There are many different ways to take a screenshot on every OS, but third-party screenshot applications have never been more popular. The stock Snipping Tool and Screenshot tools on Windows and macOS, respectively, are functional, but sometimes you need something a little extra. Two of the most popular options for third-party screen capture are ShareX and Flameshot, and while the former is lauded for being feature-rich, Flameshot is probably a better choice for most users, and here are 4 reasons why.
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4
Simpler interface
Does what you need it to, and then gets out of your way
Flameshot has a very minimalistic approach to UI, with everything you need well within your immediate reach. Basic annotation tools are available in a simple menu upon taking a screenshot. Settings are also set to reasonable defaults on first launch, so you don’t need to fuss around with anything to get up and running right away.
ShareX, by contrast, has many nested menus containing tons of configuration options. While some of the functionality it adds is certainly welcome for very specialized screenshot tasks, the majority of users won’t want to fish through context menus for the one setting they want to toggle on or off. It has a ton going on under the hood, which is great if you need that functionality, but a screenshot utility with a learning curve is not what most people would want.
When it comes to annotations, ShareX has a lot of useful tools, but they take many more clicks to accomplish. Adding an arrow, for example, would take you ~5 clicks in ShareX, while in Flameshot it’s only 2. The rest of the drawing tools remain on your screen, ready to go throughout the process, without the need for menu navigation. This is really useful when you’re trying to quickly mark up a screenshot.
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3
Cross-platform
Flameshot works with essentially every OS
One really nice thing about Flameshot is the cross-compatibility between operating systems. The baked-in screenshot tool on macOS is fine for extremely basic screenshot tasks, but having Flameshot available when you need to add annotations quickly saves a lot of time. Sure, you could open it up in Preview and use markup, but that takes a lot longer than just using Flameshot. For Linux users, it offers a lot more than most distros contain out of the box. By contrast, ShareX is only available for Windows, with no Linux or macOS versions available.
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2
Lightweight
Flameshot is smaller and uses fewer resources
Screenshot utilities don’t need to be bulky, and while ShareX only comes to around 40MB, Flameshot is only 15MB and uses about a third of the RAM. Background CPU usage is also lower with Flameshot since it doesn’t have to monitor many different capture types. It doesn’t leave any kind of background process running if you’re not actively taking a screenshot either, which helps on older, lower-powered hardware. Battery implications are important too; if you plan on doing screenshot-heavy work on a mobile device, having that application use up as little juice as possible is important if you’re on-the-go.
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1
Free and open-source
While both ShareX and Flameshot are both open-source, Flameshot’s development team has done a lot to prioritize stability and reliability. They want Flameshot to do one thing extremely well, and that’s take screenshots. The GitHub repo is extremely active and well-maintained, and with such a small code-base in comparison to ShareX, there’s less potential for security vulnerabilities.
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ShareX is great, but most people will be fine with Flameshot
If you need features like GIF capture, complex workflows or a ton of different upload options in your screenshot tool, ShareX might still be the right choice for you. For most other users, however, if you’re looking for an upgrade to the default screenshot tool within your OS, Flameshot does a lot of things right, and is no doubt worth a look.
