What is Shotcut used for?

Shotcut is a free, cross-platform video editor built on the MLT framework and Qt, released under the GPLv3 license. It is a good fit for editing personal and project videos; and free video editing on Linux, Windows or macOS.

Is Shotcut open source?

Yes. Shotcut is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at mltframework/shotcut and is written mainly in C++.

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

Can I self-host Shotcut?

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

What is Shotcut an alternative to?

Shotcut is an open-source alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and CapCut. Other open-source alternatives to Adobe Premiere Pro include OpenShot, Kdenlive and OpenCut.

Is Shotcut actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Shotcut was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v26.9.27, published on 28 September 2026. The project has 15k stars on GitHub.

Shotcut: open-source alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro

About Shotcut

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.

Key features

Cross-platform desktop video editor
Built on the MLT multimedia framework
FFmpeg format and codec support
Frei0r video plugin support
Qt 6 user interface
Regularly built binaries

Good fit for

→Editing personal and project videos
→Free video editing on Linux, Windows or macOS

Built with: C++
Tags: video-editor; video-editing; cross-platform; qt; mlt; ffmpeg; gpl; cpp

Shotcut: questions and answers

What is Shotcut used for?: Shotcut is a free, cross-platform video editor built on the MLT framework and Qt, released under the GPLv3 license. It is a good fit for editing personal and project videos; and free video editing on Linux, Windows or macOS.
Is Shotcut open source?: Yes. Shotcut is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at mltframework/shotcut and is written mainly in C++.
Is Shotcut free?: Yes. Shotcut is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Shotcut?: Yes. Shotcut can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Shotcut an alternative to?: Shotcut is an open-source alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and CapCut. Other open-source alternatives to Adobe Premiere Pro include OpenShot, Kdenlive and OpenCut.
Is Shotcut actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Shotcut was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v26.9.27, published on 28 September 2026. The project has 15k stars on GitHub.