Limelight

A simpler, cinematic alternative to OBS Studio for screen recording

OBS Studio is a powerful free recorder and streamer, but it is heavy to set up. Limelight records your screen with a polished, cinematic finish and shows your keystrokes on screen — no scenes or sources to configure.

OBS Studio is the free, open-source standard for recording and streaming. It handles scenes, sources, and broadcasting to any platform, and a great many creators rely on it every day. As a recorder and streamer, it is hard to beat on flexibility — but it takes real setup, and its raw output looks plain.

Limelight is a macOS screen recorder built for tutorials and demos. Hit record and it captures your screen and exports a finished video itself — auto-zooming into every click, smoothing your cursor, and rendering a clean padded background. On top of that it shows your keystrokes and clicks right on screen, plus a live cursor spotlight and freehand drawing, all baked into the recording. Everything runs on your Mac, so nothing is uploaded.

Choose OBS when you need multi-source scenes or live streaming to a platform. Choose Limelight when you want a polished, cinematic screen recording with on-screen keystrokes in a couple of clicks, without configuring OBS. OBS is a broadcast studio; Limelight is the fast, cinematic recorder.

Why Limelight

  • ▸Records and exports a cinematic video itself — auto-zoom, smoothed cursor, clean background
  • ▸On-screen keystroke and click display (⌃⌥2) baked into the recording — OBS can’t
  • ▸Cursor spotlight (⌃⌥1) and freehand draw over any app (⌃⌥3, clear ⌃⌥C)
  • ▸No scenes or sources to configure — hit record and go
  • ▸Free to start, one-time $34 lifetime (or from $2.99/mo), native SwiftUI, Apple-notarized, macOS 14+
Try it free — download

Cursor spotlight free · from $2.99/mo or $34 lifetime · macOS 14+

Or get Pro — from $2.99/mo · See how it works →

free to start, then go Pro from $2.99/mo or a $34 one-time lifetime license. macOS 14+, notarized by Apple.

FAQ

Is Limelight easier to use than OBS Studio?
Yes. There are no scenes or sources to set up — hit record and Limelight captures your screen, auto-zooms on clicks, smooths the cursor, and exports a finished cinematic video with your keystrokes shown on screen.
Is Limelight a recorder like OBS?
Yes. Limelight records your screen and exports the video itself, fully offline. It adds cinematic auto-zoom and an on-screen keystroke and cursor overlay that OBS does not provide, though OBS still wins for live streaming and complex multi-source scenes.

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