Petal: Open-Source ScreenHero Alternative Launches Free
Original: Show HN: Petal, open-source CoScreen/ScreenHero finally free
Why This Matters
Fills a gap left by CoScreen's shutdown, with a self-hostable, open-source option for dev teams.
Petal, an open-source pair programming tool with low-latency screensharing and remote control, launched free for Mac and Windows. Built by the CoScreen team, it offers self-hosted or cloud options via LiveKit.
The team behind CoScreen has released Petal, a free, open-source desktop app for pair programming and collaborative screensharing. Unlike traditional tools that tile shared screens in a grid, Petal renders shared windows as actual resizable desktop windows — sharp, movable, and independently controlled.
Each shared window shows labeled user cursors, and multiple participants can share windows simultaneously. Remote control is immediate: click into any shared window to type, scroll, or mouse around as if it were local. Persistent rooms (e.g., 'eng-sync') eliminate the usual link-sharing ritual — the room is just always there.
On the infrastructure side, Petal offers three deployment paths. The default 'Petal Cloud' uses LiveKit-hosted video infrastructure with zero configuration. Teams with compliance requirements can self-host by pointing the same app at their own LiveKit server via a single docker-compose file. Developers wanting full control can fork the repo and ship their own build. Linux support is listed as coming. Source is available on GitHub.