Screenpipe
Ranked 5 of 6 screen recorders by recommenders
Open-source, local-first app that records your screen and makes that history searchable for agents and analytics; critics raise privacy concerns and heavy CPU and RAM use.
Open-source, local-first app that records your screen and makes that history searchable for agents and analytics; critics raise privacy concerns and heavy CPU and RAM use.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 44%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 2 months
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Open source and local-first
“We're the only local-first, open source option”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” “Screenpipe is open source and local-first”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” Strong performance for its task
“we made a lot of work on improving CPU usage, we benchmark it on $200 laptop now and it runs smoothly”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” “Without Screenpipe this was rather hard to do at the performance screenpipe gives.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
High CPU and RAM use
“the fact it was recording all the time, made my CPU melt at high temps all the time”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” “at 1.2fps you get usable text extraction but use 600mb-2gb ram.”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “Unverified: What Practitioners Post About OCR, Agents, and Tables” Privacy and data handling concerns
“pretty immediately started sending my local api keys to an endpoint”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” “This sounds so ripe for abuse and so terrifying if it were that”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” “no sane corporation would allow such software to be used”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” - Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording”
Login and download problems
“Were not able to login - because You used github auth without browser interaction.”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” “this link automatically downloads a .dmg file without asking.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” Reputation and trust concerns
“I don't want to be associated with it or launch anything through it.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording” “I looked at Screenpipe but it doesn't fill me with confidence”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Meta acquires AI-wearables startup Limitless”
Other screen recorders people recommend
The four most recommended other screen recorders, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loom | 44 | 7 | 86% | 12 | — | Approved |
| OpenScreen | 24 | 4 | 86% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Cap screen recorder | 10 | 4 | 71% | 4 | — | Approved |
| Screen Studio | 8 | 14 | 36% | 3 | 1 yr3 owners | — |
| ScreenpipeThis page | 7 | 9 | 44% | 4 | 2 mo3 owners | — |
What people said
17 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“we made a lot of work on improving CPU usage, we benchmark it on $200 laptop now and it runs smoothly”
“Were not able to login - because You used github auth without browser interaction.”
“the fact it was recording all the time, made my CPU melt at high temps all the time”
“I for one would never invest a second in tools I cannot freely modify and share the code of under OSI terms.”
“pretty immediately started sending my local api keys to an endpoint”
“no sane corporation would allow such software to be used”
“We're the only local-first, open source option”
“Screenpipe is open source and local-first”
“This sounds so ripe for abuse and so terrifying if it were that”
“I don't want to be associated with it or launch anything through it.”
“if this doesn't run fully local its a no go for enterprise”
“This company harvested user data and abused it”
“this link automatically downloads a .dmg file without asking.”
“Without Screenpipe this was rather hard to do at the performance screenpipe gives.”
“there are some popular frameworks like screepipe, wakatime that stores this and provides analytics on the captured data”
“at 1.2fps you get usable text extraction but use 600mb-2gb ram.”
“I looked at Screenpipe but it doesn't fill me with confidence”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.