You may recognize Vimeo as the high-end alternative to YouTube, the place where artists, filmmakers, and other professionals host high-quality content. However, Vimeo Record serves a slightly different purpose: This free, screen-capture utility lets you record and share video from your PC’s monitor or webcam. We can’t argue with that price, and Vimeo Record is a great way for existing Vimeo subscribers to get more from the ecosystem. Still, Screencast-O-Matic and our Editors’ Choice pick, Snagit, are superior, dedicated screen-capture utilities for free and paid users, respectively.
Price and Platforms
Vimeo Record is a free Google Chrome extension. To access the app on your desktop, you must use Chrome or a web browser that supports Chrome extensions, such as Edge or Opera (Firefox and Safari fans are out of luck). Vimeo Record works only on computers, not on mobile devices. The Vimeo blog offers alternative suggestions for recording your screen on those devices.
Vimeo Record lacks premium options. You get free, unlimited recordings, and each video can be two hours long. However, Vimeo Record also exists as part of the larger Vimeo video hosting service, so to truly take advantage of all it offers, you need a premium Vimeo membership. Although Vimeo Record costs nothing for individual users, some of its best features are the various ways you can share and monitor recordings across teams. To add team members, you need, at minimum, a $20-per-month Vimeo Pro subscription.
For comparison, Screencast-O-Matic limits the number of recordings you can make with its free tier, but its unlimited, deluxe tier costs only $1.65 per month. Granted, Vimeo’s premium subscriptions give you other features, such as expanded marketing options, whereas Screencast-O-Matic is only meant for screen capture. Ashampoo Snap and Snagit are also dedicated screen-capture utilities, and you can permanently purchase those apps for $39.99 and $49.99, respectively. Panopto, another video recording app, has a limited free tier, while its pro tier starts at $14.99 per month for individuals.
Recording and Sharing Video
Once you’ve installed the Vimeo Record extension, click the V logo in your browser toolbar to launch the app. Then, choose the desktop folder where Vimeo Record saves your recordings. Select whether you want to record your webcam, your screen, or both, and whether you want to record the full screen or current tab. Finally, specify your preferred camera and microphone.
Vimeo Record’s interface is straightforward and intuitive. When recording both you and your screen, I like how you can reposition the box where you see your face. That box is also where you’ll find the controls for pausing or stopping the recording. Once you stop recording, Vimeo gives you a private link for your video. In addition, you can add a title and a description before publishing. Recordings live alongside your other uploaded Vimeo videos in storage. With the trimming tool, you can edit out awkward, unwanted beginning or ending bits (or you can just delete the recording and try again). My test videos played back in smooth, 1080p resolution.
Vimeo’s hosting and sharing features carry over to Vimeo Record. You can upload up to 500MB per week, and download video files or share them to social media sites. Vimeo almost pitches the service as a replacement for video conferencing software, a way for organizations to quickly send video messages to each other without everyone hopping onto Skype or Zoom.
Team leaders can record product walkthroughs or instructional videos for new employees, complete with closed captions. With Vimeo Record’s robust collaboration features, you can set permissions for accessing different folders, get notified when team members access recordings, and share feedback. You can also view analytics as you would with any other video hosting platform. Just remember that these nifty team features require a paid subscription; the free version is for individual users.
While Vimeo Record does a great job recording video, that’s all it does; it lacks screenshot features. Other dedicated screen-capture utilities not only take screenshots, but find fascinating ways to spice up something as simple as “take a picture of what’s on screen.” With OCR, Ashampoo and Snagit look at on-screen letters and convert them into text that you can copy. They also intelligently scroll screens to capture entire pages.
Of all the screen-capture utilities we’ve tested, only the free Windows Snip & Sketch lacks video features; it only lets you capture, lightly edit, and share screenshots. So don’t think you need to choose between one feature set or the other; you can have it all
V for Video
If you subscribe to one of Vimeo’s professional tiers, Vimeo Record offers awesome, additional video recording functionality for you and your team. If you’re an individual, the free video recording gets the job done. However, Screencast-O-Matic provides a full-fledged screen-capture experience, with video and screenshots (even for free users), while Editors’ Choice pick Snagit offers robust, powerful video- and screen-capture tools if you’re willing to pay.
