CamStudio 3.1 beta

CamStudio is a free screen recorder for Windows that turns whatever is on your screen into an MP4 video.

The version 3 restart is a single, tiny program with no installer, and it records the full screen, one window or a region you draw.

It is a good fit for quick tutorials, bug reports and short how-to clips, without the setup of a streaming suite.

What CamStudio 3 Actually Does

You pick what to capture, press a hotkey, and CamStudio saves an MP4 file named with the date and time. Video is encoded as H.264, H.265 (HEVC) or AV1, with a 10-bit option for H.265 and AV1, and sound is saved as AAC or lossless FLAC.

It uses the modern Windows Graphics Capture system and your graphics card's video encoder, so it stays light even on modest laptops. You can show or hide the mouse cursor, record only the inside of a window, and capture system sound, just the sound of the app you are recording, or, in 3.1 Beta, your microphone.

You can also stop a recording automatically after a set time or file size. AV1 needs a fairly recent graphics card, so stick with H.264 if you are not sure what yours supports.

Because the files are standard MP4, they open in VLC Media Player, MPC-HC and every video editor, with no special codec needed.

Is CamStudio Still Updated?

Yes, after a very long pause. The classic 2.7 releases stopped years ago, but camstudio.org restarted the project with CamStudio 3.0 in March 2025, rebuilt from scratch for Windows 10 and 11.

CamStudio 3.1 Beta followed in March 2026 with microphone recording, a pause and resume shortcut, a start countdown, quality presets, command-line recording and a built-in update check. It is the newest build, but there is no final 3.1 yet as of November 2026.

For most people we recommend CamStudio 3.0, the stable release from March 2025. Pick the beta only if you need microphone recording or a pause button.

Version 3 is freeware rather than open source, because no source code for it has been published. The program openly credits wcap, a public-domain recorder that its capture engine is based on.

Which CamStudio Is Which?

The name has been through a few hands, which explains the confusing version numbers you will see around the web.

• CamStudio 3.1 Beta (2026) is the newest camstudio.org build for 64-bit Windows 10 and 11, with microphone recording and pause.
• CamStudio 3.0 (2025) is the stable release of the same program and our pick for most people, but it has no microphone recording.
• CamStudio 2.7.4 is the classic open-source recorder with AVI output, webcam overlay and captions, still useful on older PCs.
• CamStudio 3.0 alpha 4 is an unrelated experimental fork of the 2.7 code from 2021 that never reached a final release.

What You Need

CamStudio 3 needs 64-bit Windows 10 version 1903 or newer, or Windows 11, and a graphics card with DirectX 11 support. It will not start on Windows 7 or 8, and there is no 32-bit build.

The program is not digitally signed, so Windows SmartScreen may warn you the first time you run it. Click More info, then Run anyway, once you are sure the file came from a trusted source.

How to Record Your First Video

1. Put the EXE in its own folder, for example in Documents, and double-click it to start.
2. Right-click the CamStudio icon in the system tray to choose the output folder, video codec, bitrate and audio options.
3. Press the full screen, window or region hotkey you set, and for a region, drag a box with the mouse and press Enter.
4. Press the same hotkey again to stop, and the MP4 file appears in your output folder. In 3.1 you can also pause and resume with a separate shortcut.

Getting Clean, Small Recordings

For tutorials, H.264 at a moderate bitrate gives sharp text and plays everywhere. Pick H.265 or AV1 when you want smaller files and the people watching have newer devices.

To trim the start and end without re-encoding, open the clip in LosslessCut or Avidemux.

For titles, zooms and multiple clips, a free editor like Shotcut or Kdenlive does the job.

If a long recording is too big to share, shrink it with HandBrake or VidCoder.

Power users can do the same from the command line with FFmpeg.

What Happened to AVI, SWF and the Lossless Codec

Older CamStudio versions saved AVI files and could export SWF Flash videos. Flash is gone from every modern browser, so SWF export no longer matters, and version 3 records to MP4 only.

The classic recorder also came with its own CamStudio Lossless Codec for perfect-quality AVI captures.

If you still work with lossless AVI in older software, Lagarith and MagicYUV are well-known alternatives.

About Those Malware Warnings

You may find old warnings online that camstudio.org downloads contained adware. Those reports date from the 2.x era, when installers from some download sites came bundled with extra offers.

The current 3.0 and 3.1 beta files are small, self-contained programs with no installer at all, so there is nothing extra to accept. As with any download, get it from a source you trust and keep your antivirus on.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

CamStudio 3 has no webcam overlay, no drawing tools and no live streaming. If you need a face-cam in the corner, scenes or streaming to Twitch and YouTube, OBS Studio is the free standard.

For quick GIFs, screenshots and instant upload links, ShareX covers more ground.

If you build step-by-step tutorials with callouts, Wink is worth a look, and Greenshot handles still screenshots well.

Quick questions

Download CamStudio, stable 3.0 or the 3.1 Beta, and record your first clip in seconds, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.