What is EffectCraft used for?

EffectCraft is a native compositor for motion graphics and VFX with compositions, layers, keyframes, effects, expressions, and 3D cameras and lights. It is a good fit for motion graphics creation and visual effects compositing.

Is EffectCraft open source?

Yes. EffectCraft is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at storytold/effectcraft and is written mainly in Rust.

Yes. EffectCraft is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host EffectCraft?

Yes. EffectCraft can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is EffectCraft an alternative to?

EffectCraft is an open-source alternative to Adobe After Effects. Other open-source alternatives to Adobe After Effects include Shotcut, Kdenlive and TiXL.

Is EffectCraft actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to EffectCraft was on 13 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.9.2, published on 12 October 2026. The project has 6.3k stars on GitHub.

EffectCraft: open-source alternative to Adobe After Effects

About EffectCraft

EffectCraft is a motion graphics and visual effects compositor written in pure Rust. It includes compositions, layers, keyframes, 259 effects, expressions, 3D cameras and lights, and a render queue. The software is described as young, moving fast, and already usable.

Key features

Familiar panels and keyframes: linear, bezier, hold and eased keys, roving keys, and a graph editor with value and speed curves
Layers: solids, shapes, text, footage, nested compositions, nulls, adjustment layers, cameras and lights, with parenting, track mattes
259 effects including blur, color correction, distortion, generators, keying, particles and simulation, stylize and time effects
3D layers with cameras, depth of field and lights that cast soft ray-traced shadows, plus orbit, pan and dolly tools
JavaScript expressions with wiggle, loops and layer references, edited inline and linked to any property
Export to H.264 and ProRes with alpha, PNG, TIFF and 32-bit EXR sequences, GIF, and Lottie import and export

Good fit for

Motion graphics creation
Visual effects compositing

Built with: Rust tools
Tags: motion graphics; visual effects; compositor; rust; 3d; video editing

EffectCraft: questions and answers

What is EffectCraft used for?: EffectCraft is a native compositor for motion graphics and VFX with compositions, layers, keyframes, effects, expressions, and 3D cameras and lights. It is a good fit for motion graphics creation and visual effects compositing.
Is EffectCraft open source?: Yes. EffectCraft is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at storytold/effectcraft and is written mainly in Rust.
Is EffectCraft free?: Yes. EffectCraft is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host EffectCraft?: Yes. EffectCraft can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is EffectCraft an alternative to?: EffectCraft is an open-source alternative to Adobe After Effects. Other open-source alternatives to Adobe After Effects include Shotcut, Kdenlive and TiXL.
Is EffectCraft actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to EffectCraft was on 13 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.9.2, published on 12 October 2026. The project has 6.3k stars on GitHub.