Open-source CapCut alternatives

OpenCut is a video editor that is free and open source, aimed at the web, with desktop and mobile versions in view. It is presented as an alternative to CapCut for people who want a video editing tool whose source they can inspect, and it is released under the MIT license. The codebase is written mostly in TypeScript.

The project is being rewritten from the ground up. Planned work includes an Editor API and a plugin-first architecture in which third-party plugins are treated as core, desktop, mobile and browser apps from one Rust-based codebase, an MCP server for AI agents, a headless mode for automation and batch rendering, and a scripting tab inside the editor.

The previous version lives in the opencut-classic repository and is the one to use today; opencut.app still runs this classic version, while the rewrite is staged at a separate address. The maintainers are not accepting outside code contributions yet. It suits creators who want a free web-based editor and developers interested in extensible video tooling.

Shotcut is a free, open-source, cross-platform video editor. It is written in C++ with the Qt 6 framework for its interface and uses the MLT multimedia authoring framework as its editing engine. It is released under the GPLv3 license, and Dan Dennedy is credited as the main author.

Its direct dependencies include FFmpeg for multimedia formats and codecs, Frei0r for video plugins, FFTW and SDL for audio playback. Prebuilt binaries are regularly built and available on the project website, while building from source is recommended mainly for beta testers and contributors, using Qt Creator or the command line with CMake.

The project maintains a features page and a roadmap on its website, and invites translations through Transifex. As a desktop program it runs locally on the user's computer, and there is no hosted service. A credits page lists the full set of direct, indirect and bundled dependencies.

OpenShot Video Editor is a free, open-source editor for video that runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. Its stated aim is to deliver high quality video editing and animation to a wide audience, and it is built with Python, C++ and the Qt framework on top of FFmpeg.

It supports unlimited tracks and layers, clip resizing, scaling, trimming, rotation and cutting, and a timeline with drag and drop, zooming and snapping. Video transitions have real-time previews, and there are title templates, 3D animated titles, SVG-based titles and scrolling credits. Animation works through curve-based keyframes and image sequences, and clips can be speed-changed or time-mapped. Audio can be mixed and edited, effects include brightness, chroma key and more, and hardware encoding and decoding is available as an experimental option.

Many video, audio and image formats are handled through FFmpeg, and projects can be imported or exported as EDL and XML. Installers and daily builds are available from the project website, along with a step-by-step video tutorial and a user guide.

Kdenlive is a free and open-source video editor that targets both quick family videos and larger, more involved projects. It is developed by the KDE community and built on the MLT multimedia framework, which provides the core video editing functionality behind the interface.

The interface is written in C++ with Qt and KDE Frameworks 6. Video effects come from the frei0r library and audio effects from LADSPA plugins, so the effect set can grow through those ecosystems. Downloads of stable releases and experimental daily builds are published on the project website, and users can also help with translations, bug triage, documentation and tutorials.

Kdenlive is licensed under GPL-3.0 and runs as a desktop application on Linux, Windows and macOS. Primary development happens on KDE Invent, with the GitHub repository acting as a mirror, and contributors discuss development in a Matrix channel.