Morae alternative

Morae ended in 2020. Your lab did not.

If you ran usability sessions in Morae, you already know how Ovo Logger works: record the session, let observers log on the live clock, review with the notes beside the video, and report. Ovo Logger is the moderated usability lab software that kept going, built by people who ran labs, and it runs on hardware you own.

Download and try it What maps to what →

2020 TechSmith stopped selling Morae, and ended support the same year

01 / What you did in Morae, and where it lives now

Recorder, Observer, Manager: where each one lives in Ovo Logger.

Morae had three parts: Recorder on the participant's PC, Observer on the network, Manager for the analysis. Ovo Logger does the same three jobs. Here is each of Morae's parts, and what does its work now.

Morae RecorderOne PC's screen plus up to two cameras, picture in picture, with mouse clicks and keystrokes logged automatically.

RecordEvery screen, camera and capture card on one clock, including the participant's own device through a capture card, with clicks and keys logged when the participant works on the recording machine. See Record

Morae ObserverA second Windows PC on the LAN, logging markers and notes against the recording.

ObserversAny phone or laptop on your network, no install. Notes and tags land on the live recording clock, server-stamped, each observer keeping an independent task timeline. See Moderate & observe

MarkersA keystroke to drop a marker, then a note typed against it.

Notes and QuicklogsThe first character you type marks the moment, so the note lands where you started reacting. Single-key Quicklog tags for what you log most.

Tasks and task timesA task list defined before the session, timed by the observer.

Task timingTimed by the observer, by the participant themselves from the Participant Station, or corrected afterward against the video. Every timeline is on the review band at once, and only spans you have judged count in the figures.

Surveys and SUSQuestionnaires delivered from the Recorder, SUS scored.

SurveysPre-study, post-task and post-study sections, SUS auto-scored, delivered on the Participant Station. Results per question, exported as CSV.

Morae ManagerThe analysis desk: search markers, graph the standard metrics, cut highlight reels, export to Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Review and AnalysisSearch every note, every spoken word and every word that appeared on screen. Task Timings and Survey Responses views with CSV export, highlight clips cited to the moment, and the whole study exported as CSV plus a self-contained HTML page anyone can open. See Review

02 / Side by side

Morae as it last shipped, against Ovo Logger today.

Capability	Morae 3	Ovo Logger
Capture sources	One PC's screen, plus up to two cameras	Screens, cameras and capture cards, synchronized on one clock
Observers	Windows PCs on the LAN, Observer installed	Any phone or laptop, no install, notes server-stamped
Task timing	By the observer	Observer, participant self-timed, or corrected against the video afterward
Surveys and SUS	✓ Yes	✓ Yes, per-section delivery and results
Transcription	✕ None	✓ On-premises, every spoken word searchable
On-screen text search	✕ None	✓ Find the moment a word appeared on screen
Findings report	Graphs and highlight video, written up by hand	✓ Drafted on-premises, every claim cited to a moment in a recording (optional AI Pack)
Where the data lives	Local project files	One study file on your disk, nothing uploaded, works air-gapped
Exports	Data tables to Excel, a Word add-in, highlight reels to PowerPoint	CSV, a self-contained HTML study page, MP4 highlight clips, the report as HTML
Accessibility	Not stated	✓ WCAG 2.2 AA, keyboard throughout. Details
Platform	Windows, discontinued 2020	Windows 10 and 11 and Apple silicon Macs, released every few weeks. On the Mac
Licensing	Sold per seat, then discontinued	One price a year, per machine, priced by the sources your lab records. Pricing
Support	Ended 2020	✓ Active, from the people who make it

Morae is a trademark of TechSmith Corporation. Ovo Studios is not affiliated with TechSmith. Statements about Morae describe the product as it last shipped and are offered so that former users can see what maps to what.

03 / What Morae never had

Two things Morae could not do, and Ovo Logger does without leaving the building.

Recognized

Every word, searchable

Speech is transcribed on the recording machine, and the text on the participant's screen is read as it appears. Search a phrase and land on the moment, in any session. Nothing is sent anywhere to do it.

Cited

A findings report with receipts

With the optional AI Pack, the study drafts a plain-language findings report on your own hardware, and every claim in it carries a citation you can click to watch. The figures under it are computed by the app, never by a model. How we use AI

04 / Moving over

Start the next study here. Keep the old ones where they are.

Try the whole product first

Ovo Logger runs without a license. Everything is there to explore; unlicensed recordings simply carry a trial watermark. Install it on a laptop, record a rehearsal, and see whether the review desk feels like coming home.

Download

Bring your lab, or none

A single laptop with a webcam is a complete lab. A fixed suite with cameras, switchers and an observation room is the same software with more sources, and Ovo Studios builds those too.

The Lab

Morae project files stay in Morae

Ovo Logger does not read Morae recordings or Manager projects, and we would rather say so than let you find out. Keep Manager installed for the studies you have; there is nothing to migrate for a study that is finished. Projects from earlier versions of Ovo Logger import directly.

Talk to the people who built it

Ovo Logger was built by usability researchers, for the way a moderated session actually runs. Tell us what your Morae setup did and we will tell you, honestly, what changes and what does not.

Contact

Morae alternative

Pick up where Morae left off.

Download Ovo Logger and run a session today, or book a demo and we will walk through a study the way you used to.

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