head to head · open source
Audacity vs Shotcut
Audacity has 18,465 GitHub stars, 2,671 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shotcut has 15,230 stars, 1,507 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Audacity leads on adoption by 21% (18,465 vs 15,230 stars). Audacity is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; Shotcut is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Audacity has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Shotcut 10%. Audacity was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cross-platform), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Audacity | Shotcut | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 15K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Audacity if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Shotcut if
- You want the Shotcut feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and Shotcut fits your workflow better
About Audacity
Audacity is an open source audio editor and recorder written in C++ and distributed under free software terms. It lives in the open source desktop audio editing ecosystem, where it provides a multi track interface for recording and editing audio on Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. The README describes the project as an easy to use audio tool, and the repository contains both the Audacity 3.x line and the in progress Audacity 4 line.
read the full Audacity overview →
About Shotcut
Shotcut is a free, open source, cross platform video editor written in C++ and released under the GPL 3.0 license. It lives in the Qt and MLT ecosystem, using Qt for its application and user interface and MLT as its multimedia authoring framework. It provides regularly built binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows, and is positioned as an open alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve (Studio).
read the full Shotcut overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or Shotcut more popular?
Audacity has 18,465 GitHub stars and Shotcut has 15,230. Audacity has the larger community by that measure.
Are Audacity and Shotcut free?
Both are open source. Audacity has no licence declared in this registry, and Shotcut is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Audacity and Shotcut?
Audacity is written in C++ and Shotcut in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Audacity or Shotcut?
Choose Audacity if you want the larger community (18,465 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Shotcut if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.