The best Medal.tv alternatives for Windows in 2026.
Every tool here does the same core thing Medal.tv does: it keeps a rolling buffer of the last minute or so of your screen, so one hotkey saves the moment you just missed. Whether the clip is a plain file or a post, whether it needs your GPU vendor's driver suite, or whether sharing it takes a paste or an upload.
Medal.tv is in the comparison below as the baseline rather than as one of the seven, so you can see what you'd be trading away before you switch.
Disclosure: Revidi is our product, so treat its entry accordingly. Everything else is compared on the same criteria, and each entry plainly says when another tool is the better call.
Free · Windows 10/11 · Powered by OBS Studio
At a glance
Seven alternatives, plus the baseline.
Seven Medal.tv alternatives for Windows compared by price, GPU support, whether they are standalone apps, and whether they produce an instant share link, with Medal.tv itself as the baseline row.
Best for: You want a community around your clips: a feed, a profile, and a shot at being discovered.
A clip recorder wrapped in a social platform. Medal captures on any GPU and handles sharing well, but clips land in a feed with profiles, trending pages, and a community built around them. If that's what you want, none of the apps below replace it.
Strengths
Works on any GPU, and on macOS as well as Windows
Sharing and clip discovery are the core of the product, not an add-on
Large active community, plus a mobile app
Automatic highlight detection for many popular games
Trade-offs
An account is required before you can record
Clips live inside Medal's platform rather than as files you manage
Heavier and more resource intensive than a plain capture tool, with feed and community features always loaded
Best for: You want Medal's one-hotkey clipping as plain files, with no feed and no account needed to record.
A standalone Windows tray app powered by OBS Studio. It starts with Windows and buffers 60 seconds by default, configurable, then writes an MP4 to your Videos folder when you hit your hotkey. Sign in and the clip also uploads in the background, dropping a paste-ready share link in your clipboard.
Strengths
Built right on top of OBS for maximum performance and efficiency
Runs on NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel graphics, picking NVENC, AMF, or x264 automatically
Works just like OBS so no account is needed to save a clip
Auto game capture hooks any fullscreen game the moment it launches, set once and forget
Clips are ordinary MP4 files in your own Videos folder
Share links never expire, and previews inline in Discord, Slack, and Twitter/X
Built-in trim editor updates the link you already pasted instead of creating a new one
Small & lightweight
Trade-offs
Windows 10/11 only, with no macOS or Linux build
No streaming, scene compositing, or overlays
Free accounts share 3 clips to the cloud; Premium lifts both
Price: Free (Premium $4.99/mo)Platform: Windows 10/11
02
NVIDIA ShadowPlay
Best for: You have a GeForce card and only ever keep clips locally.
Instant Replay inside the NVIDIA App. If you already have the drivers, it's already installed, and its NVENC capture is about as light as capture gets.
Strengths
Free, and already on the machine if you run GeForce drivers
Very low performance overhead via NVENC, the same encoder Revidi uses on NVIDIA
High bitrate and resolution options
Trade-offs
Requires a GeForce GPU, with no AMD or Intel support
Uses the bloated NVIDIA App alongside drivers and game profiles
Saves a file and stops there, sharing is entirely manual via 3rd party apps
Best for: You run a Radeon card and already keep Adrenalin open.
The Radeon equivalent of ShadowPlay, built into AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition. Same trade-off: excellent if you're on the right GPU, unavailable if you aren't.
Strengths
Free, and bundled with Radeon drivers you already have
AMF hardware encoding keeps the performance cost low
Instant Replay, manual recording, and streaming in one place
Trade-offs
Requires an AMD GPU
Buried inside the bloated Adrenalin driver suite
No sharing workflow beyond the saved file. Sharing requires a manual 3rd party app
Best for: You'd rather have clips detected automatically than remember to press a hotkey.
Overwolf's free clip recorder. Its pitch is automatic highlight detection across a long list of supported games, so kills, wins, and objectives get clipped without you pressing anything.
Strengths
Automatic highlight capture for over a thousand games
Free with no watermark and no subscription
Works regardless of GPU vendor
Trade-offs
Requires the Overwolf client running underneath it
Ad-supported, and Overwolf adds its own overlay layer
Detection quality varies a lot game to game
Price: FreePlatform: Windows
05
SteelSeries Moments
Best for: You already run SteelSeries GG for your peripherals or Sonar audio.
A capable clipper with a built-in editor, bundled into the SteelSeries GG suite. You don't need SteelSeries hardware, but you do need the suite.
Strengths
Free, and no SteelSeries hardware required
Built-in editor for trimming clips before you share them
Works on any GPU
Trade-offs
Only available inside the SteelSeries GG suite
The suite also manages Engine, Sonar, and peripheral settings you may not use
Heavier install than a standalone clipper, resource intensive.
Best for: You want total control and don't mind configuring it yourself.
The open-source standard for capture. Its replay buffer does everything the others do and more, but you assemble it yourself from scenes, sources, encoder settings, and hotkeys.
Strengths
Free and open source, with no account and no telemetry
Complete control over encoder, bitrate, container, and sources
Runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and streams as well as records
Trade-offs
Manual setup of scenes, sources, encoder, and hotkeys before the buffer works
Best for: You want zero installs and only need a clip occasionally.
Already on your machine. Windows' built-in background recording saves the last 30 seconds on a hotkey, configurable up to a few minutes, which is enough if clipping is a rare event rather than a habit.
Strengths
Built into Windows 10 and 11, so nothing to install and no account
Zero setup beyond enabling background recording
Works on any GPU
Trade-offs
Buffer length and quality options are limited
Won't capture the desktop or some apps, only games
No editor and no sharing workflow
Price: Free (built into Windows)Platform: Windows 10/11
FAQ
Questions, answered.
What is the best free Medal.tv alternative?
It depends on what you're replacing. If you want the same any-GPU capture without the social feed, Revidi and OBS Studio are both free and keep clips as local MP4 files. If you have a GeForce card and never share clips, NVIDIA ShadowPlay is free and already installed. If you liked Medal's automatic highlight detection, Outplayed is the closest free equivalent.
Which Medal.tv alternatives work without an NVIDIA GPU?
Revidi, Outplayed, SteelSeries Moments, OBS Studio, and Xbox Game Bar all work on NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel graphics, as does Medal.tv itself. NVIDIA ShadowPlay requires a GeForce card and AMD ReLive requires a Radeon card, so both are ruled out if you're on the other vendor.
Do I need an account to record clips?
Not for most of them. Revidi, ShadowPlay, ReLive, OBS Studio, and Xbox Game Bar all record without signing in. Medal.tv requires an account before you can record. Revidi only asks for one if you want cloud share links, and recording to your Videos folder works signed out.
What is a replay buffer?
A replay buffer continuously records the last N seconds of your screen in memory without writing anything to disk. When you press your save hotkey, that buffer is flushed to a video file, so you capture the moment that already happened rather than having to hit record beforehand. Most tools default to 30 or 60 seconds and let you configure it.
Which alternative keeps clips as local files I own?
Revidi, ShadowPlay, ReLive, OBS Studio, and Xbox Game Bar all write ordinary video files to a folder on your own drive. Medal.tv and Outplayed are platform-first: clips are managed inside their apps, and exporting a plain file is an extra step.
Is there a Medal.tv alternative with no social feed?
Yes. Revidi, OBS Studio, ShadowPlay, ReLive, and Xbox Game Bar have no feed, no profiles, and no discovery layer at all. Revidi still gives you a paste-ready share link when you want one. It's just a link to a single clip rather than a post on a platform.
Is Revidi free?
Yes. Downloading Revidi and saving unlimited clips locally is free. A free account lets you share 3 clips to the cloud and edit up to 3; Premium ($4.99/month) unlocks unlimited cloud sharing and editing with 150 GB of storage.
Ready to rewind your screen?
Download Revidi for free and start capturing your best gaming moments today.
