ShareX review

ShareX is a free, open source capture tool for Windows that leans toward speed and automation. It records the screen as video or as an animated GIF, captures scrolling pages, recognizes text with OCR and annotates captures with arrows, step numbers, blur and highlights. Its distinctive feature is the after-capture workflow: a recording can be saved, copied, uploaded to a host of your choice and turned into a short link automatically, which is useful for support agents who send many quick clips a day. A video trimmer, GIF maker and video converter cover light cleanup. ShareX has no ads, needs no account and reports more than 34 million downloads over 18 years. For full tutorials it falls short: there is no webcam overlay, no timeline editor and no captioning, and the menus expose a lot of options at once. It works best alongside OBS Studio or a paid editor rather than in place of one.

Who it is for

Windows power users who want free quick recordings and GIFs

Price

Free and open source, with no paid plan.

Free forever. Open source. No account required.
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 12, 2026.

Key features

• Screen recording and GIF recording of a region, window or monitor
• Scrolling capture and text recognition (OCR)
• Annotation tools including arrows, step numbers, blur and pixelate
• Automatic after-capture tasks such as saving, copying and uploading
• Uploads to many destinations, including custom uploaders and Amazon S3

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Free, open source and ad free with no account required
• Strength: Includes a video trimmer, GIF maker and video converter
• Strength: More than 34 million downloads over 18 years of development, per ShareX
• Weakness: Windows only
• Weakness: No webcam overlay or video editor for longer tutorials
• Weakness: The many workflow settings can overwhelm new users

Key facts

• Price: Free
• License: Open source
• Platform: Windows
• Languages: 29 interface languages
• Downloads: 34 million+, per ShareX

Where it ranks

ShareX is No. 10 in our Best Screen Recording Software verdict.