Loom and Scribe both answer the question “how do I show someone how to do this?” — but with completely different artifacts. Loom gives you a video of you doing it. Scribe watches you do it and generates a written step-by-step guide with annotated screenshots. Which one you want depends on what the viewer needs.
Quick take
- Loom is async video: your screen, your voice, a share link. Best when tone, context, and judgment matter — explanations, feedback, updates.
- Scribe is auto-documentation: click through a workflow once and it produces a numbered guide with screenshots. Best when the output is a reference someone will follow step by step.
Where Scribe fits
For repeatable processes — “how to file an expense,” “how to set up the VPN” — a written guide beats video. Nobody wants to scrub through a recording to find step 7. Scribe’s capture-to-guide automation is genuinely fast, and the free plan covers browser-only capture. The catch is pricing when you outgrow it: desktop capture and exports need Pro Personal at about $29 per user per month, and Pro Team is $13 per seat with a 5-seat minimum — a $65/month entry point even for two authors.
Need the video half without the Loom bill? Record the walkthrough in your browser and share it as an unlisted link. Start recording now
Where Loom fits
Some things do not reduce to numbered steps: explaining why a design changed, walking through a bug, giving feedback on a draft. That is video territory, and Loom is the default there — with the usual caveat that its per-seat pricing has gotten heavier since the Atlassian acquisition.
Most teams eventually want both jobs
Documentation and communication are different jobs, and forcing either tool to do the other’s is where it gets awkward: video-as-documentation ages badly, and guides-as-communication read cold. Pick per job — many teams run one of each.
The video half without the Loom bill
For the video half, Chairkick does the Loom job — record in the browser, share an unlisted link, AI summaries and transcripts, timestamped comments — at $15 per user per month with viewers always free. Transcripts and summaries also mean your videos double as skimmable text, which closes part of the documentation gap on their own.
Bottom line
Choose Scribe for step-by-step reference guides, Loom or Chairkick for everything you would rather say than write — and if the deciding factor is what the watchers cost you, only one of the three makes them free.