Insights vs Medal — Which Clipping App Should You Use?

Both Insights Capture and Medal.tv do the same core thing: they run in the background while you game and save your best moments. They diverge on almost everything after that. This page lays out the real differences so you can pick the one that matches how you play — and we'll be straight about where Medal is the better choice.

The Short Version

Choose Medal if your priority is posting clips to social fast, you want the biggest community feed to browse, and you're happy working on mobile.

Choose Insights if your priority is keeping everything — full-quality clips with no watermark on the free plan, permanent links, team review tools, and the option to earn rewards for gameplay you were recording anyway.

Plenty of players honestly use both. But if you're picking one, the deciding question is usually: are you making content, or are you improving?

Free Plan, Side by Side

The free tier is where the difference is sharpest, because that's what most players actually use.

• Watermark on downloads: Insights — none. Medal — yes on free, removed on Premium.
  
• Upload quality: Insights — full quality. Medal — capped at 1080p on free.
  
• Max clip length: Insights — no hard cap. Medal — 20 minutes on free.
  
• Clip links: Insights — permanent. Medal — free links expire over time.
  
• Ads: Insights — none. Medal — yes on free.
  
• Automatic highlight detection: both yes.
  
• Team and VOD review (timestamped comments, drawing tools): Insights — yes. Medal — no equivalent.
  
• Rewards for recording: Insights — yes, via the Shard Program. Medal — no.
  
• Platform: Insights — Windows. Medal — Windows plus a strong mobile app.
  

The three that matter most in practice: watermarks, expiring links, and quality caps. If you've ever gone back to a clip you shared months ago and found a dead link, that's the difference this list is describing.

Where Medal Is Genuinely Better

Being fair about this matters more than winning every row:

• Mobile. Medal's phone app is strong and their clip-to-social pipeline is fast. If you clip on PC and post from your phone, that's a real workflow advantage.
  
• Community. Medal has a large public feed for browsing and discovering clips. Insights is built around your own library and your team's, not a public feed.
  
• Console breadth. Medal has invested more in capture paths outside Windows PCs.
  

If those three are what you need, Medal is the right answer and we'd rather you know it now.

Where Insights Is the Better Fit

Nothing degrades on the free plan. No watermark burned into your download, no 1080p ceiling, no 20-minute wall, and links that still work next year. For a lot of players that's the whole decision.

Review, not just posting. The VOD review workspace lets you and your teammates watch a clip together with timestamped comments and drawing tools — the setup esports coaches actually use. Medal is built to publish clips; Insights is built to publish and study them.

You can get paid for recording. The Shard Program pays you for gameplay recordings you're already making — 2,000 Shards converts to $1, the redemption minimum is a $5 gift card, and there are 100+ gift card options across 150+ regions including Visa, Steam, Amazon and Riot. Over $100,000 has been paid out so far. Rates vary by game demand: less-saturated titles with active bounties pay more, while heavily-recorded games like Valorant pay a lower baseline. Recordings are anonymized before they leave your PC, and you must be 18+ to join. No competitor has an equivalent.

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Which One Fits You?

• Content creator posting daily to TikTok or Shorts: Medal's mobile pipeline is hard to beat — though the free watermark is the tax you pay for it.
  
• Competitive player or team: Insights. The review tools have no Medal equivalent, and clip permanence matters when you're building a season-long archive.
  
• Casual player who wants clips that stay clean and don't expire: Insights free plan.
  
• You want to earn something back from recording: Insights, via the Shard Program.
  
• You want the biggest public clip community: Medal.
  

FAQs: Insights vs Medal

1. Is Insights Capture free?‍

Yes — recording, automatic highlights, clipping and sharing are free, with no watermark and no quality cap on the free plan.

2. Does Insights put a watermark on clips?‍

No.

3. Can I use both Insights and Medal?‍

Yes. They run alongside each other fine; some players keep Medal for social posting and Insights for their permanent library and team review.

4. Does Insights work on console?‍

Insights Capture is a Windows app. Console players can still upload clips into their Insights library for editing, organizing and team review — see our PS5 clipping guide.

5. What's the catch with Shard rewards?‍

No catch, but real limits: Windows-only, 18+, payouts depend on which games have active bounties, and you redeem in gift cards with a $5 minimum rather than cash. Recordings are anonymized before upload.

Try It Yourself

The fastest way to settle this is to run both for a week. Insights Capture is free, installs in a few minutes, and won't touch your frame rate. If Medal fits you better after that, no hard feelings — we'd rather you have the right tool. For more options, see our roundup of the best Medal alternatives. Contact us now!