Having used Camtasia for countless video guides ranging from 50-second quick tips to in-depth Brightspace guides, I have found myself accustomed to the features Camtasia has to offer. Its simple to use timeline editor couples well with the callout and transition features, allowing for seamless edits, with clear and obvious pointers in a video guide.
Camtasia is a downloadable tool that runs on both Windows and Mac devices, but comes with a hefty price tag, even for educators, not to mention the annual maintenance fee. To add to this, Camtasia requires a computer that can effectively run the software, otherwise long wait times and frequent unresponsive periods can occur for less capable devices. Camtasia, although a leading tool, cannot run on Linux or ChromeOS operating systems.
For those with less powerful devices or computers running alternative operating systems, dedicated screen recording and editing tools are available online with similar and useful features as Camtasia. Whilst looking for online alternatives, I looked for tools that looked promising in three categories: video editing capacity, source recording ability and pricing.
The first tool I came across was Veed. Veed is a powerful online recording and editing tool designed for a range of materials, including educational. Veed offers a free subscription that provides you with a 10-minute video limit, 250MB of upload bandwidth, 2GB of storage and a 720p export quality for videos. With this you get access to up to 30 minutes of auto subtitling per month, basic workflow tools like a video player, converter and sharing and embedding features. Veed allows you to record your screen cand applications (using your browser). Once a short video is recorded (or uploaded) you can use the editor to cut sections, trim the ends and add transitions. Additional features like video annotations and manual subtitles make Veed a viable option without paying. Unfortunately, the initial paid step into Veed is a steep £18 a month or £120 a year. At this price point, you gain an unlimited upload size, an increase to 20GB storage 1080p video exports, chat support, 3.5 hours of auto subtitling a month and larger compression and converter sizes. Without paying, Veed provides high quality editing features and a decent video length, despite the watermark, making it a smart choice for those not able to run or not wanting to pay the steep cost for Camtasia.
The second and last tool found was RecordCast. Like Veed, RecordCast offers a free online screen and application recording feature as well as a timeline-editing feature where you can cut sections out, trim the ends and add transitions. The features compare well with Veed and Camtasia, but the problem occurs at the pricing level. For the free package, you can only record for up to 5 minutes. You have a limit of 480p video export (standard quality) and are limited to 12 projects per account. This is a drastic downgrade to Veed’s free option. Paying for RecordCast is an option, with the only option being a very respectable $47.88 a year or $5.99 a month. But for this price, you only get a 30-minute video recording length, up to 1080p video exporting quality, no watermarks and intros and unlimited projects. The system does not offer any automatic captioning but does offer a very sluggish-to-use manual captioning tool, as part of the text overlays. Lacking a few important accessibility tools and a robust paid plan, RecordCast is not the online recommendation.
The tools mentioned offer decent alternatives to Camtasia. Despite the large Camtasia price tag, it can be a one-off purchase, should you be comfortable with not receiving any updates for the duration of your use. The other tools offer annual options, which is cheaper short-term but can become more expensive over elongated time-periods. Camtasia is still the best option, but for those who cannot run the tool or would like an online recorder and editor, Veed is a great option that offers online support too.
Last Edited: July 2022 (AQ)