head to head · open source
filmcraft vs freecut
filmcraft has 17,457 GitHub stars, 7,201 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped today. freecut has 2,306 stars, 362 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. filmcraft leads on adoption by 657% (17,457 vs 2,306 stars). filmcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; freecut is written in TypeScript under MIT. filmcraft has attracted 41% as many forks as stars, freecut 16%. filmcraft was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (video-editing, video-editor), 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
| filmcraft | freecut | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.2K | ⑂ 362 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick filmcraft if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick freecut if
- You want the freecut feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and freecut fits your workflow better
About filmcraft
FilmCraft Video editing, color and sound; an open source, clean room reimplementation of Adobe Premiere Pro, rebuilt in pure Rust. An open source, clean room take on the Adobe Premiere Pro workflow: native on macOS, Windows and Linux, and in the browser via WebAssembly. By the ArtCraft team. FilmCraft on getartcraft.com · ArtCraft · All Crafting Apps Apollo 11 Tranquility : a three minute documentary edit of NASA's 1969 launch, landing and moonwalk film, with subtitles from the mission transcript. Every frame in these screenshots comes from public domain footage, decoded, composited and graded by FilmCraft's own…
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About freecut
FreeCut freecut.net Edit videos. In your browser. FreeCut is a browser based, multi track video editor. No install, no uploads: projects and media stay local, while editing, preview, analysis, transcription, AI generation, and export run in the browser through WebGPU, WebCodecs, Web Workers, OPFS, and the File System Access API. FreeCut writes projects, linked media metadata, thumbnails, waveforms, generated AI assets, transcripts, scene cuts, and caches as plain files inside a workspace folder you choose on disk. User Guide New to FreeCut? Start with the user guide. Community Join the FreeCut Discord to share…
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Frequently asked questions
Is filmcraft or freecut more popular?
filmcraft has 17,457 GitHub stars and freecut has 2,306. filmcraft has the larger community by that measure.
Are filmcraft and freecut free?
Both are open source. filmcraft is licensed under Apache-2.0 and freecut under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between filmcraft and freecut?
filmcraft is written in Rust and freecut in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, filmcraft or freecut?
Choose filmcraft if you want the larger community (17,457 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose freecut if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.