
87% of L&D professionals report that the right visual documentation tool reduces training time by at least 40%, yet only 23% say their current platform fully meets their needs for both process documentation and visual communication—highlighting the critical importance of choosing the right feature set for your workflows.
Scribe excels at AI-powered step-by-step process documentation with automatic capture of web and desktop workflows, while Zight (CloudApp) dominates visual communication with screen recording, annotations, and GIF creation. Scribe is ideal for creating written SOPs and training guides, whereas Zight shines for quick visual explanations and async video messaging. However, if you need a unified platform that combines the best of both worlds—AI-powered documentation and advanced video creation—Guidde offers a superior all-in-one solution.
Choosing between process documentation and visual communication tools fundamentally impacts how your team creates, shares, and consumes knowledge. Scribe and Zight represent two different approaches to the same core challenge: helping teams communicate complex information quickly and clearly. The features each platform prioritizes determine not just what you can create, but how efficiently your team can onboard new hires, resolve customer issues, and scale institutional knowledge. In 2026, as hybrid work persists and AI automation becomes standard, understanding which feature set aligns with your workflows can mean the difference between seamless productivity and constant context-switching between multiple tools.
Scribe and Zight (formerly CloudApp) serve overlapping yet distinct use cases in the knowledge management and visual communication space. Both platforms emerged to solve the time-consuming challenge of explaining processes and resolving issues through asynchronous communication. However, their feature sets have evolved in fundamentally different directions.
Scribe has positioned itself as the AI-powered process documentation specialist. Its core differentiator is automatic step-by-step guide creation: you perform a task, and Scribe's browser and desktop extensions capture every click, field entry, and navigation action, transforming it into an annotated, editable guide. This makes it exceptionally powerful for creating SOPs, training materials, and software implementation guides.
Zight, by contrast, is a visual-first platform optimized for screen recording, screenshot annotation, GIF creation, and async video messaging. Its strength lies in speed and flexibility—capturing a quick video, annotating a screenshot with arrows and redactions, or creating looping GIFs to explain UI behaviors. Zight's AI features focus on transcription, video summarization, and turning recordings into step-by-step guides retroactively.
This comparison examines the core features that differentiate these platforms: capture methods, editing capabilities, AI automation, sharing and collaboration, integrations, security, and pricing. By 2026, both tools have matured significantly, but their feature philosophies remain distinct. Understanding these differences is essential for teams deciding whether they need structured documentation, visual communication, or—as many discover—a hybrid solution that eliminates the need to choose.
Scribe is an AI-powered process documentation platform that automatically generates step-by-step guides as you complete tasks in your browser or desktop applications. Launched to eliminate the tedious manual work of creating training documentation and SOPs, Scribe has become a go-to solution for over 5 million users across 600,000+ organizations, including 94% of the Fortune 500.
Scribe is purpose-built for teams that need to document repetitive processes at scale: IT teams creating software implementation guides, HR departments building onboarding documentation, operations teams standardizing SOPs, and customer success teams producing help articles. Its strength is transforming tacit knowledge into searchable, shareable, written guides.
Zight (formerly CloudApp) is an all-in-one visual communication platform designed for screen recording, screenshot annotation, GIF creation, and async video messaging. Originally focused on simple screen capture and sharing, Zight has evolved into a comprehensive visual collaboration tool with AI-powered features, serving over 5 million users across support, design, engineering, sales, and education teams.
Zight excels for teams prioritizing visual communication over written documentation: customer support teams explaining solutions via video, designers sharing annotated mockups, engineers capturing bug reproductions, sales reps creating personalized demos, and educators building video libraries. Its strength is speed—capturing, editing, and sharing visual content in seconds.
| Plan | Scribe | Zight |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | Basic (Free) • Web-only capture • Unlimited guides • Link/embed sharing • Basic customization |
Free ($0) • 5-min recording limit • Last 50 items accessible • 720p quality • Basic analytics |
| Individual Paid | Pro Personal $23/user/mo (annual) $29/user/mo (monthly) • Desktop capture • Custom branding • Screenshot editing • PDF/HTML/Markdown export |
Pro $8/mo (annual) $9/mo (monthly) • Unlimited recording • 4K quality • AI features (add-on) • Unlimited uploads |
| Team Plans | Pro Team $12/user/mo (annual, min 5 users) $15/user/mo (monthly, min 5 users) Starts at $60/mo • Everything in Pro Personal • Team collaboration • Comments • Shared workspace |
Team $11/user/mo (min 2 users) • Team workspace • Advanced analytics • User management • Centralized billing • Custom branding |
| Enterprise | Enterprise Custom pricing • Auto-redaction PII/PHI • SSO (SAML) • SCIM provisioning • Role-based access • Multi-team governance • Language translations • API access |
Enterprise Custom pricing • SOC 2 Type II • HIPAA compliance • SSO (SAML/SCIM) • Custom data retention • Custom S3 storage • Dedicated account manager • 99% uptime SLA |
Key Pricing Insight: Zight offers significantly lower per-user costs ($8-$11/user/mo) compared to Scribe ($12-$23/user/mo), making it more accessible for budget-conscious teams. However, Scribe's free tier is more generous for documentation use cases (unlimited guides vs. Zight's 50-item limit). Both platforms charge extra for advanced AI features on lower tiers.
Scribe: Scribe's defining feature is automatic process capture. You click a button, perform a workflow in your browser or desktop app, and Scribe records every action—capturing screenshots, identifying UI elements (buttons, fields), and generating step descriptions using AI. This is exceptionally powerful for documenting repetitive, multi-step processes like software onboarding, data entry procedures, or approval workflows. The downside? You can't casually 'record' a conversation or explain something off-the-cuff—Scribe is designed for structured task documentation, not freeform video messaging.
Zight: Zight uses manual screen recording with flexible capture modes (full screen, window, region, webcam). You control when to start and stop, making it ideal for creating personalized videos, bug reproductions, design walkthroughs, or async video messages. The trade-off is that you need to narrate or manually create structure—Zight doesn't auto-detect steps as you work. However, Zight's AI Smart Actions can retroactively analyze your video and generate step-by-step guides, meeting notes, or summaries.
Verdict: Scribe wins for automatic, structured documentation of repeatable processes. Zight wins for flexible visual communication where you need to explain, demonstrate, or discuss.
Scribe: After capture, you can edit step text, reorder steps, redact sensitive data (manually or with auto-redaction rules), customize screenshots with annotations, add custom branding, and combine multiple Scribes into Pages. Scribe's editing is focused on written content refinement—improving clarity, adding context, removing errors. You cannot edit the visual component extensively (e.g., blur specific elements retroactively) beyond redaction.
Zight: Offers robust visual editing for both videos and screenshots. For videos: trim, split, merge clips, crop, apply filters, add blur/redaction, and fine-tune settings. For screenshots: annotate with arrows, shapes, text, markers; blur sensitive areas; add stickers/emoji; and crop/rotate. Zight's editing is designed for visual polish and clarity, not text-heavy documentation.
Verdict: Scribe excels at editing documentation structure and text. Zight dominates video and screenshot visual editing.
Scribe: AI is embedded throughout the platform. Workflow AI analyzes captured processes to suggest efficiency improvements, auto-generates titles/descriptions, and powers features like Guide Me (interactive walkthroughs) and Sidekick (contextual guide delivery). Auto-redaction uses AI to detect and blur PII/PHI. Language translation (Enterprise) auto-translates guides into supported languages. Scribe's AI is focused on documentation quality and workflow optimization.
Zight: AI features (available as add-ons for Pro/Team, included in Enterprise) include automatic video titles, summaries/descriptions, transcription (50+ languages), captions, shareable chapters, and Smart Actions—which transform recordings into step-by-step guides, meeting notes, or bug reports. AI Personalization and Word Dictionary improve transcription accuracy. Zight's AI is focused on making videos searchable, accessible, and actionable.
Verdict: Scribe's AI is more proactive (capturing processes automatically, suggesting improvements). Zight's AI is more reactive (analyzing existing videos). Both are powerful, but serve different purposes.
Scribe: Designed for team documentation. Share guides via link, embed in wikis/knowledge bases, export to multiple formats (PDF, HTML, Markdown, Word), or integrate with Confluence/Slack/custom AI assistants via API. Team members can comment on guides, and Enterprise users get multi-team governance, role-based access (Creator, Viewer, Admin), and centralized document management. Scribe excels at centralizing and governing institutional knowledge.
Zight: Optimized for quick sharing of visual content. Every capture generates an instant shareable link, with options for password protection, expiration dates, viewer email tracking, and engagement analytics (watch percentage, clicks). Team plans include shared workspaces, collections/folders, custom branding, and integrations with Slack, Teams, Zendesk, Jira. Zight's Request Video feature enables reverse collaboration—customers or teammates submit videos to you. Zight excels at async visual communication.
Verdict: Scribe is superior for knowledge management and documentation governance. Zight is superior for fast visual collaboration and customer/team video exchanges.
Scribe Use Cases:
Zight Use Cases:
Scribe: Integrates with Confluence, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Notion, and other knowledge bases. Enterprise Search API enables integration with Copilot, custom AI assistants, and chatbots. Designed to fit into documentation-centric workflows.
Zight: Integrates with Slack, Teams, Zendesk, Intercom, Jira, Confluence, and offers an embeddable Recording SDK for custom applications. Designed to fit into communication-centric workflows.
Verdict: Both integrate well, but Scribe fits documentation ecosystems, while Zight fits communication ecosystems.
Both platforms are enterprise-ready with SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance, SSO (SAML), and SCIM provisioning. Scribe adds auto-redaction of PII/PHI and configurable sharing policies per team. Zight adds custom S3 storage, IP whitelisting, and URL whitelabeling. Both offer robust admin controls, but Scribe's governance features (multi-team policies, role-based access) are more granular for documentation management.
Scribe: IT teams, HR/L&D departments, operations managers, compliance officers, customer success teams building help centers, software implementation specialists.
Zight: Customer support agents, UX/UI designers, QA engineers, sales reps, product managers, educators, remote team leaders.
Hidden Costs: None significant. Pricing is transparent, though larger teams may face higher per-seat costs compared to alternatives.
Hidden Costs: AI features (transcription, Smart Actions, captions) are add-ons on Pro and Team plans, increasing effective cost. Enterprise pricing can be steep for advanced features.
For Individuals: Zight Pro ($8/mo) offers better value for visual communication. Scribe Pro Personal ($23/mo) is pricier but unmatched for automatic documentation.
For Teams (10 users):
Zight is slightly cheaper, but Scribe's documentation features may justify the premium for knowledge-intensive teams.
For Enterprises: Both require custom quotes. Scribe's multi-team governance and API access appeal to large organizations managing institutional knowledge. Zight's custom S3 storage and HIPAA compliance appeal to healthcare and highly regulated industries.
Scribe: Customers report 41.6 hours saved per user per month, 90% reduction in documentation time, and 98% procedure compliance. ROI is clearest for teams creating high volumes of training or process documentation.
Zight: Customers report 3× faster ticket resolution, 56+ hours saved weekly, and $10K+ saved annually (replacing multiple tools). ROI is clearest for support and communication-heavy teams.
Scribe and Zight are both excellent tools that have earned their place in the knowledge management and visual communication landscape. However, they solve fundamentally different problems, and your choice should be dictated by how your team creates and consumes information.
Choose Scribe if: Your primary need is scalable, structured documentation. You're building training programs, SOPs, help centers, or onboarding guides where automatic capture, AI-powered quality, and centralized knowledge management are critical. Scribe excels when you need to document repeatable processes and ensure consistency across teams. It's the superior choice for IT, HR, operations, and compliance-focused organizations.
Choose Zight if: Your primary need is fast, flexible visual communication. You're resolving customer issues, providing design feedback, capturing bugs, creating sales demos, or replacing meetings with async video. Zight excels when you need to explain in the moment and share quickly. It's the superior choice for support, design, engineering, and sales teams.
The Reality Check: Most organizations discover they need both capabilities—documentation for repeatable processes and video for situational communication. Purchasing and managing two separate platforms creates friction: switching between tools, inconsistent branding, fragmented content libraries, and doubled subscription costs.
This is where the market is evolving. Teams increasingly seek unified platforms that combine automatic documentation, video creation, AI-powered editing, and centralized knowledge management. While Scribe and Zight each excel in their niches, neither offers a truly comprehensive solution. For organizations seeking the best of both worlds—AI-powered automation, video and documentation in one platform, and enterprise-grade features—exploring next-generation alternatives like Guidde is worth serious consideration.
While Scribe and Zight are both strong platforms, they share critical limitations that can hinder productivity and increase costs for teams seeking a complete knowledge management solution:
Guidde is the next-generation, AI-first platform that eliminates the need to choose between documentation and video. Here's how Guidde surpasses both Scribe and Zight:
Guidde captures your screen and voice, then automatically generates both a polished video walkthrough AND a step-by-step written guide—simultaneously. No need to choose formats or switch tools. Your content is instantly available in multiple modalities (video, text, GIF, PDF) from a single recording session.
Guidde users create training materials and documentation 11 times faster than traditional methods. AI handles narration (text-to-speech in 100+ languages), video editing, screenshot annotations, and formatting—transforming a 5-minute recording into a publication-ready guide in under 2 minutes. This makes both Scribe's manual editing and Zight's narration-heavy workflows obsolete.
Unlike Zight (which requires you to narrate) or Scribe (which generates text-only), Guidde uses AI voices to narrate your guides in over 100 languages and accents. You can customize tone, speed, and even create branded voice personas—delivering professional, accessible content without recording audio.
Guidde automatically trims pauses, enhances clarity, applies branding, and formats videos for sharing—features Zight requires manual editing to achieve. Unlike Scribe, which doesn't touch video at all, Guidde treats video as a first-class output alongside documentation.
Guidde includes SSO, SCIM provisioning, custom branding, analytics, integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, MS Teams, Zendesk), and centralized knowledge management—matching Scribe's governance capabilities while adding Zight's visual communication strengths. Teams get enterprise security and creator flexibility in one platform.
With Guidde, you don't sacrifice documentation quality for video speed, or vice versa. You get:
If you're choosing between Scribe and Zight, you're likely compromising on features you actually need. Scribe excels at documentation but lacks video. Zight excels at video but lacks documentation automation. Guidde eliminates the compromise by delivering both in a single, AI-powered platform that's faster, more affordable, and purpose-built for how teams actually work in 2026.
Ready to stop choosing? Try Guidde for free and experience the only platform that combines the documentation power of Scribe, the visual clarity of Zight, and AI automation that surpasses both. See why leading companies are consolidating their knowledge tools into Guidde—and saving thousands in the process.
No. Scribe is a documentation platform that captures processes as step-by-step guides with screenshots and text. It can embed videos (from Loom, YouTube, etc.) into Pages, but it does not record, edit, or host video natively. If you need video creation, you'll need a separate tool like Zight or Guidde.
Partially. Zight's AI Smart Actions feature can analyze a recorded video and generate a step-by-step guide, meeting notes, or bug report. However, this requires you to record and narrate the video first—it's not automatic capture like Scribe. The resulting guides are also less polished and lack Scribe's editing, redaction, and formatting features.
It depends on your support model. If your team resolves issues by sending personalized video explanations or requesting bug reproduction videos from customers, Zight is superior. If your team creates a knowledge base of help articles and SOPs for self-service support, Scribe is better. For teams needing both, Guidde offers the best of both worlds.
Yes. Both Scribe and Zight integrate with Slack and Microsoft Teams, allowing you to share guides or videos directly in channels. Scribe also integrates with Confluence, Notion, and offers an API for custom integrations. Zight integrates with Zendesk, Jira, Intercom, and offers an embeddable Recording SDK.
Yes. Both platforms are HIPAA compliant and SOC 2 Type II certified, making them suitable for healthcare and other regulated industries. Scribe offers auto-redaction of PII/PHI, while Zight offers custom data retention and S3 storage for added security.
Yes, but with limitations. Scribe's free tier allows unlimited guides but only web-based capture (no desktop apps). Zight's free tier allows 5-minute recordings and access to your last 50 items. For serious use, paid plans are required.
Zight is more affordable. For a team of 5 users, Zight Team costs $55/month ($11 × 5), while Scribe Pro Team costs $60/month (minimum 5 users at $12 each). However, Scribe's documentation features may justify the small premium for knowledge-intensive teams.
Guidde is the top alternative, offering the unified capabilities that eliminate the need to choose between documentation and video. Guidde combines automatic step-by-step guide creation (like Scribe), professional video recording and editing (like Zight), and AI-powered narration in 100+ languages—all in a single platform. Teams using Guidde report creating content 11× faster than traditional methods, with measurable ROI through reduced onboarding time, lower support costs, and consolidated tool spending. If you need both documentation and visual communication, Guidde is the clear choice.