head to head · open source
LosslessCut vs Shotcut
LosslessCut has 45,623 GitHub stars, 2,301 forks, 300 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Shotcut has 15,577 stars, 1,558 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LosslessCut leads on adoption by 193% (45,623 vs 15,577 stars). LosslessCut is written in TypeScript under GPL-2.0; Shotcut is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. LosslessCut has attracted 5% 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 (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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| LosslessCut | Shotcut | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 16K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LosslessCut if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- 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 LosslessCut
LosslessCut The swiss army knife of lossless video/audio editing Thanks to my supporters and everyone who purchased LosslessCut! LosslessCut aims to be the ultimate cross platform FFmpeg GUI for extremely fast and lossless operations on video, audio, subtitle and other related media files. The main feature is lossless trimming and cutting of video and audio files, which is great for saving space by rough cutting your large video files taken from a video camera, GoPro, drone, etc. It lets you quickly extract the good parts from your videos and discard many gigabytes of data without doing a slow re encode and…
read the full LosslessCut 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 →
More in Miscellaneous
Related comparisons
More Photo & Video Editors projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Photo & Video Editors field.
Frequently asked questions
Is LosslessCut or Shotcut more popular?
LosslessCut has 45,623 GitHub stars and Shotcut has 15,577. LosslessCut has the larger community by that measure.
Are LosslessCut and Shotcut free?
Both are open source. LosslessCut is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Shotcut under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between LosslessCut and Shotcut?
LosslessCut is written in TypeScript 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, LosslessCut or Shotcut?
Choose LosslessCut if you want the larger community (45,623 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Shotcut if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.