CleanShot X vs ShareX Comparison 2026
CleanShot X is a Mac screen capture tool bought once for $29: scrolling captures, an annotation layer, and a desktop that tidies itself before the shot. ShareX does the same job on Windows for nothing at all, built by an open source project that has run for eighteen years, with custom uploaders that send a capture straight to your own server. Neither runs on the other's operating system, so the choice is decided by which desktop is open in front of you before it is decided by price.
Mac screen capture that replaces the built-in
Screen capture and recording, open source
At a glance
- Only ShareX has a free tier.
Side by side
CleanShot X | ShareX | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $29 | Free |
| Pricing model (they differ) | One-time purchase | Free |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | One-time purchase | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
CleanShot X
Mac screen capture that replaces the built-in
CleanShot X is the tool Mac users buy once and then cannot work without: scrolling captures, an annotation layer, a cursor you can hide, and a desktop it tidies before the shot. Recordings export as GIF or MP4 without a round trip through an editor. It is macOS only, and the cloud sharing that competes with Loom is a separate subscription.
Our note
Buy the $29 licence and ignore the cloud tier unless you are sharing captures with a team every day. Loom is the better answer for anything that needs to be watched rather than looked at.
Only on this side
- Covers design & graphics
ShareX
Screen capture and recording, open source
ShareX captures a region, a window, a scrolling page or the whole screen, records video and GIFs, and then runs whatever steps you set afterwards: annotate, upload, copy the link back. It has been in development for eighteen years and it uploads to a long list of destinations, including one you host yourself. Windows only, free, and it wants no account.
Why people weigh these two
- ShareX instead of CleanShot X
- ShareX is free, open source screen capture and recording, the no-cost route when CleanShot's one-time $29 is not worth it to you.
- CleanShot X instead of ShareX
- CleanShot X runs on Mac, where ShareX cannot run at all, for a one-time $29 rather than a subscription.
Which one should you pick
Buy CleanShot X if you are on a Mac and want an annotation overlay and a scrolling capture that beats the built-in tool, for a single $29 payment that keeps working with or without the optional $19 yearly update. Skip the Cloud Pro subscription unless a team needs shared links every day.
Install ShareX if you are on Windows and want capture, recording and upload chained together for free, with no account and no subscription ever. It carries fewer polish touches than CleanShot's overlay, and there is no version at all for Mac or Linux, so a mixed-platform team will need something else besides this pair.
Common questions
- Does ShareX run on a Mac?
- No. ShareX is Windows only, which is the first filter in this comparison. CleanShot X is the Mac equivalent and does not run on Windows either, so the operating system on your desk decides this before any feature does.
- Is CleanShot X a subscription?
- No, the base app is a one-time $29 payment that keeps working even if you never renew. Renewing for another year of updates costs $19 and is optional. Only the separate cloud sharing tier, at $8 a user a month, is billed monthly.
- Which one is actually free?
- ShareX, entirely: no paid tier, no account and no advertising, funded by donations after eighteen years of development. CleanShot X charges $29 once for the app itself, though its overlay and desktop tidying are the reason people pay for it.
- Can ShareX upload to my own server instead of a cloud service?
- Yes, that is one of its strongest features: custom uploaders send a capture to a server or bucket you control rather than a vendor's cloud. CleanShot X's cloud sharing goes to its own $8-a-month Cloud Pro service instead.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.