8 Best Screen Recorders for Linux of 2026

OBS Studio is the most capable screen recorder you can install on Linux, and it costs nothing. Instead of a single record button it works with scenes: you stack sources such as a window capture, a webcam, a browser window, text and images, then switch between scenes with transitions. That makes it the natural choice for tutorials with a face cam in the corner or gameplay with an overlay. The audio mixer applies noise gate, noise suppression and gain per source and accepts VST plugins, and nearly every action, from starting a recording to push to talk, can be bound to a hotkey. On Linux the project distributes an official Flatpak on Flathub and a PPA for Ubuntu 26.04 and newer, and the Flathub add-on OBS VkCapture captures Vulkan and OpenGL games. The cost is complexity: first-time users face a settings panel and a source list before they record anything, so people who only need a quick clip will find Kooha or the built-in desktop recorders faster.

GPU Screen Recorder is the pick for gameplay on Linux. Its developer describes it as a ShadowPlay-like recorder: it records a monitor using the GPU only, which keeps the performance cost low while a game is running, and it works on both X11 and Wayland with AMD, Intel and NVIDIA graphics. Beyond plain recording it does live streaming and instant replay, where it keeps the last few minutes in a buffer and saves them when you press a hotkey, so you can capture a good moment after it happens. Codec support covers H264, HEVC and AV1, with optional HDR for HEVC and AV1. The Flathub package is the easiest install on Ubuntu because it bundles the encoding drivers and a patch for older NVIDIA cards. There are tradeoffs: it is Linux only, recordings use variable frame rate by default, which some video players handle poorly, and the interface is in transition from a GTK window to a new overlay UI.

SimpleScreenRecorder is a long-standing Linux recorder that sits between one-click tools and OBS. Its developer built it to record programs and games, and it can capture the full screen, a region, or an OpenGL application directly, which is how its documented Steam workflow works: you add ssr-glinject to a game's launch options and select OpenGL recording. During a recording it shows the file size, bit rate and actual frame rate, can show a live preview, and pauses or resumes with a hotkey. It uses the libav/ffmpeg libraries, so codec and format choice is wide, and the defaults are sensible enough to record without changing anything. On Ubuntu and Debian it installs straight from the official repositories. The main caveat is age: the project page is written around X11 and does not mention Wayland, which is now the default session on Ubuntu, and there is no webcam overlay. Also note the developer's warning that simplescreenrecorder.com is a fake site.

vokoscreenNG is the tutorial maker's middle ground on Linux. It records the full screen, an area or a window, mixes several audio sources and has camera support built in, so you can put your face on screen without setting up OBS scenes. On an X11 session the tool list is long: a magnifying glass, Showclick and Halo to highlight the pointer and clicks, a countdown, a timer, a system tray control and global keyboard shortcuts. On Wayland it keeps the camera, audio, countdown and snapshot tools and adds separated audio tracks, but loses the magnifier, timer and click highlighting. Output is MKV, MP4 or GIF with H.264 video and MP3, Opus, FLAC or Vorbis audio, depending on the session. The project dates back to 2012 and was rewritten as vokoscreenNG, released for Linux in December 2019. It is free on Linux and Windows, and the interface is translated into over 80 languages, which helps classrooms outside the US.

Kooha is the screen recorder to install when you want to stop thinking about settings. It is a small GTK4 app written in Rust with a minimal interface: open it, pick a monitor or a region, choose whether to capture the microphone, desktop audio or both, and click record. Output comes as WebM, MP4, GIF or Matroska, and the few settings that matter, such as save location, pointer visibility, frame rate and a start delay, are easy to find. It is built around Wayland screencasting through the desktop portal, which makes it a good fit for current Ubuntu and Fedora GNOME sessions. The Flathub package is only 1 MiB and is available for x86_64 and aarch64. The limits are deliberate: there is no webcam overlay, no scenes and no streaming, hardware-accelerated encoding is still experimental, and if your distribution's screencast portal is missing or broken, the developer's own README lists that as the usual reason it does not work.

Spectacle is KDE's screenshot tool, and on Plasma 6 it also records video, which makes it the fastest option for Kubuntu and KDE neon users. KDE's Plasma 6 announcement describes the recording features: you can record the whole screen, an application window or any arbitrary part of the screen, and a system tray icon shows the elapsed time and ends the recording when clicked. Shortcuts make it quick: Meta+Shift+R for a region, Meta+Alt+R for a screen and Meta+Ctrl+R for a window. Recordings go to ~/Videos/Screencasts, and KDE added quality settings, VP9 encoding, better handling of mixed-scale displays and command line options. Because it is part of Plasma, it costs nothing and updates with the desktop; version 6.8.2 shipped on October 27, 2026. It is not a production tool, though: there is no webcam overlay, audio mixing or scene layout, and it is only practical on KDE.

Every Ubuntu and Fedora Workstation install already has a screen recorder: the screencast mode in GNOME's screenshot tool. Press the Print key, switch the overlay to screencast mode, choose a selection or the whole screen and click the red button, or skip the overlay with Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R. A red indicator in the top bar counts the elapsed seconds and ends the recording when clicked, and the video lands in Videos/Screencasts with the date and time in the file name. For a quick clip of a bug, a settings change or a short how-to, nothing on this list is faster to reach. The trade is control. GNOME's help page documents Selection and Screen as the capture choices, with a pointer toggle, and does not describe options for audio sources, file format or a webcam. Anyone recording narrated tutorials or games will outgrow it quickly and should install Kooha, OBS Studio or GPU Screen Recorder.

Blue Recorder is the maintained successor to Green Recorder, which is no longer developed. It is a simple desktop recorder rewritten in Rust with GTK4 and FFmpeg, and it records audio and video on most Linux desktops, with Wayland support on GNOME and KDE sessions. Its main advantage over other simple recorders is format choice: AVI, GIF, MKV, MP4, NUT, WebM and WMV. You pick the audio input from a list, and the app remembers the values you set for next time, so repeat recordings start fast. It ships as a Snap and a Flatpak, and builds exist for FreeBSD and Windows. It is a smaller project than the others on this list, with about 600 stars on GitHub and a latest tagged release, v0.3.0, from June 2026, so updates come less often. There is no webcam overlay, streaming or replay buffer, and X11 area selection needs the xwininfo tool installed.