Kite: the screen recorder for Mac that turns your demos into Apple-style videos — free with watermark

If your product needs a launch video, a tutorial or a demo for the landing and you don't have a full-time studio or editor, Kite opt for a very specific shortcut: you record the screen—on a Mac or even an iPhone—and the tool does the rest with automatic zoom, animations 3D, device mockups, kinetic text, AI voice and soundtrack. The promise on the cover is direct: «makes your demo videos look like Apple commercials in minutes».

Kite is a San Francisco startup backed by Y Combinator (summer 2023). According to its YC listing, “hundreds of YC companies” use it for launch videos, changelogs, networks, and landing pages — a clear niche: product and marketing teams that today alternate between flat Loom, tedious After Effects, or expensive agencies.

Four-step workflow

The website summarizes the jargon-free post-production process:

1. Record your Mac — Kite tracks cursor and keyboard to know where the action is.
2. Make it stand out — auto zoom, 3D animations, and pointer motion smoothing.
3. Record your iPhone — useful for mobile apps without a strange cable.
4. Combine and edit — multiple clips, trims, speed and text-only scenes.

Built-in functions (all in one)

You can import your own videos and images, although automatic cursor tracking only works with Kite's built-in recorder, according to its FAQ. It also supports combining unlimited recordings, trimming and merging into a single export.

Prices (July 2026)

The kite.video pricing page offers four levels. The Free plan is surprisingly complete: all the features, unlimited exports and 1,000 sample characters for AI speech, with watermark on the exports. It does not ask for registration to start ("No signup required").

• Pro — $40/month (annual billing): no watermark, one user, 10,000 AI voice characters per month.
• Team — $55/month per seat (annual, minimum 3 seats = $165/month): all Pro + cloud projects and centralized billing.
• Enterprise: SSO, enterprise security, videos via API and custom integrations — commercial contact.

On the website they also announce an AI Demo Video Agent on the waiting list: it promises to transform rough recordings into polished videos with animations, text, voice and music more automatically.

Privacy and local-first approach

Kite insists that it is a local-first Mac app: by default, recordings and imports are not uploaded to servers until the user creates a shareable link, uses the Team cloud plan, or activates AI features that require remote processing (voice, AI agent). Projects (.kite) also live on local disk. They offer settings to disable analytics (Sentry, Mixpanel) and cloud functions.

Who is it suitable for?

Kite competes on the same shelf as tools like Screen Studio, but opts for a generous free tier and an “Easy Canva, OpenAI/Figma result” flow. If you release features often—like Framer, Brex, or Vercel in the examples the founders cite in their YC launch—you can replace hours of timeline with a semi-automatic pipeline.

Honest limitations: today it is native macOS (Windows in development with waitlist), the advanced edition does not replace a broadcast editor and the AI functions consume monthly fee on paid plans. For most startups that only need a clean demo for Product Hunt, changelog or landing hero, the Free plan is enough to try; The jump to Pro makes sense when the watermark is no longer acceptable to clients.

Download: kite.video — «Try Kite for free». Support: support@kite.video.