Screenpipe Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Honest Verdict

TLDR

Screenpipe is an open-source, local-first tool that records your screen and audio 24/7 and builds an AI-queryable memory of everything you have seen and heard. It is the strongest open alternative to Rewind and Limitless, with full data ownership and a plugin ecosystem. But it is resource-hungry and still rough. Best for: privacy-conscious developers. Price: Free OSS core, app from $25/mo. Rating: 6.8/10.

What is Screenpipe?

Screenpipe continuously records what is on your screen and what comes through your audio, then turns that stream into a searchable, AI-queryable memory of everything you have done on your computer. Think rewind-style timeline: you can scrub back to any moment, or ask an AI agent questions like what did that Figma link in last Tuesday’s call say, and get an answer pulled from your own history. Capture runs locally, transcription uses a local Whisper model (or Deepgram if you opt into cloud), and the whole thing is built so your data never has to leave the machine. On top of the capture engine sits a plugin system called pipes: small automations that trigger on events, such as a meeting ending, and write to apps like Notion, Slack, or Linear.

It is built by Mediar AI and was accepted into Y Combinator’s S26 batch. The defining choice is that the core engine and CLI are open source under the MIT license, so anyone can read the code, change it, and run it themselves. We dug into the project and it positions itself directly as the open-source answer to Rewind (now Limitless), Microsoft Recall, Granola, and Otter.ai, all of which are closed and mostly cloud-bound. That matters now because always-on AI memory is having a moment, and the obvious worry is where all that intensely personal data lives. Screenpipe’s bet is that the answer should be on your own disk. It sits in the same conversation as Minimi, the ambient memory tool for Claude, except Screenpipe captures your whole screen rather than just your AI chats.

What Are Screenpipe’s Key Features?

24/7 Local Screen and Audio Capture

The engine records your screen and captures both system audio (what you hear) and microphone input (what you say), then runs speech-to-text locally with Whisper Large-V3-Turbo. It handles speaker identification and works with any audio source, so a Zoom call, a Google Meet, or a Teams meeting all get transcribed the same way. On supported Macs it can lean on Apple Intelligence for on-device summaries and action items at zero cloud cost. Recent versions shifted from pure OCR to accessibility APIs as the primary capture method, which the team says captures text with far higher accuracy and uses dramatically fewer resources than the old OCR approach.

AI Query Across Your History

Once captured, your timeline becomes something you can ask questions of. Screenpipe can run against local models through Ollama, or cloud models like Claude and Gemini if you choose, and answer questions or draft text grounded in what you actually saw and heard. There is also a privacy filter: an on-device model can strip sensitive data like card numbers, SSNs, and API keys before anything is stored, and you can exclude specific apps, windows, or URLs entirely. That granular control is a meaningful differentiator from cloud tools that capture everything by default.

The Pipes Plugin Ecosystem

Pipes are Screenpipe’s automation layer. A pipe can watch for an event, like a meeting wrapping up, then act: summarize the call and post it to Slack, update a Linear ticket, or write notes into Notion. Because the platform ships a full REST API and SDK, developers can build their own pipes against their screen and audio history, which is the part that makes Screenpipe interesting as a foundation rather than just an app. Honesty check: the ecosystem is young, so do not expect the depth of plugins you would find on a mature platform yet.

Local-First, Open Source by Design

Everything defaults to local. The codebase is MIT licensed and fully auditable, you can pick your own AI model, and nothing is sent to any cloud unless you turn that on. For people who refuse to pipe their entire working life into someone else’s servers, this is the whole point and the main reason to pick Screenpipe over Limitless or Recall. The tradeoff is that running it well takes a capable machine and some willingness to tinker.

How Much Does Screenpipe Cost?

Screenpipe starts at free, and it is a genuine free, not a trial. The core engine and CLI are open source under the MIT license, so you can clone the repo, build it, and run the whole thing locally forever without paying anyone. Bring your own model with Ollama and there are no per-query costs either. For developers comfortable with a terminal, this is the most powerful free AI memory setup available.

The prebuilt, signed desktop app is where money comes in. Standard is $25 per month and gives you local-first capture, search, and the timeline, all on your device. Pro is $50 per seat per month and adds cloud sync, cloud AI, and integrations, with teams buying 5 or more seats self-serve. Enterprise is $150 per seat per month for managed deployment, central config, shared pipes, an admin dashboard, SSO and SAML, and MDM readiness. One important note: existing lifetime licenses stay valid, but new lifetime purchases are no longer sold, so the era of paying once is over for new users.

For comparison, Limitless sells a subscription for its cloud service, Microsoft Recall is bundled free with Copilot+ Windows PCs, and Minimi is currently free for Claude-focused ambient memory. So Screenpipe is unusual: the free open-source path costs nothing but demands effort, while the convenient app at $25/mo is priced above several closed competitors. You are essentially choosing between paying with your time (self-host) or paying with money (the app), and the privacy benefit holds either way.

Who is Screenpipe Best For?

Use Screenpipe if privacy and ownership are non-negotiable. If the idea of a cloud service holding a 24/7 recording of your screen makes you uneasy, Screenpipe is the answer, because the data sits on your disk and the code is open for inspection. It is also a strong fit for developers and indie builders who want to build automations on top of their own history using the API and pipes, and for anyone who specifically wants a local Rewind or Limitless alternative they can self-host.

Skip Screenpipe if you want a polished, set-and-forget consumer app today. It is still early-stage, the main branch moves fast and breaks things, and users report bugs and database-lock errors. Also skip it if you are on older or low-spec hardware: capturing your screen and running transcription locally can eat 600MB to 4GB of RAM and 5-10GB of disk a month, which a tired laptop will feel. If you would rather pay for someone else to handle reliability and you do not mind cloud storage, Limitless or Recall will be a smoother ride.

Best Screenpipe Alternatives

Limitless

Limitless is the cloud-based successor to Rewind and the most polished take on always-on personal memory. It is reliable and easy to live with, with a clean app and pendant hardware option. The catch is the opposite of Screenpipe’s strength: your data lives in Limitless’s cloud, not on your machine. It is sold as a subscription. Pick Limitless if you want convenience and trust the cloud; pick Screenpipe if you do not.

Microsoft Recall

Recall is Microsoft’s built-in timeline feature, bundled free on Copilot+ Windows PCs, that snapshots your screen so you can search back through what you did. It costs nothing extra if you already have the right hardware and stores data locally on Windows. The limits are real: it is Windows-only, tied to specific PCs, and far less extensible than Screenpipe’s API and pipes. Good if you live in Windows and want zero setup; weak if you want cross-platform or developer control.

Minimi

Minimi takes a narrower angle: ambient memory built specifically for Claude, so your AI assistant remembers context across conversations rather than recording your entire screen. It is far lighter weight than Screenpipe and currently free, though it has no paid tier yet, which raises questions about its long-term funding. If all you actually want is for Claude to retain context, Minimi is simpler. If you want a full searchable record of everything you see and hear, Screenpipe is the broader tool.

Final Verdict: Is Screenpipe Worth It?

Screenpipe lands at 6.8. It is the most credible open-source, local-first answer to the always-on AI memory category, and that is not a small thing. The MIT license, the on-device default, the bring-your-own-model flexibility, and the pipes ecosystem add up to something no closed competitor offers: a memory layer you can actually own, audit, and extend. For privacy-minded developers and tinkerers, it is genuinely exciting, and the free self-hosted path means you risk nothing but time to try it.

The reasons it is not rated higher are equally honest. It is resource-hungry, it is still early and occasionally breaks, and the convenient desktop app now costs $25/mo while lifetime licenses have been retired. If you want a finished consumer product, this is not yet it. Our recommendation: if you care about privacy and you are comfortable in a terminal, self-host the free core and see how it fits your machine before you ever think about the paid app. If you want polish over ownership, Limitless will serve you better today, but keep an eye on Screenpipe, because the trajectory is the right one.