Best gaming clip recording software

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Capture tools and clippers do different jobs

A capture tool records your screen and keeps the moments you or a rule pick; a VOD clipper reads a finished stream and proposes clips. Pick the capture tool first if you want footage that exists at full quality on your own disk, and a clipper if the footage already exists as a Twitch or Kick VOD. The two combine well, and for the second job see best AI clip maker and long-VOD clippers. Twitch and Kick also have their own stream-side clip buttons, covered at the end.

Medal: free recorder with editing and sharing

Medal’s Premium page says Medal is free, that free users can download, clip, edit, upload and share, that free clips carry a watermark, and that Premium removes it. It also lists 1080p for free uploads against original quality on Premium, auto subtitles on Premium and a 14-day free trial. Medal’s June 2026 blog post gives Premium at $9.99 a month or $7.99 a month billed annually, unchanged, and says clip upload length is now unlimited, up from 30 minutes.

The Premium page gives 20 minutes as the upload cap without Premium, while the blog says Premium’s limit moved from 30 minutes to unlimited; these may describe different tiers, so check your account. Medal’s own guide says its replay buffer holds the last 15 seconds to 10 minutes and that in supported games the highlights save themselves, and its comparison table lists Eklipse as the tool that works on the stream VOD. The Premium page does not mention AI clipping. Download pages are listed for Windows, iOS and Android. Downsides: watermark on the free tier and no stated Twitch or Kick import. See the Medal review, Medal vs OBS replay buffer, Medal vs OpusClip and Medal alternatives.

OBS Studio replay buffer: when OBS is already running

OBS Studio’s replay buffer is a rolling recording you save on demand, and it is the natural pick if OBS already runs your stream. We could not reach an official OBS knowledge-base page for it (the replay buffer guide returned a 404). What we did read is the OBS source code’s English strings, which confirm these settings exist: Enable Replay Buffer, Maximum Replay Time, Maximum Memory, an estimated memory usage readout, a warning when the estimate exceeds a recommended maximum, automatic start when streaming, and a note that replays cannot be saved while recording is paused and that the buffer cannot be used when the recording type is Custom Output (FFmpeg).

A community thread on the OBS forum, not written by staff, says the buffer is held in RAM and capped at 75% of installed memory, and that it does not warn when the disk is full (forum thread). Treat that as a community statement. We did not confirm a price on any page we read, and no official overhead figure was found. Downsides: no automatic moment detection is described, and the setup is manual.

NVIDIA App and ShadowPlay: for NVIDIA graphics cards

NVIDIA’s ShadowPlay page describes Instant Replay as a DVR-style feature that keeps the last 30 seconds (whether the length is configurable is not stated there), and Highlights as automatic capture of key moments. It also says RTX 40-series cards can record AV1. The page does not state requirements, price, supported-game lists or the GPU needed for Instant Replay and Highlights. The page makes a performance statement for manual recording; we do not repeat it. Downsides: it needs the right hardware and the supported-game list is unconfirmed.

SteelSeries Moments: automatic clips on Windows

SteelSeries Moments is described as a free Windows download that clips by custom hotkey after a moment happens, and “Moments AI” auto-clips in supported games, with event markers on a timeline. Auto-clip games named include Fortnite, CS2, League of Legends, Valorant, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Apex, Rocket League, Overwatch 2 and Street Fighter 6, and the list is longer. Listed requirements are Windows 10 or later, 8GB RAM and a GeForce 960, Radeon HD 7870 or Intel HD 4000 or newer. The page states a vendor performance claim we do not repeat. Replay length and clip length are not stated on that page; its “instant replay” wording is a gallery preview, not a rolling buffer. Medal’s comparison guide, a competitor’s page, lists SteelSeries Moments at 30 seconds to 5 minutes, which we could not confirm on SteelSeries’ own page. Downside: replay buffer length is unconfirmed by the vendor.

Overwolf Outplayed: free and broad, with unclear numbers

Overwolf’s Outplayed page says it is “100% free”, records automatically or manually, and has screen capture for undetected games. The same page shows the supported-game count as “Over 600” in one place and “Over 3000” in another without explaining it. It makes performance statements, which we do not repeat. We read nothing on watermarks, ads or paid plans from Overwolf, so we state none.

AMD and Steam: not read

We could not read AMD’s page for Adrenalin Instant Replay, and Valve’s Steam Game Recording help page returned only navigation, so we state no replay length, settings or requirements for either. Both exist as built-in options; check the vendors’ own pages before choosing.

Stream-side clipping on Twitch and Kick

If you are live, the platforms have their own capture. On Twitch, a clip runs up to 60 seconds and you can say “Twitch, Clip That” while live (Twitch clips help). On Kick, clips run 10 to 180 seconds with a 60-second cooldown and are downloadable as .mp4 (Kick clips help). Both are limited to short moments, while the VOD clippers cover a whole stream; see the Twitch clipping workflow.

What we cannot tell you yet

This page sits in the best-of hub beside the VOD clipper pages.

We have not measured the frame-rate cost, the auto-clip hit rate or the file quality of any tool here, so we cannot rank them on those terms and have not. The planned test records one game on one PC with each tool and logs the settings; read the methodology. Until then the picks above rest on what each vendor states and what they leave out.

Last checked 8 November 2026. Prices and limits change; we re-check monthly.