
73% of employees say they would be more productive if they had better access to how-to guides and process documentation, yet 62% of organizations struggle to choose the right tool that balances video and documentation needs, according to 2026 workplace efficiency research.
Scribe excels at creating text-based, step-by-step process documentation automatically, while ScreenPal specializes in screen recording and video editing with robust AI features. Scribe is ideal for written SOPs and knowledge bases; ScreenPal is better for video tutorials and presentations. However, if you need a unified platform that seamlessly combines AI-powered video creation with automated documentation, Guidde offers the best of both worlds—creating guides 11x faster than traditional methods.
In 2026, organizations face mounting pressure to document processes faster while maintaining quality. The wrong tool can lead to:
Selecting between Scribe's documentation-first approach and ScreenPal's video-first platform—or finding a hybrid solution—can mean the difference between efficient knowledge sharing and perpetual documentation debt.
Scribe and ScreenPal represent two fundamentally different approaches to workplace knowledge sharing. While both tools capture processes, their feature sets, underlying technologies, and ideal use cases diverge significantly.
Scribe built its reputation on automatic process documentation—capturing workflows as you perform them and instantly generating step-by-step guides with screenshots and text instructions. It's positioned as a documentation automation platform for creating SOPs, training materials, and knowledge base articles.
ScreenPal (formerly Screencast-O-Matic) evolved from a screen recording tool into a comprehensive video creation and hosting platform. With advanced editing features, AI-powered captioning, interactive elements, and enterprise hosting, it serves users who need robust video capabilities.
By 2026, both platforms have matured significantly, but their core feature philosophies remain distinct. This comparison examines their technical capabilities, user experience, business value, and strategic positioning to help you determine which tool—or which alternative—best fits your team's needs.
Scribe is an AI-powered documentation platform that automatically generates step-by-step guides as you perform any workflow in your browser or desktop. Launched in 2019, Scribe has become a leading solution for teams that need to create, share, and maintain process documentation at scale.
Scribe excels at text-based process documentation. Its automatic capture eliminates the tedious work of screenshotting, cropping, annotating, and writing instructions. Teams use it for:
By 2026, Scribe has added video sharing capabilities (you can share videos alongside guides) and language translation, but video creation and editing remain secondary features. Scribe is fundamentally a documentation tool that happens to support video embedding, not a video platform.
ScreenPal (rebranded from Screencast-O-Matic in 2022) is a comprehensive screen recording, video editing, and content hosting platform designed for educators, businesses, and content creators. With over 200 million videos created across 190 countries, ScreenPal has evolved into a full-featured video creation suite.
ScreenPal excels at video creation, editing, and distribution. It's a complete video ecosystem for teams that need professional-quality recordings with interactive elements. Teams use it for:
By 2026, ScreenPal has significantly expanded its AI capabilities, including a new AI video generator that creates videos from text. However, it doesn't automatically generate text-based documentation or step-by-step guides—it's a video-first platform that offers screenshot capabilities as a secondary feature.
| Plan Tier | Scribe | ScreenPal |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | ✓ Basic Web app capture only Link/embed sharing Quick customization |
✓ Free Forever 15-minute recording limit Unlimited hosting Basic editing |
| Individual Tier | Pro Personal: $23/user/month Desktop capture Branding PDF/HTML/Markdown export |
Deluxe: $4/month (annual) Unlimited recording Full editor AI captions |
| Advanced Individual | Same as Pro Personal | Solo Max: $10/month (annual) All AI features Premium stock assets 4K playback Unlimited quizzes |
| Team Tier | Pro Team: $12/seat/month Minimum 5 seats ($60/month) Team comments Collaboration features |
Team Business: $8/user/month (annual) Minimum 3 users ($24/month) SSO, team folders Advanced analytics |
| Enterprise Tier | Enterprise: Custom pricing Auto-redaction PII/PHI SSO, SCIM provisioning Multi-team governance API access |
Custom: Contact sales 100+ licenses required Phone support Custom onboarding |
| Annual Savings | 20% discount on annual billing | 20% discount vs monthly (pricing shown is annual) |
| Education Pricing | ✓ Available (.edu discount) | ✓ Separate Team Education plan 10-user minimum |
All prices reflect 2026 rates. ScreenPal monthly pricing available but higher; annual shown for comparison.
The fundamental difference between Scribe and ScreenPal lies in their primary content creation paradigms. Understanding these distinctions is essential for choosing the right tool.
Scribe's capture technology is action-based. When you activate the browser extension or desktop app, it records:
The AI then generates:
Strength: Creates polished, text-heavy documentation in seconds without manual writing. Perfect for SOPs, knowledge bases, and help centers.
Limitation: Not designed for video content. No timeline editing, no motion capture, no audio recording. The final output is always a static guide (though you can embed external videos).
ScreenPal's capture technology is video-based. It records:
The platform then provides:
Strength: Complete video production workflow from recording to hosting. Professional-quality output with AI enhancements. Ideal for training videos, demos, and e-learning.
Limitation: No automatic text-based documentation. Users must manually create any accompanying written materials. The output is always video-centric.
Verdict: ScreenPal offers more AI features overall, particularly for video enhancement and editing. Scribe's AI is more specialized for documentation workflows and sensitive data handling.
Editing is focused on documentation refinement, not video production.
Editing is comprehensive and professional-grade for video content.
Verdict: ScreenPal offers dramatically more powerful editing capabilities for video. Scribe's editing is sufficient for documentation but non-existent for video.
Verdict: Both platforms excel at sharing within their respective mediums. Scribe integrates better with documentation systems; ScreenPal integrates better with video platforms and LMS.
Verdict: ScreenPal provides significantly more detailed analytics, especially for understanding video engagement and viewer behavior.
Verdict: Scribe offers more sophisticated team governance for enterprises. ScreenPal's collaboration is strong but less formalized.
Verdict: Scribe has stronger compliance certifications and more robust security features, particularly for healthcare and regulated industries.
Ideal Teams: IT support, operations, customer success, implementation specialists, process documentation teams
Ideal Teams: L&D departments, educators, product marketing, sales enablement, customer training, video content creators
Many teams find themselves needing both documentation and video capabilities:
In these scenarios, teams often resort to:
This is where unified platforms like Guidde provide significant advantages by eliminating the need to choose.
Individual Users:
Small Teams (5 users):
Enterprise:
Hidden costs: Scribe's pricing forces you into seat-based billing even if only a few team members create content. Viewers don't require licenses, but documentation creators do.
Individual Users:
Small Teams (5 users):
Enterprise:
Value proposition: ScreenPal is significantly more affordable at every tier, especially for individuals and small teams. A solo user gets all AI features for $120/year compared to Scribe's $276/year.
| Scenario | Scribe Annual Cost | ScreenPal Annual Cost | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo user (full features) | $276 | $120 | ScreenPal saves $156 |
| 5-person team | $720 | $480 | ScreenPal saves $240 |
| 10-person team | $1,440 | $960 | ScreenPal saves $480 |
| 25-person team | $3,600 | $2,400 | ScreenPal saves $1,200 |
Winner on price: ScreenPal is 40-50% less expensive across all tiers, making it the clear choice for budget-conscious teams focused on video.
However... This comparison is somewhat misleading because the tools serve different purposes. You're not choosing between identical products; you're choosing between documentation software and video software. The real question is: what's the cost of needing both?
Many organizations end up paying for both:
Plus the hidden costs of:
This dual-tool approach often costs more in time and efficiency than the subscription prices suggest.
Both tools are excellent at what they do, but they make fundamentally different trade-offs:
Scribe chose to be the best documentation automation platform, sacrificing video creation to perfect text-based guide generation, compliance, and knowledge base integration.
ScreenPal chose to be the best video creation platform, sacrificing automatic documentation to perfect recording, editing, interactivity, and video analytics.
Neither is objectively better; they're optimized for different workflows. The "best" choice depends entirely on your primary content format and team needs.
After analyzing hundreds of features across both platforms, the decision framework is surprisingly simple:
Your team's primary output is text-based documentation. If you're building knowledge bases, creating SOPs, documenting IT processes, or need written guides that people can reference quickly—Scribe is purpose-built for this and does it better than any video tool could.
Best for: IT teams, operations, help desks, process documentation, compliance-heavy industries, teams who need rapid documentation at scale.
Your team's primary output is video content. If you're creating training videos, product demos, e-learning courses, or your audience strongly prefers watching over reading—ScreenPal provides professional video capabilities at an affordable price.
Best for: L&D departments, educators, video content creators, product marketing, sales enablement, customer training programs.
Both tools force you to choose between documentation and video. In 2026, modern teams increasingly need both formats:
The traditional solution—buying both tools—creates new problems:
The 2026 landscape is shifting toward unified platforms that combine automatic documentation with AI video creation. Rather than choosing between Scribe's documentation prowess and ScreenPal's video capabilities, next-generation tools like Guidde are eliminating the trade-off entirely.
If your team needs both formats, investing in a hybrid solution can provide:
Bottom line: Scribe and ScreenPal are both excellent tools that excel in their respective domains. Choose based on your primary content format. But if you're tired of choosing—or paying for both—explore unified alternatives that deliver the best of both worlds.
While both Scribe and ScreenPal are strong individual solutions, they share critical limitations that impact modern workflow efficiency. Organizations are increasingly discovering that choosing between documentation and video creates more problems than it solves.
Scribe locks you into text-based documentation. When your sales team needs a product demo video or your L&D team wants interactive training content, you're forced to use a separate tool or compromise with inferior workarounds.
ScreenPal locks you into video-first workflows. When your operations team needs quick reference SOPs or your compliance team requires written process documentation, you must manually create it or use another platform.
Impact: Teams waste 6-10 hours per week switching contexts, duplicating content across tools, and maintaining parallel libraries. This fragmentation reduces adoption and creates inconsistent user experiences.
Neither platform allows you to:
Modern learners expect flexibility. Research shows that 68% of users want the option to choose between video and text based on their current context—mobile vs desktop, experienced vs new user, quick reference vs deep learning.
Scribe automates documentation but requires manual video creation elsewhere. ScreenPal simplifies video but requires manual writing for any text content. Both still demand significant human effort:
Even with automation, teams report spending 45-60 minutes per guide/video on creation, editing, and publishing.
ScreenPal added AI video generation in 2026, but it's not integrated with automatic process capture. Scribe has no video AI at all. Neither platform can:
Guidde represents the evolution beyond single-format tools. It's the first platform purpose-built to eliminate the documentation vs. video trade-off entirely.
Guidde captures your process once and simultaneously generates:
One capture, three formats. No duplication, no separate tools, no wasted effort.
While Scribe and ScreenPal reduce creation time compared to fully manual processes, Guidde's AI-first approach is 11x faster than traditional documentation methods and 6x faster than using Scribe + ScreenPal together.
Time comparison for creating a 10-step process guide with video:
Teams save an average of 41.6 hours per user per month—time that can be reinvested in higher-value activities.
Guidde's AI handles what Scribe and ScreenPal still leave to humans:
Guidde matches Scribe's enterprise security and compliance features while maintaining ScreenPal's ease of use:
But unlike enterprise tools that require weeks of training, Guidde's intuitive interface means teams are productive in minutes.
Stop managing separate libraries in multiple tools. Guidde provides:
Organizations switching from Scribe + ScreenPal to Guidde report:
The market is moving decisively away from single-format tools:
Guidde is built for this multi-format future. Rather than forcing you to choose between documentation and video—or paying for both—it delivers a unified solution that's faster, more affordable, and dramatically easier to use.
If you're tired of choosing between Scribe's documentation strengths and ScreenPal's video capabilities—or frustrated by the cost and complexity of using both—it's time to explore what's possible with a truly unified platform.
Try Guidde free and experience what 11x faster knowledge sharing feels like. Create your first AI-powered video tutorial and step-by-step guide in under 5 minutes.
See how Guidde compares to your current stack and discover why leading teams are consolidating around next-generation AI platforms.
The future of knowledge sharing isn't documentation or video. It's documentation and video, created simultaneously, powered by AI, and accessible to everyone.
No, Scribe cannot create or edit videos natively. It's a documentation automation platform that generates text-based, step-by-step guides with screenshots. You can embed external videos created in other tools (like YouTube links) into Scribe Pages, but Scribe itself doesn't record, edit, or produce video content. If you need video creation, you'll need a separate tool like ScreenPal or a unified platform like Guidde.
No, ScreenPal cannot automatically generate text-based documentation or step-by-step guides. It's a video-first platform focused on recording, editing, and hosting video content. While it can create AI-generated captions and transcripts from videos, it doesn't produce formatted, shareable guides like Scribe. If you need both video and documentation, consider a hybrid solution like Guidde.
It depends on your training format preference. Scribe is better if your team learns from written SOPs, quick reference guides, and step-by-step documentation they can scan quickly. ScreenPal is better if your team prefers watching video tutorials with demonstrations, narration, and interactive quizzes. For comprehensive training programs that serve diverse learning styles, many teams use both tools—or switch to a unified platform like Guidde that creates both formats simultaneously.
Yes, many organizations use Scribe for documentation and ScreenPal for video simultaneously. However, this creates challenges: you'll pay for two subscriptions (roughly $1,200+/year for a 5-person team), manage two separate content libraries, train teams on two platforms, and duplicate effort creating content in both formats. If you find yourself needing both, a unified platform like Guidde often provides better value and efficiency.
Guidde is the leading alternative for teams that need both documentation and video capabilities. Unlike Scribe and ScreenPal, Guidde captures your process once and automatically generates AI-powered video tutorials with voiceover narration and step-by-step documentation with screenshots—eliminating the need to choose between formats or pay for two tools. Teams using Guidde create content 11x faster than traditional methods and save an average of 41.6 hours per user per month. With enterprise-grade security, 100+ language support, and seamless integrations, Guidde is the ideal solution for modern teams that need flexible, fast knowledge sharing. Try Guidde free and see why thousands of teams are consolidating their documentation and video tools into one AI-powered platform.
Partially. ScreenPal's desktop and mobile apps can record screen and webcam content offline. However, editing, AI features (captions, transcripts, translations), hosting, and sharing all require an internet connection. Video uploads and processing happen in the cloud, so while you can capture offline, you'll need connectivity for the full workflow.
Yes, Scribe Pro and Enterprise plans include mobile capture capabilities. You can document workflows in iOS and Android apps using Scribe's mobile recording features. This is particularly valuable for teams creating mobile app training, customer support guides, or testing documentation. The free Basic plan is web-only.
ScreenPal is significantly more affordable for small teams. A 5-person team pays $480/year for ScreenPal Team Business versus $720/year for Scribe Pro Team—a savings of $240/year. ScreenPal also requires only 3 users minimum compared to Scribe's 5-user minimum. For solo users, ScreenPal Solo Max at $120/year includes all AI features, while Scribe Pro Personal costs $276/year. However, you're comparing different tools (video vs. documentation), so choose based on format needs, not just price.
No, Scribe cannot export guides as videos. It exports as PDF, HTML, Markdown, or Microsoft Word documents—all text-based formats. If you need video output from your guides, you would need to manually create a video separately (using a tool like ScreenPal) or use a platform like Guidde that generates both formats automatically from a single capture.
ScreenPal includes manual blur tools for videos and images, allowing you to obscure sensitive information during editing. However, it doesn't have Scribe's advanced automatic redaction features for PII/PHI, nor does it specifically advertise HIPAA compliance. If you work in healthcare, finance, or other regulated industries requiring robust compliance features, Scribe offers stronger protections—or consider Guidde, which provides enterprise-grade security with both video and documentation capabilities.