The Async Video Market Is Consolidating. Here Is Who Survives.
Loom set the category. Atlassian bought it. Our analysis of why distribution, not features, will decide which async video tools last.
Corrected October 3, 2026: an earlier version named several companies as "at risk" or likely to "quietly disappear" without data to support those calls, and it described the market as splitting into "winners and walking dead." It also cited "200,000+ companies" using Atlassian tools, a figure we could not source. We removed those labels and the figure, dated and linked the remaining numbers, noted that Claap is now part of lemlist, and fixed a chart that contradicted the text. See our corrections page.
Screen recording is a feature, not a product
Our view: the async video market is consolidating around distribution, and standalone tools without a platform behind them face the hardest path.
Screen recording is a feature, not a product. The standalone value proposition ("record your screen and share a link") is easy to copy. What matters is where the recording lives after you make it. Loom is now sold by Atlassian. Vidyard integrates with HubSpot and Salesforce, where sales teams already work. If your recordings live in a standalone app that nobody checks, they do not get watched.
In 2024, async video was a crowded category. Loom, Vidyard, Claap, Tella, mmhmm, Sendspark, Berrycast, Hippo Video, Zight, Volley, and a dozen others were all competing for the "record your screen and send it to someone" use case.
Atlassian announced its $975 million acquisition of Loom in October 2023, below the $1.53 billion valuation Loom reached in 2021. That deal did two things: it validated the category and it undercut the "beat Loom" strategy for everyone else. It is hard to out-Loom Loom when Loom comes from the same vendor as Jira and Confluence.
Why consolidation is happening
Distribution wins. Our read is that the next 18 months will be decided by distribution, not features. Loom has Atlassian. Vidyard has its CRM integrations. Everyone else is selling to individuals who can get basic screen recording for free from their operating system.
AI compressed the feature gap. In 2023, Loom's AI summaries and auto-chapters stood out. Since then, AI titles, summaries, and transcripts have become common across the category. When everyone has similar features, distribution and pricing decide the winner.
Budgets tightened. Async video tools are a discretionary purchase, and discretionary tools are easy targets when finance asks "what can we cancel?" A paid standalone recorder is hard to justify when Loom's free Starter plan covers light use and built-in OS recorders cost nothing.
Standalone tools are folding into larger products. Claap, now part of lemlist, shows the pattern: its site carries the lemlist brand and leads with turning sales calls and meetings into CRM data, while still highlighting EU hosting and GDPR compliance.
The market map
We think the market splits into three groups. This is an editorial call based on distribution, not a ranking of product quality. If you are thinking about replacing meetings with async updates, our summary of the research on meeting overload covers the practical side.
Loom (Atlassian). The category leader. Loom had 25 million customers at the time of the 2023 deal, the latest figure we found. Atlassian now sells it directly, and the free tier covers light individual use. The tie to Atlassian makes it sticky in ways standalone tools cannot match.
Vidyard. Positioned around sales and marketing. If your async video is a sales prospecting tool (personalized video emails, CRM tracking, viewer analytics), Vidyard's HubSpot and Salesforce integrations are the point. It is not trying to be a general-purpose screen recorder.
Who is most exposed
An earlier version of this article named specific standalone tools as doomed. We had no data for those calls, and every company we named was live and selling when we checked on October 3, 2026. Several have repositioned instead; Hippo Video's site, for example, now leads with agentic AI video creation. The structural pressures below are our analysis, not a forecast for any single company.
General-purpose screen recorders without a niche. If the only value proposition is "record your screen and share a link," the competition includes Loom's free tier and built-in OS tools (macOS screen recording, the Windows Snipping Tool with video). Basic screen recording is close to free.
Tools without enterprise distribution. Tools that sell mainly to individuals and small teams face the hardest path. Individual users default to free. Small teams default to whatever their company already pays for. Without an enterprise sales motion or a platform integration, growth gets harder.
Video messaging tools in sales. Sendspark and Hippo Video built on personalized video for sales outreach. That use case is real but narrow, and they compete directly with Vidyard there. Their prospects depend on staying ahead in that niche.
Where this ends
Our prediction for the end of 2027: the general-purpose async video market centers on Loom (bundled with Atlassian) and Vidyard (sales), with niche players surviving where their specialization holds. Standalone tools without a niche will face pressure to be acquired, repositioned, or wound down. This is a forecast, and we will revisit it.
Money alone does not change that picture. mmhmm raised $100 million in 2021, and its products now sit under the Airtime brand (mmhmm.app redirects there). Funding buys time; distribution decides who keeps the users.
If you are choosing an async video tool today, start with what you already pay for. If your company uses Atlassian, Loom is the default. If you use HubSpot or Salesforce for sales, look at Vidyard. If you are in Europe and care about EU data hosting, look at Claap (now part of lemlist). Whatever you pick, make sure you can export your recordings if the vendor changes course.