An honest comparison
A free, open source AppScreens alternative
AppScreens is a polished, well maintained screenshot tool, and this page will not pretend otherwise. But its free plan stops at one project, five screenshots and five templates, and the next step is a subscription. Open Screenshot Generator takes a different path. Everything is free, the source is public, and your work never leaves your machine
Prices and limits checked against appscreens.com on July 18, 2026
Side by side
The two tools, honestly
| Open Screenshot Generator | AppScreens | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no paid tier exists | Free plan, then Pro at $99 per year or $25 per month, Scale at $180 per year |
| Account | None | Required, projects live in your account |
| Where your work lives | Your browser storage, on your machine | Their cloud, which also means projects follow you across machines |
| Free plan limits | No limits, every feature is free | 1 project, 1 app, 5 screenshots, 5 templates, core sizes, export blocked while Pro features are in use |
| Device sizes | Every size both stores require, free, plus custom canvas sizes | Core sizes free, Apple Watch, Vision Pro, Wear OS and custom sizes need a plan |
| App preview videos | Yes, MP4 exported locally in Chrome, Edge or the desktop app | Not offered |
| 3D device poses | Yes, free | Advanced frames are a Pro feature |
| Store upload | Manual, you upload the exports yourself | 1 click upload to App Store Connect and Google Play on Pro |
| Localization | Manual per language, fonts include Arabic and Urdu | 80+ languages with AI translation on Scale, genuinely strong |
| Open source | Yes, full source on GitHub | No |
Credit where due
When AppScreens is the better pick
- You localize into many languages. Their translation pipeline with per language captions and per language screenshots in one project is genuinely good, and nothing here matches it yet
- You ship constantly and want 1 click store upload. Their Pro plan pushes finished sets straight into App Store Connect and the Play Console. Note what that trade involves, you hand them your store API credentials, which they store encrypted on their servers
- You work from several machines. Cloud projects follow your account anywhere. Here a project lives in one browser unless you export and reimport it
The other side
When Open Screenshot Generator wins
- You want free without asterisks. No watermark, no blocked exports, no gated device sizes, no template ceiling. The features do not watch which plan you are on, because there are no plans
- Your screenshots should stay private. An unreleased app or client work under NDA never touches a server here, because there is no server. That is an architecture, not a policy
- You want preview videos from the same tool. Drop a screen recording into a frame and export an MP4 in Chrome, Edge or the desktop app, conformed to what App Store Connect accepts. AppScreens does not do video
- You like tools you can read. The full source is public on GitHub, and if the project ever disappeared, the code would still be yours to run
Questions
Fair questions, straight answers
Is Open Screenshot Generator really completely free?
Yes. There is no paid tier at all. No account, no watermark, no export limits, no gated device sizes. The full source code is public on GitHub
Is the free AppScreens plan enough for one app?
Possibly. Its free sizes do cover the required iPhone tier. The limits you hit first are five screenshots per project, five templates, a single project, and export being blocked whenever a Pro feature sneaks into your design
Does AppScreens watermark free exports?
No, and this page will not claim it does. Exports that only use free features come out clean. Using any Pro feature shows a watermark in the designer and blocks export entirely until you remove the feature or upgrade
Can I import my AppScreens project?
There is no importer. You bring your raw screenshots and captions and rebuild in a template, which for most sets takes well under an hour. The optional AI agent can do the first layout pass for you
Keep reading
Related pages
Try the free path first
If it covers your needs, you saved $99 a year. If it does not, AppScreens will still be there tomorrow