Show HN: Snapify – open-source Loom alternative | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Snapify – open-source Loom alternative

github.com

44 pointsmarconlp16 comments

Congrats on the launch. These points are purely my opinion, I'm a nobody, take it with a grain of salt.

1. I understand the need to push for a scheduled demo, but revealing your magic trick early is a good thing in this case, why not link a demo in your landing page?

2. I swear I have good eyesight, but I totally missed the "Record a video" CTA.

3. I had to remember what Loom was. Is okay to be an alternative, but don't rely too much on them. I should be able to tell what your product is without scrolling.

4. I really recommend you to check out ways to fit your content vertically, e.g. the video player, or the confirmation after recording a video. Had to scroll.

5. Price is a toggle, but should work as tabs, it's counter intuitive.

6. Show payment methods early.

7. Clicking "Get Started" sends me to "Sign In". You claim we don't need an account to use the product (record), but yet you assume I have an account.

Hi kinduff, thanks for your feedback!

1. Yeah, I also noticed it's easier to explain the product using a video demo. I will add a recorded demo to the landing page! https://github.com/MarconLP/snapify/issues/17

2. The big red button in the hero section?

3. My goal is for users who are searching for something like "loom alternative" end up finding snapify. This also couples with 1.

4. Thanks for reporting that, fixed in https://github.com/MarconLP/snapify/issues/16

5. That's correct, initially I wanted something like what cal.com has on their pricing page: https://cal.com/pricing, but in the end that's just a minor thing.

6. Early in the checkout process, the landing page, or the pricing page? It's currently only mentioned in the FAQ on the pricing page.

7. Are you talking about the "Record a video" button? Recording a quick video and saving it locally does not require an account, but it's required when uploading to the cloud.

Hey there! After realizing that there is no open-source tool to quickly record your screen and get a sharable link, similar to loom, I built Snapify.

Recordings will look like this: https://snapify.it/share/clk3mpgnu0003mj0f042964wg

We’d love to hear HN’s thoughts on what we’re building! Thanks!

Any tips on how to sell this as I am struggling to get my first customer. Is it valuable to you and could you see your team using it?

I am also open for freelance work!

Socials:

Résumé/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CbZi1Bm-MlDHEb4WjsFBzIBSomJ...

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcus-hof/

Email: marcus (dot) hof (at) protonmail (dot)com

GitHub: https://github.com/MarconLP

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Marcon565

Portfolio: https://marcushof.vercel.app/

For some reason I thought about an other "Loom"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loom_(video_game)

A point and click adventure game where you can cast spells by playing melodies that come from things that represent the spell. For example listening the the melody of a sharp knife will tell you the "sharpen" spell. One of the lesser known and most original of the LucasArts games.

Haha, yeah I can assure you that's not the Loom I meant.

You mean the latest masterpiece of fantasy storytelling from Lucasfilms™ Brian Moriarty™? Why it's an extraordinary adventure with an interface of magic, stunning high-resolution, 3D landscapes, sophisticated score and musical effects. Not to mention the detailed animation and special effects, elegant point 'n' click control of characters, objects, and magic spells. Beat the rush! Go out and buy Loom™ today!

This is super cool! We built something in the same vein but using Mux as a way to dog food our products[1]. This is certainly doing more product-wise, though in terms of being similar shape-wise to Loom.

I noticed your demo example in your top comment isn’t working, which made me suspect you’re just using the raw MediaRecorder output, and sure enough. Unfortunately…that’s just not going to work for any “real” use case.

MediaRecorder is well known in the video infra world as being incredibly crappy videos, to the point of being difficult to transcode reliably much less just use directly as a video for playback. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s just no way of avoiding a proper transcode (if you care about the videos created from any supported browser being playable on the gamut of browsers).

[1] https://stream.new

I love the landing page! Great job!

Thanks!

Thanks! I took a look at stream.new which is surprisingly similar. And yes, I am uploading and serving the raw MediaRecorder output, without any transcoding.

Did you by any chance try to view the demo using Safari? https://github.com/MarconLP/snapify/issues/12

Why did you decide to develop as open source instead as a SaaS and compete with Loom?

I actually spoke with Peer Richelsen (CEO @ Cal.com) and he asked me the same question. Also mentioning that open-source is only beneficial when selling to enterprise companies, just like PostHog or Activepieces is planning/doing.

I was thinking about why someone would choose Snapify over Loom, being open-source would be one argument. But if those people are willing to pay is another question...

A question worth getting an answer for…

I've kind of wondered what the value proposition is of Loom as a business. On mac I get native screen recording and can just toss the video straight into any chat app or any video hosting platform. If you want to build a video hosting platform though, that's a different level of commitment.

What kind of chat app or video hosting platform did you use?

I've often encountered errors like: "You file is too powerful" - Discord, when trying to share my recording.

No specific errors come to mind for me, only in some cases files that are too large according to whatever the subscription is, or maaybe encoding on their end. Jira, Slack, Google chat, not sure about teams.

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