Last updated: 2026-01-09

For most people in the U.S. who want clear, presenter-led screen recordings with annotations, start by recording in StreamYard and use a shared whiteboard or tablet for live drawing so you get high-quality video, layouts, and reusable tracks. If you need a built‑in on‑screen drawing tool inside the recorder itself, consider Loom on eligible paid plans or OBS with a community drawing plugin.

Summary

• StreamYard gives you an in‑browser recording studio with screen sharing, layouts, branding, and multi-track recording, and you can annotate by sharing a whiteboard or tablet app.StreamYard Help Center
• Loom offers an integrated drawing tool on specific paid plans when you use the desktop app, which is useful for quick async explainers.Atlassian Support
• OBS can add annotations via the community “Draw” plugin, but this requires more setup and comfort with plugins.OBS Studio plugins
• For most teams, the fastest path is StreamYard for recording and distribution, plus a simple annotation app or tablet that you share into the StreamYard studio.

What do people actually mean by “screen recording with annotation”?

When someone searches for “screen recording software with annotation features,” they usually want to:

• Record their screen and voice with minimal setup.
• Highlight or draw on top of what they’re showing.
• Share or repurpose the recording quickly with their team or audience.

In practice, there are two main ways to get annotations in your videos:

1. Built‑in drawing tools inside the recorder – e.g., a pen tool you toggle on/off.
2. External annotation or whiteboard apps – you draw in a separate app, and your recorder captures it via screen share.

StreamYard leans into the second path: you record in a full studio, share your screen (or a tablet/whiteboard), and the annotations are part of that shared view.StreamYard Help Center

How does StreamYard handle screen recording and annotations?

At StreamYard, we focus on giving you a recording studio in your browser rather than a single drawing tool. Here’s what that looks like for annotations:

• Presenter-visible screen sharing: You can share your entire screen, a window, or a browser tab while seeing exactly what your audience will see.StreamYard Help Center
• Use any whiteboard or drawing app: Open a digital whiteboard, design tool, slide deck, or iPad drawing app, then share that screen. Your annotations happen in the app; StreamYard records the output.
• Fully controllable layouts: You can switch between screen‑only, picture‑in‑picture, and side‑by‑side layouts so your face and annotations stay clear and intentional.
• Independent audio control: Screen audio and mic audio can be managed separately, which is critical when you’re narrating a complex walkthrough.
• Local multi‑track recordings: On recording workflows, each participant can be captured locally on separate audio/video tracks, which is ideal if you want to tighten explanations or re‑cut sections later.StreamYard Support
• Brand overlays and logos: You can add logos, lower thirds, and overlays live, so your annotated recordings are ready to share without a heavy editing pass.
• Landscape and portrait from the same session: That flexibility lets you turn one annotated demo into both YouTube and vertical social clips without re‑recording.
• Multi-participant screen sharing: Multiple people can share screens in the same session, which is powerful for collaborative walkthroughs or code reviews.

A simple scenario: you’re teaching a product onboarding session. You join a StreamYard studio, share a Figma file or whiteboard, and draw callouts while you explain. Your team sees a clean layout with your camera plus the annotated screen, and you walk away with high‑quality recordings you can reuse across channels.

Does StreamYard have a built‑in drawing tool?

Today, we don’t present StreamYard as having a one‑click, native drawing pen built into the studio chrome. Instead, we embrace a more flexible pattern:

• Use whatever annotation app you prefer (Whiteboard, Miro, Figma, PowerPoint ink, an iPad drawing app, etc.).
• Share that window or device into StreamYard.
• Record and/or stream using StreamYard’s layouts, audio control, and local recordings.StreamYard Help Center

For most creators and teams, that trade‑off is worth it. You avoid being locked into a single pen tool, and you get a full production environment around your annotations: branding, guests, multi‑track, and distribution.

If you absolutely need the drawing tools to live inside the recorder’s UI, alternatives like Loom and OBS can help—but they come with their own trade‑offs.

How does StreamYard compare to Loom for annotated screen recordings?

Loom is built for quick, async videos: you click record, talk over your screen, and share a link. For annotations specifically:

• Loom offers a built‑in drawing tool that lets you doodle or underline while recording. This feature is limited to certain plans (Education, Business, Business + AI, Enterprise) and requires the desktop app.Atlassian Support
• Loom’s marketing highlights drawing tools as part of its recorder feature set.Atlassian

Where StreamYard typically wins for teams:

• Record once, repurpose everywhere: Instead of relying on a single share link, you create recordings designed for YouTube, social, courses, or webinars, backed by multi‑track files you can edit in any NLE.
• Live + pre‑recorded flexibility: You can record offline, go live, or do both—using the same studio and layouts.
• Pricing per workspace, not per user: Loom prices most plans per user, while StreamYard pricing is per workspace, which can be materially cheaper if you have a team of presenters or producers.Loom Pricing
• Deeper production control: You get brand overlays, flexible layouts, and multi‑participant studios that feel closer to a show than a quick screencast.

If your primary need is “send a two‑minute annotated update to a coworker,” Loom’s integrated pen is convenient. If you care about long‑form trainings, events, or reusable content libraries, StreamYard usually offers more value per recording.

How does StreamYard compare to OBS for annotations and control?

OBS Studio is powerful desktop software for recording and streaming. It’s free and open source and allows detailed control of scenes, sources, and encoding settings.OBS Studio

For annotations:

• OBS doesn’t ship with a first‑party drawing tool, but there is a community Draw plugin that lets you draw on your stream output in real time; you install it separately and manage it via a dock.OBS Studio plugins
• That plugin-based approach is flexible but assumes you’re comfortable installing plugins and managing a more complex interface.

Compared with OBS, StreamYard favors:

• Speed to first recording: You open a browser and start recording; there’s no install, encoder tuning, or GPU requirement beyond what your browser needs.
• Reliability for typical laptops: Heavy OBS scenes can tax CPUs/GPUs; StreamYard offloads most work to the cloud while still offering local recordings as a safety net.OBS System Requirements
• Team workflows: Multiple presenters join from their browsers, screens are shared in a controlled layout, and recordings are stored in a shared workspace.

If you’re a technical user who wants full control over encoding and is happy to manage plugins, OBS plus the Draw plugin can create strong annotated recordings. Many business teams, though, find StreamYard’s in‑browser studio faster and easier to standardize.

How should you think about pricing when you need annotations?

When annotations are in the mix, it’s easy to over‑optimize for a single feature and forget the bigger picture: total cost to get usable videos into people’s hands.

A few practical angles:

• Per‑workspace vs per‑user: StreamYard pricing is per workspace, which means adding more presenters doesn’t automatically increase your bill. Loom, in contrast, prices most paid plans per user, so costs rise as your team grows.Loom Pricing
• Hardware vs SaaS limits: OBS has no vendor‑imposed recording caps, but you pay in hardware requirements, learning curve, and time spent maintaining a local setup.OBS System Requirements
• Usage patterns: If your team records frequent long demos, webinars, or trainings with multiple speakers, StreamYard’s studio and storage model are usually more aligned with that workload than quick async clips.

For many U.S. businesses, the question isn’t “which has the fanciest annotation button?” It’s “which tool lets our team reliably produce and share annotated recordings without becoming a side job?” StreamYard is intentionally designed to answer that second question.

What we recommend

• Use StreamYard as your default screen recording studio and pair it with a whiteboard, slide deck, or tablet app for annotations captured via screen share.
• Choose Loom if you mainly send short, one‑off annotated videos and want a pen inside the recorder UI on eligible paid plans.
• Consider OBS + Draw plugin only if you’re comfortable with a more technical, plugin‑based setup and want deep local‑hardware control.
• Prioritize tools that your whole team can actually use on everyday laptops; in most cases, that makes StreamYard the most practical starting point for annotated screen recordings.