New buyers can only subscribe, but one-time licenses bought earlier remain valid.
Export videos before the subscription ends: we could not confirm what the app does with projects afterwards.
Students and educators get 40% off, which can beat the yearly price if you still need it occasionally.
The yearly plan is about a third of the monthly cost per month, so switch before the renewal if you keep using it.

Checked 2026-10-19 against Screen Studio's docs: 1, 2

The escape hatch

Don't feel like building it? These are already free.

OpenScreenOpen sourceMIT, actively maintained continuation of the archived original: auto or manual zoom, cursor smoothing, no watermark. The archived original described itself as not production grade.★ 4.6k · active Oct 2026 · one-click install
macOS, Windows, LinuxVisit ↗RecordlyOpen sourceAGPL-3.0 demo-video recorder that adds auto-zoom and cursor effects after recording.★ 34k · active Oct 2026 · one-click install
macOS, Windows, LinuxVisit ↗CapOpen sourceOpen-source Loom alternative with shareable recordings; AGPL-3.0 apart from a few MIT crates. Aimed at sharing more than zoom effects.★ 23k · active Oct 2026 · one-click install
macOS, WindowsVisit ↗

All 4 free alternatives to Screen Studio ›

The numbers

Screen Studio pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	What you get
Screen Studio	$29	$9	Every feature in every plan: export up to 4K at 60 fps, shareable links, cloud transcript, project sharing, new features as they ship. macOS only.

Billing: Monthly at $29 or yearly at $9 a month; both plans include the same features. Subscriptions are managed through Lemon Squeezy. One-time licenses are no longer sold to new buyers, and existing owners keep theirs and can renew their access to updates.
Hidden costs: None found on the page. The monthly plan costs more than three times the yearly rate per month. Shared links, cloud transcription and AI voiceover send data to the vendor's servers; the privacy section says recordings are otherwise processed on your Mac.
Source: screen.studio

Also on the list

Loom$18/mo · Screen recordingKINDA

Arcade$50/mo · Screen recordingKINDA

Guidde$29/mo · Screen recordingKINDA

Questions

Screen Studio, briefly

Not answered here? Tell us and we'll add it.

Ask a question ›

Kinda. The core is a weekend build with the prompt on this page, but real gaps remain: Zoom and cursor motion refined across four major versions, iPhone and iPad recording over USB with device frames.

About $29 a month on the Monthly plan, $348 a year (checked 2026-10-19).

Zoom and cursor motion refined across four major versions; iPhone and iPad recording over USB with device frames; Camera layouts, editing by transcript and filler-word removal; Shareable links with comments, and project sharing; A signed, auto-updating app that opens on any Mac. If any of those matter to you, keep paying.