head to head · open source
Audacity vs Shotcut
Audacity has 18,928 GitHub stars, 2,712 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shotcut has 15,577 stars, 1,558 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Audacity leads on adoption by 22% (18,928 vs 15,577 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%. Shotcut 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 | ★ 19K | ★ 16K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Audacity if
- You weight community size — 19K 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 Audacity is an easy to use, multi track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. More info can be found on This repository is currently undergoing major structural change. We're currently working on Audacity 4, which means an entirely new UI and also refactorings aplenty. As such, the master branch is currently not particularly friendly to new contributors. It is still possible to submit patches to Audacity 3.x; make sure you branch off audacity3 if you choose to do so. Build instructions for 3.x can be found here; build instructions for Audacity 4 can be…
read the full Audacity overview →
About Shotcut
Shotcut a free, open source, cross platform video editor Features: Roadmap: Install Binaries are regularly built and are available at Contributors Dan Dennedy : main author Brian Matherly : contributor Dependencies Shotcut's direct (linked or hard runtime) dependencies are: MLT: multimedia authoring framework Qt 6 (6.4 minimum): application and UI framework FFTW FFmpeg: multimedia format and codec libraries Frei0r: video plugins SDL: cross platform audio playback See for a more complete list including indirect and bundled dependencies. License GPLv3. See COPYING. How to build Warning : building Shotcut should…
read the full Shotcut overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or Shotcut more popular?
Audacity has 18,928 GitHub stars and Shotcut has 15,577. 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 (18,928 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.