Bubbles vs Zight
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Editorial assessmentZight compared with Bubbles
Bubbles builds around the conversation after the video, with threaded timestamped comments and meeting notes. Zight builds around the speed of getting a visual out of your head and into a colleague's chat window. Use Bubbles when the recording starts a discussion; use Zight when the recording ends one.
Choose Bubbles if
Distributed teams of three to thirty who want to replace recurring calls with threaded async video conversation, especially engineering, design, and product groups that also want their live meetings recorded and summarized under the same subscription.
Choose Zight if
Support, engineering, design, and product teams whose async communication is mostly screenshots and short GIFs with occasional video, and who value a sub-five-second capture-to-link workflow over production quality.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Bubbles | Zight |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Video | Video |
| Starting price | $0 (Basic), then $12 per member per month billed yearly (Pro Teams) (free plan available) | Approximately $9.95 per user per month billed annually (Pro), or around $12 billed monthly (free plan available) |
| Pricing model | Freemium per-member subscription with pricing that adjusts automatically based on team size, discounted for yearly billing. | Per-user subscription with a capped free tier, billed monthly or annually, plus a quoted Enterprise plan. |
| Free plan | Unlimited screen recordings up to 30 minutes each, five meeting recordings per week, AI summaries, a notetaker joining all meetings, and two channels, with recordings locking after two weeks. | Roughly 25 total captures, recordings capped at 90 seconds, 720p quality, one user, and Zight branding on shared links. |
| Free trial | 14 days on Pro plans, alongside a permanent free Basic plan | The free plan serves as the trial; no separate fixed-length paid trial is published |
| Best for | Distributed teams of three to thirty who want to replace recurring calls with threaded async video conversation, especially engineering, design, and product groups that also want their live meetings recorded and summarized under the same subscription. | Support, engineering, design, and product teams whose async communication is mostly screenshots and short GIFs with occasional video, and who value a sub-five-second capture-to-link workflow over production quality. |
| Setup time | Fifteen minutes. Install the Chrome extension or desktop app, connect Google Calendar or Outlook if you want the notetaker, create a channel, and record. The free tier means the first month costs nothing and proves whether the habit forms. | Ten minutes. Install the desktop app or Chrome extension, sign in, grant screen recording permission, and set the keyboard shortcut you will actually remember. Custom domain configuration on paid plans adds a DNS record. |
| Learning curve | Low mechanically, moderate culturally. Recording and replying are obvious. The change that has to be agreed explicitly is that a video reply is an acceptable answer, because if half the team responds by asking for a call the threading model never engages and you have bought an expensive recorder. | Essentially none. The product is one keyboard shortcut and an annotation toolbar. The only habit worth building deliberately is using the blur tool consistently, because a fast capture flow makes it very easy to share a screen with customer data on it. |
| Platforms | Chrome extension, Desktop application, Web | macOS, Windows, iOS, Chrome extension, Web |
| Compliance | GDPR, Advanced security features available for enterprise customers on request | SOC 2 Type II on Enterprise, HIPAA support on Enterprise, GDPR |
| Founded | 2018 | 2010 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Ownership | Venture-backed, private | Venture-backed |
Strengths and limitations
Bubbles
Strengths
- Threaded video replies and on-screen anchored comments make async video a conversation rather than a broadcast, which is a structurally better model for replacing meetings than a link and an email.
- The most usable free tier in this category for real work: unlimited screen recordings at 30 minutes each plus five AI-notetaken meetings a week.
- Two products in one subscription, async video collaboration and meeting recording with transcripts and summaries, at $12 per member per month billed yearly.
- Channels give recordings a home, which is why Bubbles archives stay navigable while collections of Loom links generally do not.
Limitations
- Nothing here serves sales: no dynamic personalization, no per-prospect landing pages, no CRM writeback, no animated GIF thumbnails, and no view-based follow-up automation.
- Free recordings lock after two weeks, so the free tier is a working surface rather than an archive and the value of your library depends on paying.
- Embedding and distribution are much narrower than Loom's 400-plus tool coverage, which matters if your documentation lives in Confluence or Notion.
- The AI notetaker is a bot that joins the call, which some organizations and some clients will not accept, and on the free tier it joins every meeting by default.
Zight
Strengths
- The capture-to-clipboard-link interaction is still the fastest in the category and is the reason the product has survived fifteen years and a rebrand.
- Three capture modes in one tool: screenshot, GIF, and video, which matches how people actually communicate rather than forcing everything into video.
- GIF capture is a first-class feature, and GIF is the only format that renders inline in issue trackers, chat, and documentation.
- Annotation with blur is built into the capture flow, so redacting sensitive information takes two seconds instead of a detour through another tool.
Limitations
- The free tier is capped at roughly 25 total captures and 90 second recordings, which makes it an expiring trial rather than a plan.
- The video recorder is functional rather than good: no automatic zoom, no transcript-based editing, no filler word removal, and no polish features.
- Transcription and captions are not a core strength, so accessibility and searchability of video content are weak next to Tella, Descript, or Loom.
- Very small team, publicly estimated in the single digits, supporting a product with fifteen years of accumulated surface area.
Pricing compared
Bubbles
Freemium per-member subscription with pricing that adjusts automatically based on team size, discounted for yearly billing.
- Basic$0
- Pro Teams$12
- Pro Personal$18
Bubbles at $12 per member per month billed yearly is the cheapest capable team tier in this category and it bundles two products. You get unlimited async recording with threaded video replies plus unlimited AI-notetaken meetings with transcripts and summaries, for less than Loom Business at $15 which does only the first and less than most standalone meeting notetakers which do only the second. The free tier is genuinely usable, with unlimited screen recordings at 30 minutes and a notetaker on every meeting, constrained only by a two-week lock. The value case fails for exactly one reason: none of this helps you sell anything. Judged as internal team infrastructure it is the best price-to-capability ratio here; judged as a sales tool it scores zero because it is not one.
Zight
Per-user subscription with a capped free tier, billed monthly or annually, plus a quoted Enterprise plan.
- Free$0
- Pro$9.95
- TeamAround $8 to $11
- EnterpriseCustom
At roughly $10 a seat, Zight is priced fairly against Loom Business and below most polished video recorders, and for a team whose async communication is mostly screenshots and GIFs it delivers more value per dollar than any video-first tool would, because it matches the actual shape of the work. The caveat is that you are paying for speed and breadth of capture, not for video quality. If you compare it feature-for-feature against Tella or Loom on video, it loses. If you compare it on how many times a day someone will actually use it, it wins comfortably.
Editorial verdict on each
Bubbles
Bubbles is the best value in async video for a team that talks to itself, and the threading is the reason. When the reply to a recording is another recording in the same channel, async video stops being a broadcast and starts actually replacing meetings, which is the thing every tool in this category claims and few structurally support. At $12 per member per month billed yearly you also get an AI notetaker with transcripts and summaries, which is a second product most teams would otherwise buy separately, and the free tier with unlimited 30-minute screen recordings is the most usable one here. Two caveats. Free recordings lock after two weeks, so the archive is not free, and the notetaker is a bot that shows up in your calls whether or not everyone is comfortable with that. And understand what you are not buying: Bubbles does nothing for sales, has no CRM writeback, and embeds in far fewer places than Loom. For a distributed team of three to thirty that wants fewer calls, it is the first thing to try.
Read the full Bubbles profileZight
Zight earns its place by matching how people actually communicate visually, which is mostly screenshots and short GIFs with the occasional video, rather than by being the best video recorder. The capture-to-clipboard-link interaction remains the fastest in this category after fifteen years, annotation with blur is built into the flow where it belongs, and it runs everywhere including Windows and iOS. At around $10 a seat that is good value for a support, engineering, or design team. Go in with three things clear. The free tier is a 25 capture trial, not a plan. The video recorder is plain, with no zoom, no transcript editing, and no captions worth relying on. And every link you share is hosted by a company with a single-digit headcount, so those links, which are the entire product, depend on a subscription you keep paying. Buy it for speed and breadth of capture, and buy something else if what you need is video that customers will watch.
Read the full Zight profileBubbles profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Zight last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.