COMPARISON
Clarus vs the Snipping Tool
An honest comparison, including where the Snipping Tool wins.
The short version: the Snipping Tool is genuinely good at taking a rectangle and putting it on your clipboard, and it costs nothing. Clarus is for everything that happens after the capture. If you never do anything after the capture, you do not need Clarus.
Where the Snipping Tool is the right choice
It is built into Windows, it opens instantly on Win+Shift+S, and for "screenshot this, paste it in a chat" it does the job with nothing to install and nothing to learn. It also records the screen now. If that is your whole workflow, use it, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Where it stops
The gap shows up the moment a capture has to do more than exist:
- A page taller than your screen. The Snipping Tool captures what is visible. Clarus scrolls the page and stitches one tall image.
- Text trapped in a picture. Clarus reads it back out with offline OCR, so an error message in a screenshot becomes text you can paste into a search box.
- Finding a capture again. Clarus indexes the words inside every capture, so you can search for what a screenshot said months later.
- Marking something up. Arrows, numbered steps, highlights that snap to text, and blur that stays put when the content underneath moves in a video.
- Editing a recording. A real timeline with trimming, splitting, zoom moves and annotations, not just a raw file.
- Sending it. One click uploads and puts a short link on your clipboard, with an expiry and a password if you want them.
Side by side
| Snipping Tool | Clarus | |
|---|---|---|
| Area, window, fullscreen capture | Yes | Yes |
| Screen recording | Yes | Yes, with a timeline editor |
| Scrolling capture | No | Yes |
| Text recognition (OCR) | No | Yes, offline |
| Search the text inside your captures | No | Yes, free |
| Annotation editor | Basic pen and highlighter | 15 tools, editable after the fact |
| Capture card you can drag into any app | No | Yes |
| Share link | No | Yes, with expiry and password |
| Pin a capture on top of everything | No | Yes |
| Works offline | Yes | Yes, everything except sharing |
| Price | Free with Windows | Free core, $5.99/mo or $39/yr for the advanced tools |
You keep the shortcut
Clarus takes over Win+Shift+S so the keys you already press open Clarus instead. You can give it back to Windows whenever you like in Settings → Advanced, and uninstalling Clarus hands it back automatically. We think a tool that quietly keeps a system shortcut after you remove it is behaving badly.
What it costs to find out
Every new account gets one month with every feature unlocked, with no card and nothing to cancel. After that the core stays free forever. See what is free and what is Pro.