Capturing your command-line sessions is incredibly useful, whether you’re creating tutorials, troubleshooting issues, demonstrating software, or simply keeping a record of your work. Thankfully, there’s a wealth of excellent tools available at no cost. Exploring free and open source terminal recorders offers powerful capabilities without the burden of licenses or vendor lock-in.
These versatile programs allow you to record your terminal output, commands, and interactions, often saving them in various formats for easy sharing or playback. Some tools capture the session as plain text, while others generate dynamic recordings that simulate the terminal experience perfectly, allowing for copy-pasting text or interactive playback. You can find options that produce animated GIFs, scalable SVG animations, or custom formats optimized for web playback.
Let’s delve into some of the most effective options for terminal recording:
- script: A classic Linux and Unix utility, often pre-installed. It records sessions as plain text files, capturing input and output. Simple and reliable for basic text logs.
- asciinema: Highly popular for its ability to create asciicasts. These are lightweight, shareable recordings hosted online or embedded easily. It captures the terminal’s output and timing, offering interactive playback where viewers can copy text. Open source and easy to use.
- terminalizer: A powerful JavaScript tool that runs on Node.js. It records sessions and generates shareable GIF images or JSON files for custom playback. Offers features like custom themes and frame delay control.
- ttyd: Not strictly a recorder, but allows sharing your terminal session over the web. Useful for collaboration or remote demonstrations. Can be combined with recording tools.
- termitos: A simple Python script for recording terminal sessions.
- peek: A simple, dedicated screen recorder for Linux, great for capturing specific areas including terminal windows as GIFs or videos.
- byzanz: Another Linux screen recorder capable of exporting to GIF. Effective for capturing animated demonstrations of terminal interactions.
- vhs: A command-line tool specifically designed for creating GIFs from terminal sessions, particularly useful for generating examples for documentation. It uses a simple scripting language to define commands and interactions.
- termrec: A simple C program for recording and playing back terminal sessions.
- tlog: A tool focused on logging terminal sessions securely.
- gotty: Similar to ttyd, shares your terminal session over the web.
- shelr: A service combined with a client for recording and sharing terminal sessions.
- showterm: An older, but still functional web service for recording and sharing sessions.
- terminalplay: A Python-based tool for recording and playing back terminal sessions with timing information.
- screenkey: Displays your keystrokes on the screen while you record, which is invaluable for tutorials and demos. Often used in conjunction with a video screen recorder.
Choosing the right terminal recorder depends on your specific needs: whether you need plain text logs, interactive web-based playback, animated GIFs for documentation, or live sharing. The open source landscape provides a robust collection of tools to accomplish any terminal recording task effectively and efficiently. Exploring these options ensures you find the perfect fit for your workflow.
Source: https://www.linuxlinks.com/best-free-open-source-terminal-session-recording/
