Originally published at devtoolpicks.com
Every indie hacker records videos. Product demos for X. Async updates for collaborators. Customer support responses. Onboarding walkthroughs. Tutorial content for marketing. The tool everyone defaulted to was Loom. Then Atlassian bought Loom in 2023, and two years later, the billing changes and login issues have a lot of founders looking at alternatives for the first time.
Two tools keep coming up in those conversations: Tella and Supercut. Both are built by small teams. Both are aimed at people who care about how their videos look. Both position themselves as the thing Loom used to be before it got bloated.
This post compares all three honestly for solo founders and indie hackers. Not for enterprise sales teams. Not for marketing agencies with dedicated video editors. For the person building a SaaS who needs to record a quick demo without spending an afternoon in iMovie.
Quick Verdict
| Tool | Best For | Pricing | Free Plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tella | Polished demos and YouTube-style content | $13/mo (yearly) or $19/mo | 7-day trial, no freemium |
| Loom | Quick async team messages (if you tolerate Atlassian) | $15/user/mo (yearly) or $18/mo | Yes, 25 videos, 5 min each |
| Supercut | Design-conscious founders on Mac or Windows | $15/seat/mo (yearly) | 14-day trial, no freemium |
Tella
Tella is a browser-first screen recorder with a native macOS app and a Chrome extension. A Windows app is on the way. It built its reputation on polish: every recording comes out looking like it was edited, even when nothing was touched after hitting stop. Auto-zoom follows the cursor, backgrounds are customizable, layouts switch between webcam bubble and side-by-side and picture-in-picture during a single recording, and captions pulse along with the voice.
Pricing:
- Free trial: 7 days, no credit card required. No freemium plan.
- Pro: $13/month (billed yearly) or $19/month (monthly). Unlimited recordings, AI editing, 4K export up to 5 minutes, team workspace, instant sharing.
- Premium: $19/month (billed yearly) or $49/month (monthly). Adds custom branding, custom domain, longer 4K exports, video analytics, advanced sharing.
- Team: Custom pricing.
The polish genuinely matters for external content. Recording a product demo for a landing page, a YouTube tutorial, or a sales explainer means the video represents the brand. Tella handles that job well without forcing an edit pass. The layouts feature is the standout: switching from a webcam intro to a screen share to a talking head happens mid-recording with one click, and it all blends cleanly in the output.
Tella's recent AI additions handle the tasks that used to require manual editing. Auto-cut removes silences and filler words. Studio Voice cleans up background noise. Auto-zoom highlights clicks. The result is a video that feels intentional even when the recording was a first take.
There is no free plan. That matters for indie hackers evaluating tools. The 7-day trial forces a decision faster than most competitors, and after that, it's $13/month minimum. Users on Capterra and SoftwareAdvice report recurring bugs: Tella sometimes records the wrong screen on the first take after opening the app, and the re-record feature occasionally produces corrupt segments that have to be redone. Private links (email-gated or password-protected videos) don't exist yet, which is a real limitation for sales use cases.
Skip Tella if the priority is quick internal team communication where nobody cares what the video looks like. For daily throwaway Looms, Tella is more product than needed, and the polish goes wasted on videos nobody rewatches.
Loom
Loom invented the category. Instant recording, automatic cloud upload, one-click share links, generous free tier. For a long time it was the obvious choice for async communication. Then in late 2023 Atlassian acquired it, and the changes since then have made the decision harder for a lot of founders.
Pricing:
- Starter (free): 25 videos per person, 5-minute recording limit, 720p max. Up to 50 team members per workspace.
- Business: $15/user/month (yearly) or $18/user/month (monthly). Unlimited recording length, 4K video, custom branding, trim and stitch editing.
- Business + AI: $20/user/month (yearly) or $24/user/month (monthly). Adds transcript-based editing, auto-summaries, auto-chapters, filler word removal.
- Enterprise: Custom pricing, approximately $40K/year for mid-size teams according to Vendr data.
What Loom does well hasn't changed. Open the app, hit record, get a shareable link in 10 seconds. The Chrome extension makes it effortless to record a quick bug report or a one-off explainer. If the goal is speed and low friction on quick internal videos, Loom still works.
What changed is the billing and the account migration. Atlassian moved Loom onto its billing infrastructure, and accounts created after February 2026 no longer have access to the old Creator Lite tier (previously free viewers who didn't count as billable seats). Existing Creator Lite users are being upgraded to full Creator seats and billed accordingly. A team that previously paid for 10 seats and gave 90 people Creator Lite access for free now pays for all 100 or manually deactivates the inactive ones. The math for some teams has gone from $240/year to $2,400/year overnight.
The Atlassian login migration is still unfinished as of April 2026. Users report login loops after Google sign-in stopped working, lost access to historical recordings, and forced merges of Loom accounts with separate Atlassian accounts. Enterprise workspace migrations won't be completed until mid-2026 according to Atlassian's own support docs. For solo founders on free or Business plans this is manageable, but it's been a constant source of friction for anyone with a workspace history.
Editing is basic unless you upgrade to Business + AI at $20/user/month. Trim and stitch work on the standard Business plan. Text overlays, annotations, transcript-based editing, auto-summaries, and filler word removal all require the higher tier. There's no à la carte AI add-on. The jump from $15 to $20 per user per month for features that competitors include at the base tier is one reason Tella and Supercut are getting attention.
Skip Loom if the top priority is polished external content, cost predictability on a team growing past 5 people, or just avoiding Atlassian's billing system. It still works for what it was always good at: quick internal async messages where speed beats polish.
Supercut
Supercut is the newest of the three, launched in late 2024 with €1.6M in funding from investors that include Christian Reber (Wunderlist, Pitch), Koen Bok (Framer), and Soleio (former Facebook design director). That investor list signals the pitch clearly: design-conscious screen recording for teams that care how their videos look but don't want to edit them manually.
Pricing:
- Free trial: 14 days, no credit card required. No freemium plan (the "Free" tab on supercut.ai literally links to Loom's pricing page, which is a funny acknowledgment of market reality).
- Pro: $15/seat/month (billed yearly). 4K recording, multiple layouts, branding, AI assistant, auto-chapters, auto-edit, unlimited sharing, analytics.
- Enterprise: 50+ seats, contact sales.
The product is native on both macOS and Windows, which sets it apart from Screen Studio (Mac only) and makes it competitive with Loom and Tella for mixed-platform teams. The native code means recordings stay smooth at 4K even during long sessions, which Loom users on Atlassian's web-heavy stack increasingly complain about.
The auto-edit workflow is the differentiator. Record the video, let Supercut strip silences and filler words automatically, apply a branded layout, and share the link. The result is a video that looks like it was edited by someone who knows what they're doing, generated from a raw recording. Analytics go deeper than Loom: visits, plays, engagement by segment, and click-through rates on embedded CTAs.
Supercut is still evolving. Some features are labelled "soon" on the pricing page (custom domains, for example). The lack of a freemium tier means every evaluation has a 14-day clock. The integration ecosystem is thin compared to Loom's, and there's no Chrome extension yet, which matters for anyone used to hitting a browser button to start recording. Linux users can't use it at all.
Skip Supercut if the workflow depends heavily on browser-based recording from a Chrome extension, or if an existing integration with something like Slack, Notion, or Linear is critical. Its strengths show up in external-facing videos where polish and analytics matter.
Head-to-Head Comparison
Free plans and trials
Loom is the only one with a true freemium plan. 25 videos, 5-minute limit, 720p max. Enough for testing the product or very light use, tight enough that most founders outgrow it in a month.
Tella offers a 7-day free trial, no credit card required.
Supercut offers a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Winner: Loom (on freemium availability, not on usefulness at scale)
Output quality and polish
Tella and Supercut both produce videos that look edited without manual work. Tella's layout flexibility during recording is more granular. Supercut's auto-edit pass on silences and filler words is stronger out of the box. Loom's output is functional but plain. Adding polish on Loom requires Business + AI at $20/user/month, and even then the features are more basic than either competitor at a similar price.
Winner: Tella and Supercut (tied)
Total cost for a solo founder over 12 months
- Loom Starter: $0 (but hits the 25-video ceiling fast)
- Tella Pro: $156/year
- Loom Business: $180/year
- Supercut Pro: $180/year
- Loom Business + AI: $240/year
Tella Pro is now the cheapest paid option at $13/month yearly, after the 2026 price drop. Loom Business and Supercut Pro are tied at $15/seat/month. Loom Business + AI is the most expensive entry-level paid plan across the three. Cost is no longer the deciding factor, but Tella's polish-per-dollar is the best of the three on a solo plan.
Winner: Tella (cheapest paid plan with AI editing included)
Team pricing at 5 seats
- Tella Pro: $65/month ($780/year)
- Loom Business: $75/month ($900/year)
- Supercut Pro: $75/month ($900/year)
At 5+ seats, Loom's historical advantage was the free Creator Lite tier for viewers. That's gone in 2026. Tella now comes out $120/year cheaper than Loom and Supercut at team scale, while still including AI editing at the base tier.
Winner: Tella ($13/seat/month yearly beats the $15/seat tier from both competitors)
Editing capabilities
Tella includes AI editing (auto-cut, Studio Voice, transcript editing) on the Pro plan at $13/month.
Supercut includes AI editing (auto-edit, auto-chapters, AI assistant) on the Pro plan at $15/seat/month.
Loom puts transcript-based editing, auto-summaries, and filler word removal behind the Business + AI tier at $20/user/month. The base Business tier at $15 only includes trim and stitch.
Winner: Tella and Supercut (AI editing included at a lower price point than Loom's equivalent)
Platform coverage
- Loom: Web, Chrome extension, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android
- Tella: Web, Chrome extension, Mac native, Windows native (coming)
- Supercut: Mac native, Windows native, web app (no Chrome extension yet)
Winner: Loom (broadest platform coverage, including mobile apps)
The Atlassian factor
This is the wildcard. Loom's Atlassian acquisition has caused real friction for existing users: billing changes, login issues, account migration problems, and reports of audio sync issues and failed uploads. For any team evaluating tools fresh in 2026, the question is whether to buy into an ecosystem that's still unstable two years post-acquisition.
If the team is already on Jira, Confluence, or other Atlassian products, Loom is a natural fit and the integration depth justifies the cost. If the team has no other Atlassian footprint, the Atlassian dependency is a net negative.
Winner: Tella and Supercut (independent, small teams, no billing surprises)
How to Choose
You record daily quick videos for your team and speed matters more than polish: Loom, probably on the Starter free plan or Business at $15/user/month. The Chrome extension is still the fastest record-to-share workflow. Budget for occasional Atlassian login friction.
You record external-facing content and polish is the differentiator: Tella at $13/month (billed yearly). The layout flexibility, auto-zoom, and AI editing produce videos that represent the brand well. Budget for the occasional bug in the re-record feature.
You're design-conscious, work on Mac or Windows, and want the newest player without Atlassian's baggage: Supercut at $15/seat/month. The native app is fast, the auto-edit is strong, and the analytics beat Loom's. Budget for the fact that some features are still in development.
You already pay for Atlassian products: Loom Business + AI or Enterprise. The bundled pricing and native Jira/Confluence integration reduce the effective cost.
You want a free plan and can live with 5-minute videos at 720p: Loom Starter is the only option here. Neither Tella nor Supercut offers a freemium plan.
FAQ
Is Tella worth it over Loom?
For external-facing content, yes. Tella's output looks more polished without editing, and the AI features are included at the base Pro tier. For internal async team messages, Loom still wins on speed and Chrome extension convenience.
Why did Atlassian change Loom's billing?
The 2026 billing integration moved Loom onto Atlassian's per-seat infrastructure and retired the Creator Lite tier for new workspaces. This was part of deeper platform integration rather than a price hike on its own, but the practical effect has been cost increases for teams that previously used Creator Lite to give viewers free access.
Can I use Supercut on Linux?
No. Supercut has native apps for macOS and Windows only. Linux users need to look at OBS Studio, Cap, or web-based tools like Tella's browser version.
Does Tella have a free plan?
No. Tella offers a 7-day free trial (no credit card required), but there's no permanent free tier. Paid plans start at $13/month when billed yearly.
Which one integrates best with Slack or Notion?
Loom has the deepest native integrations across Slack, Notion, Linear, Figma, and most SaaS tools. Tella has integrations with Slack, Notion, and Linear. Supercut's integration ecosystem is the newest and thinnest of the three.
Is Loom still a good choice in 2026?
For teams that care more about speed than polish and either already use Atlassian products or can tolerate the occasional billing and login friction, Loom is still the fastest async video tool. For teams starting fresh with no Atlassian footprint, Tella and Supercut are easier recommendations.
The Bottom Line
For most indie hackers: Tella at $13/month (billed yearly) for external content, or Loom Starter free for throwaway internal videos. That combination covers most solo founder workflows without paying twice for overlapping features.
If the work is design-heavy and external-facing: Supercut at $15/seat/month. The native macOS and Windows apps feel fastest, the analytics beat Loom's, and the design polish matches Tella's without the occasional bug reports.
If the team is already on Atlassian: Loom Business + AI at $20/user/month. The integration depth and potential bundled pricing justify the cost.
For related coverage of the rest of the indie hacker stack, the Cal.com vs Calendly vs TidyCal comparison, the PostHog vs Plausible vs Fathom vs Mixpanel analytics breakdown, and the Best Intercom Alternatives post cover the other common tooling decisions solo founders make in 2026.
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