BuffrX

 

A free Windows app that clips, edits, rewinds and shares your gameplay, all in one place.
No account. No ads. No watermark. No telemetry.

 

Download for Windows   |   Try the demo   |   Website   |   Discord

 

Watch the trailer
Open the full-quality trailer (30 s)

 

On this page: What it is · Screenshots · Five pillars · Hotkeys · Features · Install · FAQ · Roadmap · Build

---

What it is

BuffrX keeps the last few minutes of your game in memory. Something great happens, you press Alt+1, and that moment is saved. Then trim it, send it to a friend or post it to Discord, without opening a second app.

It exists because setting up OBS was a chore. This is one small app that just works.

Easy to start	No bloat	Free, for real
Install it, then press Alt+1 mid-match. Nothing to set up first.	One small app. Low RAM and CPU while it buffers. Nothing else to install.	Open source under the GPL. No account, no trial, no paid tier.

---

Screenshots

The panel: save, record, screenshot and your whole library in one window

The editor: trim, split, crop and export without leaving BuffrX

Timeline (beta): a running film of your game. Scrub back, set markers, save a clip

Share: copy a link and the clip goes straight from your PC to your friend's

---

The five pillars

Every change to BuffrX has to pass all five.

	Pillar	What it means
1	Lightweight	Built to cost your game as little as possible while it buffers: one process, your GPU's hardware encoder, no GPU work at all when the buffer is off. No Chromium runs unless the editor is open, and no second copy of FFmpeg is shipped.
2	Un-intrusive	Nothing is drawn while no window is open. No input hook unless hotkeys are running. No listening socket, except the sharing helper while a BuffrX link you made is live.
3	Private	No accounts, no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting. BuffrX reaches the internet only when you press Share, and for a daily check for a new version.
4	Simple	One config file, one process, one set of hotkeys. Depth lives behind one disclosure, never in your way.
5	Powerful	The control surface is the encoder's own, not a subset: codec and vendor choice, quality tiers that map to real encoder properties, duration-first bit-rate budgeting, per-track audio, and a watchdog that recovers a stopped buffer without asking you.

---

Hotkeys

Every hotkey can be changed in Settings, and each one also works from a controller.

---

Features

Capture

• Clip and record. Keep the last 30 seconds to 5 minutes (or a number of your own), or record for as long as you like, with or without the buffer running.
• Timeline (beta). Records your game continuously for up to 2 hours. Scrub back, pick a moment, save it.
• Auto-detects your game. Start a fullscreen game and BuffrX switches to it, then back to your screen when you quit. Clips are filed per game.
• Any GPU, any codec. NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. H.264, HEVC and AV1. No AV1 card? It uses H.264.
• Keeps up on its own. If your GPU cannot encode every frame, BuffrX adjusts so no frames are lost.
• Your sound, your mix. Game and microphone each get their own track, volume and mute.

Edit and share

• Editor built in. Trim, split, crop, stitch and export. Screenshots get a pen, arrows, text, crop and a blur for names.
• Built-in preview. Open a clip or screenshot right in the panel. Play and scrub videos, zoom into pictures.
• Share with a link. Full quality, up to 2 GB, straight from your PC to your friend's with nothing uploaded first.
• Post to Discord. BuffrX shrinks the clip to fit your upload limit, so no Nitro is needed.

Make it yours

• Performance mode. Slightly lighter settings for competitive games. It can switch on for just the games you pick.
• Profiles. One for ranked, one for chill. Switch in a click.
• Controller support. Clip, screenshot and record from your pad. It also moves around the app.
• Fourteen themes, dark and light.

---

Private by design

No account	No telemetry	Your clips stay yours	Works offline	No server of ours
Nothing to sign up for.	No analytics code at all.	Stored on your disk, filed by game.	Recording and editing never need the internet.	Sharing goes from your PC to theirs, encrypted.

The daily update check can download the installer from this repository's own release. Nothing listens for connections except the sharing helper, and only while a BuffrX link you made is live.

---

Install

1. Open the latest release and download BuffrX-Setup.exe. A portable BuffrX-0.5.0.zip is there too.
2. Run it.
3. Press Alt+1 in a game.

Want a look first? Try the demo in your browser. No install.

"Windows protected your PC"? Early releases may not be code-signed yet, so SmartScreen can show that notice for any new app. Choose More info, then Run anyway. The source is public, so you can read exactly what it does.

Requirement
OS	Windows 10 or later, 64-bit
Processor	Any 64-bit x86 processor
Memory	512 MB RAM
Graphics	Any GPU
Storage	About 76 MB, plus your clips

---

FAQ

Is it really free? What is the catch?

 

There is none. It is open source (GPL), with no account, no trial and no paid tier. The "Premium" on the website is a joke.

Will it cost me frames in my game?

 

It is built to stay out of the way: one process, your GPU's hardware encoder, and a buffer that does no GPU work when it is off. For an even smaller impact turn on Performance mode. No frame-rate number is published until it has been measured properly on real hardware.

Does my friend need BuffrX to get a shared clip?

 

Yes (it is free). The clip goes straight from your PC to theirs, so your friend can see your IP: share links only with people you trust. A link lasts 1 to 24 hours, and Stop ends it at once.

Does it collect my data?

 

No. No accounts, no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting.

---

Roadmap

Now (0.5)	Next	Later (ideas, not promises)
Save, record and screenshot	Linux	HDR and 10-bit colour
Timeline (beta)	Shorter share links	Watch a share link in a browser
Editor built in	Favourites	More audio sources
Quick Share and Discord	Sorting and filters	Captions in the editor
Controller support	Hold for 2x in previews	Your own sounds
Fourteen themes

---

Build from source

BuffrX links libobs directly into a native engine. No Electron, no Node, no second FFmpeg.

 

One process: BuffrX.exe starts buffrx-engine.exe, which is the whole app. It runs libobs 33.0.1 in-process (capture, audio, encoders, the replay ring, recording, the Timeline), the tray, the hotkeys, sharing and the panel, drawn with Dear ImGui. The editor, clip preview and Timeline preview run in a separate WebView2 process that exists only while one is open.

The toolchain is downloaded, not installed: pinned, SHA-256 verified, staged into work/. No Visual Studio, no system Rust, no system CMake. Run in order:

powershell -File tools/bootstrap-toolchain.ps1   # LLVM-MinGW, CMake, Ninja, Windows SDK, WebView2, Dear ImGui, fonts
powershell -File tools/prepare-runtime.ps1       # pinned OBS release -> runtime/
powershell -File tools/prepare-headers.ps1       # libobs public headers
powershell -File tools/build.ps1                 # configure, build, stage into runtime/bin/64bit

The editor's page, then a portable package:

cd ui; npm install; npm run build; cd ..
powershell -File tools/package.ps1

Run and check it:

$env:BUFFRX_DATA_ROOT = "$env:TEMP\buffrx-test"                      # keep test state out of your profile
runtime\bin\64bit\buffrx-engine.exe --package-smoke-test            # libobs starts, modules load, clean exit
runtime\bin\64bit\buffrx-engine.exe --capture-smoke-test            # capture ~6 s, save a clip, verify it
runtime\bin\64bit\buffrx-engine.exe --show                          # run for real with the panel open
build\buffrx-tests.exe                                              # unit checks

src/engine/       libobs host: config, capture, encoders, replay, Timeline, library, protocol, tray
src/engine/ui/    the panel, Settings, quick panel and tray menu (Dear ImGui)
src/launcher/     BuffrX.exe: checks the package, starts the engine
src-share/        buffrx-share.exe (Rust, iroh): the BuffrX link, alive only while one is
src-tauri/, ui/   the editor, clip preview and Timeline preview (Tauri + React)
tools/            bootstrap, build, packaging and probe scripts

---

License

BuffrX is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. See LICENSE. It links libobs from OBS Studio 33.0.1, also GPL-2.0-or-later. Third-party notices ship in licenses/ with every release.

_{If BuffrX saved you a clip, a star on GitHub is plenty.  |  buffrx.app}