OpenSource Video Editors

Open Source / Free video editors

Updated: 20240917

Sources

Filesize Summary

Truely FREE, OpenSource Video Editors with NO LIMITATIONS!

Product	Filesize	License	Website
Openshot v3.2.1	193mb	Opensource	https://www.openshot.org/
Shotcut v24.09.13	116mb	Opensource	https://shotcut.org/
KdenLive v24.05.2	110mb	GNU General Public License	https://kdenlive.org/en/
VN Mod APKS v2.2.7	200mb	Free?	https://vnmodapks.net/
Olive Video Editor Beta	74mb	Open Source	https://www.olivevideoeditor.org/ (github https://github.com/olive-editor/olive)

Free Video Editors with Paid for options if needed

Product	Filesize	License	Website
Lightworks	86mb	Free with paid version	https://lwks.com/
VideoPad	52mb	Free with paid commercial version	https://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/
VSDC	37mb	Free with paid version	https://www.videosoftdev.com/
AVIdemux	20mb	Opensource	http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/
Blender	85mb	Opensource	https://www.blender.org/
DaVinci Resolve		Free version available	https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/hk/products/davinciresolve

Tools Summary

Product	Filesize	License	Website
Handbrake	10mb	Opensource	https://handbrake.fr/
FFMPEG	Release builds Essentials 77mb	Opensource	https://www.ffmpeg.org/
MP4 Joiner / MP4 Splitter	18mb	Opensource	https://www.mp4joiner.org/en/
VirtualDub	2mb	Opensource	https://www.virtualdub.org/
LAV Filters	7mb	Opensource	https://github.com/Nevcairiel/LAVFilters
VLC Player	30mb	Free	https://www.videolan.org/
LightAlloy	15mb	Free	https://light-alloy.com/

OPENSHOT - http://www.openshot.org

We designed OpenShot Video Editor to be an easy to use, quick to learn, and surprisingly powerful video editor. Take a quick look at some of our most popular features and capabilities.

Features: https://www.openshot.org/features/

A truely cross platform, FREE, Opensource, full featured video editor. Free & open-source forever (GPL version 3.0).

Opensource, multiplatform, Free.
Filesize: 170mb download 64bit windows

SHOTCUT - https://www.shotcutapp.com/

Shotcut is a free, open source, cross-platform video editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. Major features include support for a wide range of formats; no import required meaning native timeline editing; Blackmagic Design support for input and preview monitoring; and resolution support to 4k.

Features: https://shotcut.org/features/

Free, multiplatform, OpenSource.
Filesize: 76mb download 64bit windows

OLIVE Video Editor (still in beta 20240915) - https://www.olivevideoeditor.org/

Still beta but last updated: Aug 24 2024 11:23:57 PM (GPL-3.0 license)

Olive is the most open video editor in the world. From its completely configurable render pipeline to its open source codebase, every aspect of it is designed to provide users with as much control as possible over both their work and their workflow.

In a world where most professional video editors lock their functionality behind paywalls, paid subscriptions, and platform exclusivity (or all of the above), Olive aims to provide complete and unconditional freedom without compromise.

(negative) Still in Beta since 2018!
Olive's key feature is its render pipeline - Every step can be modified, rearranged, or augmented to achieve whatever results the user desires
node-based compositor - nodes can be written and distributed to other users as plugins
GPU accelerated
Tightly integrates OpenColorIO
Automating certain actions through scripting

LIGHTWORKS Video Editor - https://www.lwks.com/

For over 25 years Lightworks editor has been at the forefront of film editing, having been used on many of the finest films in cinema history: The Wolf of Wall Street, LA Confidential, Pulp Fiction, Heat, Road to Perdition, Hugo, The King’s Speech and many more! Now with the release of Lightworks v14.0 we have created the complete video creative package so everyone can make video that stands out from the crowd. Whether you need to make video for social media, YouTube or for a 4K film project, Lightworks makes it all possible!

Mutliplatform
Lightworks PRO is a paid system starting at £14.99 excl vat per month
Web-compatible file (MPEG4/H.264 - max. resolution: 1280x720p pixels [opensource version]) with optional upload direct to Youtube
Filesize: 86.7mb download 64bit windows / 79mb 32bit windows

VIDEOPAD - http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/

Designed to be intuitive, VideoPad is a fully featured video editor for creating professional quality videos in minutes.

Get it Free - A free video editor version is available for non-commercial use only. If you will be using it at home you can download the free version here. Windows and Mac.
Filesize: 52mb windows

VSDC Free video editor - http://www.videosoftdev.com/

Free video software that allows you to edit video files and create videos of all types. It supports the most popular video/audio formats and codecs, including DVD, HD and GoPro videos. Preconfigured profiles make the creation of videos for various multimedia and mobile devices a snap.

Both solutions offer a complete multimedia editing suite. VSDC Pro Video Editor provides more options for professional video editing: advanced settings of spline parameters and resizing, higher subpixel resolution, multiple color Chroma key, hardware acceleration and prioritized technical support. VSDC Free Video Editor solution is intended for home and educational needs only. Commercial use is available by buying VSDC Pro Video Editor subscription.

Non-linear video editor - Our editor is a non-linear tool. This means that unlike in most other editors, where scenes come one after another in a linear sequence and certain order, our software allows objects to be placed in any position on the timeline and have any size. Besides, various parameters, shape and position of objects can change arbitrarily over time.

4K and HD export - VSDC is currently the only free video editor that allows you to export in a new H265/HEVC codec to maintain the highest quality at a minimum file size which is essential for those often processing 4K and HD files.

Desktop video capture - The video editor features a desktop video capture utility that saves captured footage to a video file for subsequent processing in the editor.

Video capturing - Another feature of the our editor is the ability to capture video from various video tuners, webcams, IP сameras and save the captured footage on your computer in an arbitrary format for subsequent editing.

Free, multiplatform. ($19.99 for commercial version)
Filesize: 36.7mb download 64bit windows
Also supply a Free video converter tool, http://www.videosoftdev.com/free-video-converter.
Screen Recorder Free - http://www.videosoftdev.com/free-screen-recorder (18mb)
Audio converter Free - http://www.videosoftdev.com/free-audio-converter (18mb)
Video Capture Free - http://www.videosoftdev.com/free-video-capture - Not available yet.

AVIdemux - http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.

Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license. The program was written from scratch by Mean, but code from other people and projects has been used as well. Patches, translations and even bug reports are always welcome.

Opensource, multiplatform.
Filesize: 20mb download 64bit windows
- 25mb for 32bit windows

Blender - https://www.blender.org/

Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation.

Video Editing - Blender even comes with a built-in Video Editor.

The Video Editor allows you to perform basic actions like video cuts and splicing, as well as more complex tasks like video masking.

The Video Editor includes:

Live preview, luma waveform, chroma vectorscope and histogram displays
Audio mixing, syncing, scrubbing and waveform visualization
Up to 32 slots for adding video, images, audio, scenes, masks and effects
Speed control, adjustment layers, transitions, keyframes, filters and more.
Open Source
Filesize: 85mb

Other free / opensource video tools

Handbrake - Video Converter - https://handbrake.fr/

HandBrake is a free, open source, cross-platform multithreaded video transcoder software. You can use it to convert various videos from one format to another. Although it can process most popular multimedia files it won't work with protected DVD or BluRay disks. As a multi-platform tool, HandBrake runs on several OS such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Full features: https://handbrake.fr/features.php

Filesize: 10mb
Free and Open Source
Multi Platform.

FFMPEG - https://ffmpeg.org/ (Command line interface to convert different formats)

FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. It supports the most obscure ancient formats up to the cutting edge. No matter if they were designed by some standards committee, the community or a corporation. It is also highly portable: FFmpeg compiles, runs, and passes our testing infrastructure FATE across Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, the BSDs, Solaris, etc. under a wide variety of build environments, machine architectures, and configurations.

Basically a command line tool to convert between different formats.

Essentials Filesize: 77Mb (https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/)
Quick guide to using: https://opensource.com/article/17/6/ffmpeg-convert-media-file-formats
Documentation: https://ffmpeg.org/documentation.html

MP4 Joiner (MP4 tools) - http://www.mp4joiner.org/en/

MP4Joiner also known as MP4Tools is a cross-platform collection of tools that allows you to manipulate MP4 files. It is created and maintained by Alex Thuring the author of the well-known DVDStyler software. The package contains two apps that can be run separately and perform a different task. MP4Splitter will allow you to split a single MP4 file in multiple files. MP4Joiner will allow you to merge (join) a single MP4 file in multiple files. The tools are free, open source and they run on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Filesize: 18mb windows
Free Open Source
Multi Platform

VirtualDub - http://virtualdub.org/

Only works with AVI Files

VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms (98/ME/NT4/2000/XP/Vista/7), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

A lot of function has been squeezed into a relatively streamlined program with an intuitive interface. Its primarily used to splice multiple videos together. The videos are edited frame by frame, making this ideal to edit anime and flash videos. Those who want a little more out of VirtualDub can download third party add-ons and explore the program's collection of filters.

VirtualDub runs directly from an .exe in the download folder; it doesn't need to be fully installed on your system, taking up your computer's resources.

This lightweight program has a small file size to download and runs on older and current versions of Windows.

The software saves and converts files into a variety of formats and runs faster than many other similar programs.

In addition to stitching video clips together, VirtualDub also applies subtitles, adjusts colors, and sharpens images with a third party add-on, the Warpsharp filter. Users can also resize, flip the image, adjust the video's brightness and contrast, and add a variety of transitions between video segments.

Finally, VirtualDub can convert a series of still images into a movie for projects like a time-lapse video or a cartoon.

Note: VirtualDub was added on FossHub because several users requested this. Since other websites flagged this application as being discontinued, we hesitated to add it. However, since the latest stable version 1.10.4 works on both 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows version, even if this is true, the program should work for the time being.

List of features: http://virtualdub.org/features.html

Open Source, multiplatform
Filesize: approx 2mb

LAV Filters - https://github.com/Nevcairiel/LAVFilters/releases

LAV Filters is an Open Source set DirectShow filters that allows you to play all popular video and audio formats without having to install any other codec pack or additional codec or filter. LAV Filters are based on FFmpeg multimedia libraries (which is a multi-platform solution to convert, stream and record audio and video content). As a set of DirectShow filters it contains LAV Splitter (used as a source filter/splitter to demux files in separated elementary streams) and LAV Audio and Video Decoder (an audio and video decoder focused on quality and high performance). The current version is available as a setup file and also as a ZIP archive for both 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows versions.

Open Source
Filesize: 7mb

VLC Player - http://www.videolan.org/

VLC Media Player (also known as VLC) is a free, open source multimedia player developed by VideoLAN Organization. It is one of the oldest (released for the first time in February 2001) free, portable, cross-platform multimedia player. You can use it to play all popular multimedia files and also DVDs, CDs, VCDs and other streaming protocols. Unlike other players, it does not require a codec pack to be installed, it can play multimedia files without them. This media player is currently listed under GNU licenses and is available in more than 40 languages. Although there are many releases available for Android, iOS, Linux, BSD, Solaris, and even QNX, Haiku, Syllable, OS/2 we currently list only the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X versions.

Filesize: 30mb
Open Source, windows and mac

LightAlloy - http://light-alloy.verona.im/

Light Alloy is a free, highly customizable multimedia player for Windows. It was optimized to start as fast as possible and pre-tuned for minimum system resource usage. Besides of his support for all popular multimedia formats, it also has its advanced settings such as:

fast video rewind, load subtitles, bookmarks in the list or timeline, preview window on the timeline
selection of audio tracks and subtitles in multilingual films, minimize to tray, infrared remote control
adjust the brightness/contrast/saturation of the image, supports multimedia keyboards and has full support for DVD/Blu-ray (except for BD menus) and MKV/OGM/MP4 formats.

It has an extensive list of features; those are just a few of them:

built-in video/audio codecs (although you can choose to use other system codecs and you can configure audio and video filters)
custom codecs, full support for subtitles
WinLIRC support (remote control), configurable playback speed, aspect ratio alignment, make and save screenshots (including WebP/WebP-LL formats)
independent video settings for each file (brightness, contrast, saturation, subtitle, volume) keep current playing position and resume later, etc.

Filesize: 15mb
Free - windows ONLY

jcamp/video-editors-opensource.md