How to Create Professional Demo Videos for Free with OpenScreen

Stop paying $29/month for Screen Studio. OpenScreen gives you polished product demos with automatic zooms, annotations, and motion blur—at zero cost.

Why This Matters: The Demo Video Problem

Every developer has been here: you build something awesome, and now you need to show it off. A screenshot won't cut it. A raw screen recording looks amateur. And Screen Studio—the tool everyone raves about—costs $29/month and only runs on macOS.

Your options until now:

• Screen Studio ($29/month, macOS only): Beautiful output, but expensive and platform-locked
• OBS Studio (free):: Powerful, but you need a PhD in scene configuration to get anything looking decent
• Loom (freemium): Great for quick walkthroughs, but no cinematic polish
• Raw screen capture: Works, but screams "I didn't care enough"

OpenScreen changes the equation. It's an open-source tool (16,000+ GitHub stars and climbing) that delivers most of Screen Studio's polish for free, on every platform—macOS, Windows, and Linux.

What OpenScreen Actually Does

OpenScreen records your screen and automatically applies post-processing that makes demos look professional:

• Automatic zooms — Focuses on the active area so viewers don't squint
• Smooth animations — Pans and zooms with cinematic easing
• Annotations — Add click highlights, keystroke overlays, and labels
• Motion blur — Gives fast cursor movements a polished feel
• Background effects — Rounded corners, window padding, custom backgrounds
• Multiple export formats — MP4, GIF, WebM, and more

The key insight: you record normally, and OpenScreen handles the post-production. No manual keyframing. No timeline editing. Just record, enhance, export.

Getting Started: Installation and Setup

macOS

# Via Homebrew (recommended)
brew install openscreen

# Or download the .dmg directly
# https://github.com/siddharthvaddem/openscreen/releases

Windows

# Via winget
winget install OpenScreen

# Or download the .exe installer
# https://github.com/siddharthvaddem/openscreen/releases

Linux

# AppImage (universal)
wget https://github.com/siddharthvaddem/openscreen/releases/latest/download/OpenScreen.AppImage
chmod +x OpenScreen.AppImage
./OpenScreen.AppImage

# Flatpak
flatpak install flathub com.openscreen.OpenScreen

From Source

git clone https://github.com/siddharthvaddem/openscreen.git
cd openscreen
npm install
npm run build
npm start

Recording Your First Demo

Step 1: Set Up Your Screen

Before recording, prepare your desktop:

• Close unnecessary windows and notifications
• Set your editor/terminal to a clean theme (dark themes with good contrast work best)
• Increase font size (14pt minimum — viewers will be watching on phones)
• Hide your dock/taskbar if possible

Step 2: Record

# Launch OpenScreen
openscreen

# Or use the CLI for scripted recordings
openscreen record --output my-demo.mp4

In the GUI:

1. Click New Recording
2. Select the window or region to capture
3. Choose recording quality (1080p recommended)
4. Hit Record and perform your demo
5. Click Stop when finished

Step 3: Enhance Automatically

After recording, OpenScreen applies enhancements automatically:

• Cursor clicks get highlighted with a ripple effect
• Typing appears with a keystroke overlay
• Window movement triggers smooth zoom tracking
• The final frame gets a subtle fade-out

You can customize these in Settings → Enhancements:

{
  "autoZoom": true,
  "zoomPadding": 40,
  "clickHighlight": true,
  "clickColor": "#3B82F6",
  "keystrokeOverlay": true,
  "motionBlur": true,
  "backgroundRadius": 16,
  "backgroundColor": "#1a1a2e"
}

Step 4: Export

# Export as MP4 (default, best quality)
openscreen export my-demo --format mp4

# Export as GIF for documentation/embedding
openscreen export my-demo --format gif --fps 15 --width 800

# Export as WebM for web embedding
openscreen export my-demo --format webm

Advanced: Scripting Demo Recordings

For repeatable, consistent demos (great for CI/CD documentation or onboarding):

#!/bin/bash
# demo-script.sh — Automated demo recording

# Start recording
openscreen record --output feature-demo.mp4 &

# Wait for recording to initialize
sleep 2

# Your demo steps (using xdotool for automation)
xdotool search --name "Terminal" windowactivate
sleep 0.5

# Type commands with natural pacing
xdotool type --delay 50 "git clone https://github.com/example/repo.git"
xdotool key Return
sleep 3

xdotool type --delay 50 "cd repo && npm install"
xdotool key Return
sleep 5

xdotool type --delay 50 "npm run dev"
xdotool key Return
sleep 2

# Stop recording
openscreen stop

# Enhance and export
openscreen enhance feature-demo.mp4 \
  --zoom auto \
  --click-highlight blue \
  --background dark \
  --export feature-demo-final.mp4

echo "Demo exported to feature-demo-final.mp4"

Run it:

chmod +x demo-script.sh
./demo-script.sh

Real-World Scenarios

Scenario 1: Open-Source Project README

You maintain a CLI tool. Your README has 2,000 words of explanation but zero visuals.

The fix:

# Record a 30-second demo of your tool in action
openscreen record --region terminal --output demo.gif --format gif

# Add to README
echo '## Quick Demo\n\n![Demo](demo.gif)' >> README.md

A 30-second GIF in your README can replace pages of explanation. Projects with demo GIFs get 40% more GitHub stars on average.

Scenario 2: Sales Engineering

Your sales team needs product demos for prospects. Raw recordings look unprofessional. Screen Studio licenses for the whole team cost $348/year per seat.

The fix:

1. Create a demo template with consistent branding
2. Record with OpenScreen using the template
3. Export and send

# Create branded template
openscreen template create \
  --name "company-brand" \
  --background-color "#0f172a" \
  --accent-color "#3b82f6" \
  --logo-path ./company-logo.png \
  --font "Inter"

# Record with template
openscreen record --template company-brand --output prospect-demo.mp4

Scenario 3: Documentation and Tutorials

Your docs site has text-based tutorials that nobody reads completely. Visual learners skip them entirely.

The fix:

# Record each tutorial section as a separate clip
openscreen record --output step-1-install.mp4
openscreen record --output step-2-config.mp4
openscreen record --output step-3-run.mp4

# Batch enhance all clips
for clip in step-*.mp4; do
  openscreen enhance "$clip" --zoom auto --export "enhanced-$clip"
done

# Stitch together
openscreen merge enhanced-step-*.mp4 --output full-tutorial.mp4

Scenario 4: Bug Reports

"Steps to reproduce" rarely captures what actually went wrong.

# Quick bug reproduction
openscreen record --output bug-1234.mp4 --quality 720p
# Lower quality is fine for bug reports — smaller file, faster upload

Attach the video to your issue. No more back-and-forth "can you reproduce that?"

OpenScreen vs Screen Studio: Honest Comparison

Bottom line: OpenScreen covers 80-90% of what most developers need. If you're a solo dev or small team making product demos, documentation clips, or social posts, it's more than enough. Screen Studio wins if you need broadcast-quality multi-window compositions or advanced timeline editing.

FAQ

Is OpenScreen really free for commercial use?

Yes. It's MIT licensed. Use it for client demos, marketing videos, paid courses—whatever you want. No watermarks, no feature gates.

Does it work with multiple monitors?

Yes. You can select which monitor or specific window to record. Multi-monitor layouts (showing two windows side by side) are on the roadmap.

Can I edit the recording after the fact?

OpenScreen focuses on automatic enhancement rather than manual editing. You can adjust zoom points, change enhancement settings, and re-export. For timeline-style editing (cutting, splicing), pair it with a tool like DaVinci Resolve (also free).

What about audio?

OpenScreen records system audio and microphone input. You can add voiceover after recording by re-recording audio over the enhanced video.

Does it support custom fonts and themes?

Yes. You can set custom backgrounds, accent colors, logo watermarks, and window padding. Templates let you save these for consistency across recordings.

How does it handle high-DPI displays?

OpenScreen records at native resolution and scales appropriately during enhancement. On a 4K display, your exports will be crisp at any resolution.

What if the auto-zoom misses the action?

You can set manual zoom keyframes for tricky sections. OpenScreen's auto-zoom works well for standard workflows (typing, clicking, scrolling) but isn't psychic—complex multi-window workflows may need a little help.

Conclusion: Professional Demos Shouldn't Cost $348/Year

The gap between "raw screen recording" and "professional demo video" has always been bridged by expensive tools. OpenScreen demolishes that barrier:

1. Free and open-source — No subscriptions, no platform lock-in
2. Cross-platform — Works on macOS, Windows, and Linux
3. Automatic polish — Record normally, get professional output
4. Good enough for 90% of use cases — README GIFs, product demos, bug reports, tutorials

Your Action Items This Week

1. Install OpenScreen — Pick your platform above, takes 2 minutes
2. Record a 30-second demo — Any feature of any project you're working on
3. Add it to your README — Watch the difference a visual makes
4. Share it — Post the demo on Twitter/LinkedIn with #OpenScreen

The best code in the world means nothing if people can't see what it does. OpenScreen makes sure they can.

Already using OpenScreen? Drop a link to your best demo in the comments—I'd love to see what you've made.