Comparison

ScreenDub vs Loom: messaging tool or video maker?

By Omprakash Sah Kanu · July 1, 2026 · 7 min read

Short answer: they solve different jobs, and many teams end up using both. Pick Loom for quick, in-your-own-voice video messages to teammates and customers. Pick ScreenDub when the video needs to be a finished product: a demo, a tutorial, or an onboarding guide with professional narration, captions, a written guide, and versions in other languages, none of which requires you to say a word. Below is where the line actually sits, including what each one costs.

Pricing and features below are current as of July 2026 and change often. Check each tool's own site for the latest numbers before you decide.

The two tools in one minute

Loom, now part of Atlassian, is async video messaging. You hit record, talk over your screen with your camera bubble in the corner, and share a link seconds later. It is fast, personal, and disposable by design. Most Looms are watched once by a few people and never again.

ScreenDub is a video production tool with the production removed. You record your screen in the browser, upload a video, or drop in a slide deck, and it writes the script, narrates it in a natural AI voice, and renders a finished MP4 plus a step-by-step PDF guide. The same project can ship in 70+ languages. It is built for videos that represent your product for months: demos, tutorials, onboarding, training.

At a glance

ScreenDub: Finished narrated videos and PDF guides from a recording, upload, or deck. No voice needed. Free plan, paid from $14.99 a month, billed by minutes of narration.
Loom: Instant screen-and-camera messages in your own voice, shared by link. Free plan capped at 25 videos of up to 5 minutes. Paid from around $15 to $18 per user a month.

Your voice versus a written script

The core difference is who does the talking. On Loom, you do. That is its charm for a quick message to a teammate, and its cost for anything permanent: you need a quiet room, a decent take, and the willingness to re-record when you stumble or the product changes.

ScreenDub watches the recording, writes the script, and narrates it. You edit the script line by line, in text, and the narration regenerates. Non-native speakers, camera-shy founders, and anyone who has re-recorded a Loom five times will feel the difference immediately. When a button moves in your product, you update a sentence instead of re-recording a take.

Disposable versus durable

Loom is built for communication: a code review walkthrough, a bug report, a quick reply to a customer. The value is speed and personality, and the video's shelf life is short.

ScreenDub is built for content: the demo on your landing page, the tutorial in your help center, the training video your new hires watch. Those videos need clean narration, captions, chapters, and updates over time. Each ScreenDub project also produces a step-by-step PDF, so one recording covers both the people who watch and the people who read.

Languages

Loom videos exist in whatever language you spoke. Translated captions can help, but the audio is fixed. ScreenDub translates the whole project, narration included, into 70+ languages in one step. If you support customers in more than one language, this is not a marginal feature; it is the difference between recording once and recording once per market.

Pricing: per seat versus per minute

Loom's free Starter plan allows up to 25 videos per person, each up to 5 minutes. The Business plan runs around $15 to $18 per user a month depending on billing, and Business + AI, which adds transcript editing, filler-word removal, and AI titles and summaries, runs around $20 to $24 per user a month. Costs scale with team size.

ScreenDub bills by minutes of narration per month, not by seats. The Free plan includes 10 minutes a month with no credit card. Creator is $14.99 a month for 50 minutes, Pro is $29.99 for 120 minutes, and Teams is $59.99 for 250 minutes. A five-person team pays the same as a one-person team shipping the same videos.

Choose Loom if

You mainly send quick video messages to teammates or customers.
Your face and voice are the point: standups, feedback, personal outreach.
You want a share link within seconds of hitting stop.
You are already in the Atlassian ecosystem (Jira, Confluence).

Choose ScreenDub if

The video is a deliverable: a product demo, tutorial, or training video.
You do not want to record your voice, or English is not your first language.
You need the same video in several languages.
You want a written step-by-step guide generated from the same recording.
You would rather edit a script than re-record a take when things change.

The bottom line

Do not frame this as a rip-and-replace decision. If your team lives on quick async messages, Loom does that well and ScreenDub does not try to. But if you have been using Loom to produce demos, tutorials, or onboarding videos, you are using a messaging tool for a production job: re-recording takes, living with filler words, and shipping in one language. That is the job ScreenDub was built for, and the Free plan is enough to produce a real video and compare the output side by side with your last Loom.

Frequently asked questions

Is ScreenDub a Loom alternative?

For quick async video messages, no, Loom is the better fit. For finished product demos, tutorials, and training videos with AI narration, yes: ScreenDub replaces the record-narrate-edit workflow people often force onto Loom.

Can Loom add an AI voiceover to my video?

No. Loom records your own voice, and its AI features focus on editing that recording: transcripts, filler-word removal, titles, and summaries. ScreenDub writes the script and narrates the video for you, so no voice recording is needed.

Which is cheaper, ScreenDub or Loom?

It depends on team size. Loom charges per user, around $15 to $24 per user a month on paid plans. ScreenDub charges by minutes of narration, from free to $59.99 a month regardless of team size. For teams producing a shared set of videos, per-minute pricing usually costs less.

Can I turn my existing Loom recordings into narrated videos?

Yes. Download the video file from Loom and upload it to ScreenDub. It writes a script from what happens on screen, narrates it, and can translate it into 70+ languages.

Does ScreenDub record my camera like Loom does?

No. ScreenDub focuses on the screen and the narration, not a camera bubble. If a personal face-on-camera message is the goal, use Loom for that job.

Curious how the output compares? Start ScreenDub for free, or see how to make a product demo video without recording your voice.