Aspects and CleanShot X: which does what

These get compared because both capture web pages on a Mac. That is roughly where the similarity ends, and choosing between them on that overlap alone will get it wrong about half the time.

What CleanShot X is better at

Speed and annotation. A keyboard shortcut, a region, an arrow and some text, a link on the clipboard — that whole loop is a few seconds and it is very well made. It captures anything on screen, not just a browser. It records the screen, hides desktop clutter, and uploads.

If the job is "show a colleague what I am looking at", CleanShot is the better tool and it is not close. Aspects has no annotation, no keyboard-triggered region capture, and no upload-and-share loop.

What Aspects is for

Producing a finished asset at a chosen shape, rather than communicating something quickly.

• Output ratio is the starting point. 9:16, 4:5, 3:4 and the rest, with the render viewport set independently — so you capture a site's mobile layout rather than shrinking its desktop one.
• Scroll as video, not a long PNG. A rendered MP4 of a page scrolling, which is a different artefact from a stitched screenshot.
• Deterministic output. The same artboard produces the same bytes every time, so you can re-export at another ratio and get the same take. Why that matters.
• Five other tools around it. Crop, frame, cut, and two kinds of mockup, on the same canvas and the same export pipeline.

The overlap, honestly

Both take a full-page screenshot of a website. If that is the entire requirement, CleanShot does it faster and you probably already own it.

The reason to reach for Aspects on that same job is when the screenshot has to be a specific shape, or has to be one of twenty done consistently, or has to be a video rather than a still.

Which to buy

• Daily capture, annotation, quick sharing — CleanShot X.
• Finished assets at fixed ratios, scroll videos, mockups, batch work — Aspects.
• Both — genuinely common, and they do not conflict.