Epic Pen vs ZoomIt

Both tools let you draw on your screen while presenting or recording. That's where the similarity stops.

Epic Pen costs around €24 a year for the full version and runs on Windows and Mac. ZoomIt is free, Windows-only, and built by a Microsoft engineer for his own technical demos. I've used both for three weeks straight on the same machine, and they solved different problems for me.

If you're picking one based on a feature list, you'll probably pick wrong. The right answer depends on what you actually do with the tool.

Definitions

Epic Pen

Epic Pen is a screen annotation app made by Tank Studios, a UK company based in London. You install it, click the toolbar, and start drawing over whatever's on screen. Works on Windows and Mac. The free version covers pen, highlighter, shapes, text, and 16 colors. Pro costs about €24 a year and adds 8 more colors plus team licence management.

ZoomIt

ZoomIt is a 1.7 MB executable from Microsoft Sysinternals, built by Mark Russinovich (he's the CTO of Microsoft Azure now). No installer, no setup. You run it, it lives in your system tray, and everything happens through hotkeys. It zooms into your screen in real time, records video as MP4 or GIF, runs a break timer for presentations, and stays free forever. Windows only.

Key Features

Epic Pen

• Pen, highlighter, and eraser with adjustable size

• Shapes, arrows, and a text tool

• Fading ink that disappears after a few seconds

• Whiteboard and blackboard modes

• Screenshot capture as PNG

• Pen pressure support for Wacom-style tablets

• Multi-monitor support

• Customizable hotkeys

• 16 colors free, 24 colors in Pro

ZoomIt

• Static zoom on Ctrl+1 and live zoom on Ctrl+4

• Draw without zooming on Ctrl+2

• MP4 and GIF recording on Ctrl+5

• Break timer on Ctrl+3

• Six pen colors plus matching highlighters

• Blur pen for hiding sensitive info on screen

• DemoType for scripted text input during live coding demos

• Shape drawing with modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, Tab)

• Whiteboard and blackboard modes

• Touch and pen input on tablets

• Runs from a USB stick or Sysinternals Live cloud

Pros and Cons

My Hands-On Experience

I ran both on the same Windows 11 laptop for three weeks. Recorded tutorials, ran two paid training sessions, and used them in client calls.

Epic Pen was the one I kept open during longer teaching sessions. The visible toolbar meant I didn't have to remember which key did what when I was already juggling slides and questions. The fading ink feature mattered more than I expected. After 30 minutes of scribbling on a slide, the screen would normally look like a kid's chalkboard, but Epic Pen quietly wiped my older marks while keeping the recent ones visible. Small thing. Big difference.

The whiteboard mode also surprised me. I used it three times in one session to sketch a quick funnel diagram, and the K key (blackboard) once when I wanted dark mode for screenshots.

What frustrates me with Epic Pen was the lack of zoom. I was demoing a config file with 9pt text and had no way to magnify it without leaving the app. I ended up shrinking my Windows display scaling to 125% as a workaround, which is the kind of friction the tool exists to remove.

ZoomIt felt rough for the first three days. I kept hitting Ctrl+1 expecting something to happen and getting confused when nothing did (turns out I had a conflicting AutoHotkey script eating the shortcut). Once I remapped it and let my fingers learn the hotkeys, ZoomIt got out of my way completely. Live zoom on Ctrl+4 is genuinely the feature I'd miss most if you took it away.

The recording was the unexpected win. I'd planned to use OBS for tutorial capture and ZoomIt only for annotation, but after one Ctrl+5 capture session I realized ZoomIt's recording was fine for everything under 5 minutes. GIF export saved me from converting MP4s to share in Slack later.

The blur pen is the one I tell everyone about. Mid-demo, I'd realize my client's email was visible in the corner of my screen. Tap B (for blur) and a few strokes later it was hidden. No screen-share pause, no Photoshop later. Just done.

Three weeks in, I kept both installed. ZoomIt handles anything where I'm zooming or recording. Epic Pen handles longer teaching where I want a clean, visible UI and fading ink. If someone forced me to pick one, I'd keep ZoomIt because the zoom feature is the real differentiator and the price is zero. But if I were on a Mac, the choice gets made for me. Epic Pen is the only one that runs.

I rate Epic Pen 8.4 out of 10. Polished, well-priced, cross-platform, but missing zoom and recording.

I rate ZoomIt 8.7 out of 10. Free, fast, packed with features, but Windows only and rough for the first week.

Which Tool Is Better?

Epic Pen is better for online educators, presenters, and Mac users who want a clean annotation tool with a visible toolbar and don't mind paying a small yearly fee. ZoomIt is better for developers, IT professionals, technical content creators, and Windows users who need real-time zoom, built-in screen recording, and a tool that costs nothing. The right pick comes down to whether you're doing classroom-style annotation or technical screen demos.