Show HN: A browser-based screen recording / editing tool for fast product demos
by wainguo | 2025-12-08 14:19:54+00:00
I’m an indie dev, and every time I launch or ship anything, there’s this familiar mini-hell: “now I need to record a decent demo…”

You probably know the drill:

- install yet another screen recorder - mess with audio input / system audio - accidentally capture your messy tabs or notifications - re-record because you forgot to hide something sensitive - open a separate editor just to crop, zoom, or add a simple arrow

After doing this a few too many times, I realized I was spending way more time fighting tools than making the actual demo. And most of my needs were pretty simple: short product walkthroughs, tutorial clips, or something clean enough to share on socials.

So I ended up doing what devs probably shouldn’t do when they’re busy: I built my own thing.

It’s called Screentell, and the idea is:

A low-friction, in-browser screen recorder + editor that covers ~90% of “I just need a decent demo” use cases.

No install, no desktop app, just browser.

What it does (and why I built it this way)

Recording

I wanted to hit “record” and not think too much:

record screen + camera at the same time capture both system audio and mic (so you can narrate while playing app sounds / videos)

Editing (directly in the browser)

Most of my edits are very “presentation-like”, not full video production. So I focused on:

- Cropping the video area – hide browser tabs, taskbar, or any sensitive stuff, and just keep the content region that matters. - Smooth zoom / focus – simple “zoom into this part” so viewers know exactly where to look.

Stickers & callouts

I always end up wanting arrows and little annotations, so I added:

Hand-drawn style（just like excalidraw style）stickers – arrows, underlines, speech bubbles, shapes, text, images, etc. The goal is to quickly highlight “click here”, “this changed”, or “this is the important part” without opening a full-blown editor.

Layout / presentation

I also care about how the final frame looks (especially for posting on social media):

- choose a background (solid color, gradient, or wallpaper) - put the screen recording in a kind of “card” with padding + shadow - treat the face camera layer as a movable/resizable element: show/hide it, change size/shape/position

Basically: make the final video look like something you’d be okay dropping into a landing page, tweet, or product update — without touching Premiere / Final Cut.

Who it’s for (roughly) If you’re:

- recording product demos - making short tutorials / onboarding clips - creating quick social content around your app or workflow

…and you don’t want to install heavy software or learn a complex timeline editor, this might be useful.

There’s no software to download, everything is done in the browser (record → edit → export). Most people should be able to figure it out in a few minutes of clicking around.

Right now it’s very much built from my own pain points as a solo dev who constantly needs “yet another demo,” so I’m sure my blind spots are showing.

If you do screen recordings often, I’d love to know:

What’s the most annoying part of your current workflow? What’s the one thing your current tool still doesn’t do well?