What does the live benchmark actually measure?

It renders about 90 synthetic 1080p frames (3 seconds at 30fps) of animated gradients and moving shapes on an OffscreenCanvas, then encodes them through your browser's VideoEncoder — H.264 High profile at 10 Mbps, the same class of encode our real exports use — and times the whole run. Nothing is uploaded; the encoded frames are discarded.

Why is Screen Studio's export ~3× realtime?

That figure comes from a detailed independent review: a 2-minute recording takes about 6 minutes to export, and an hour-long one about 3 hours. We can't audit their pipeline, but the review is consistent across video lengths. Our architecture targets 1× realtime or faster at 1080p by keeping the compositor on the GPU and using the hardware encoder via WebCodecs.

Is the benchmark representative of a real export?

It isolates the encode stage, which is the dominant cost. A real export also decodes your recording and composites effects, both of which run on the GPU and overlap with encoding. Treat the number as an upper bound on encode speed and a fair indicator of what your hardware can do.

Why does it say my browser isn't supported?

The benchmark needs the WebCodecs VideoEncoder API, which Safari and Firefox don't ship in the form we need. That's the same reason the recorder itself requires Chrome or Edge on desktop — it's a platform limit, not a choice.

How fast should a screen recording export? Benchmark this machine.

Export speed is where cinematic recorders quietly lose hours of your life. The best-known tool in the category, Screen Studio, exports at roughly 3× realtime — an independent review clocked a 2-minute recording at about 6 minutes to export, and an hour-long one at about 3 hours. Cloud tools hide the wait in an upload bar instead. ScreenCastKit's export targets 1× realtime or faster at 1080p — and rather than ask you to trust a marketing number, this page measures your actual hardware, right now, without sending a byte anywhere.

The live benchmark

Renders ~90 synthetic 1080p frames (3 seconds at 30 fps) of animated gradients and moving shapes, encodes them with your browser's hardware H.264 encoder at 10 Mbps, and times the whole run. Runs entirely on this device — no network calls, nothing stored.

Ready when you are. Chrome or Edge on desktop required.

Why our exports can hit realtime

The pipeline never leaves your GPU for long. Your recording decodes through the browser's VideoDecoder, each frame passes through the same WebGL2 compositor you previewed with — zooms, ripples, frame, watermark state — and goes straight into VideoEncoder, which on desktop Chrome and Edge maps to your machine's hardware H.264 encoder. There's no intermediate file, no software re-encode pass, and no upload. Backpressure keeps at most a handful of frames in flight, so memory stays flat even on long exports. The result on reference hardware (Apple M2, mid-range Windows iGPU): 1080p exports at or above realtime; 4K offered only when a startup probe confirms your encoder can sustain it.

There's a second speed advantage that no encoder benchmark captures: the wait that never happens. Cloud recorders make you upload the footage before editing and again before sharing. Loom's post-recording upload wait is a stated pain point in its own ecosystem — and its free plan tops out at 720p anyway. Here, the editor opens the moment you stop recording, because the file is already on your disk.

The comparison, in numbers

	Export path	2-min 1080p video	Where the time goes
ScreenCastKit	Local, hardware WebCodecs	≤ ~2 min target (≥1× realtime)	GPU decode → compose → encode
Screen Studio	Local, ~3× realtime	~6 min (reviewed)	Render + ffmpeg normalization pass
Cloud recorders (Loom-style)	Upload + server transcode	Depends on your uplink	Upload wait, then processing queue

Screen Studio timing: daveswift.com/screen-studio review ("2-minute recording ≈ 6-minute export; hour-long ≈ 3h"). Our target: ≥1× realtime 1080p on M2/mid-Windows reference machines — the benchmark above tells you what your machine does.

Honest footnotes

The benchmark isolates the encode stage — the dominant cost — so treat it as an upper bound: a real export also decodes your footage and composites effects, though both run on the GPU and overlap with encoding. Speed varies with your encoder: a recent Mac or a PC with a modern iGPU/dGPU will fly, an old laptop won't. And if your machine can't sustain 4K encoding, we don't offer 4K export rather than let it crawl — the app probes your encoder before listing resolutions. Free exports are 1080p/5-min with a small watermark; 4K/60 is Pro, from $69/yr or $119 once — full gates table here.

Now try it with real footage

Record ten seconds, add a zoom, export — and watch the progress bar for as long as it lasts.

Start recording — free See pricing

Keep reading

Screen Studio alternative — the full comparison beyond export speed.
Privacy proof — verify that this page (and the app) sends nothing anywhere.
Screen recorder in your browser — how the whole local-first pipeline fits together.

FAQ

What does the benchmark measure?: ~90 synthetic 1080p frames rendered on an OffscreenCanvas and encoded through your browser's VideoEncoder (H.264 High, 10 Mbps), timed end to end. Nothing uploads; the output is discarded.
Where does the "3× realtime" figure come from?: An independent Screen Studio review with consistent timings across lengths: ~6 minutes to export a 2-minute video, ~3 hours for an hour-long one.
Is it representative of a real export?: It isolates the encode stage, the dominant cost. Real exports add GPU decode and compositing, which overlap with encoding — read the result as an upper bound and a fair hardware indicator.
Why doesn't it run in Safari or Firefox?: They don't ship the WebCodecs VideoEncoder we need — the same platform limit that makes the recorder Chrome/Edge-only. Not a paywall.