head to head · open source
Shotcut vs fabric-video-editor
Shotcut has 15,319 GitHub stars, 1,523 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fabric-video-editor has 574 stars, 169 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Shotcut leads on adoption by 2,569% (15,319 vs 574 stars). Shotcut is written in C++ under GPL-3.0; fabric-video-editor is written in TypeScript under MIT. Shotcut has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, fabric-video-editor 29%. 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.
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Side by side
| Shotcut | fabric-video-editor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 574 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-08-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 169 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Shotcut if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick fabric-video-editor if
- You want the fabric-video-editor feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and fabric-video-editor fits your workflow better
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 →
About fabric-video-editor
Fabric Video Editor is an open source, MIT licensed video editor that runs entirely in the browser — a timeline based tool for text, image, video and audio layers with animations, filters and export with sound — built with Fabric.js, React, Next.js, MobX, Tailwind CSS and TypeScript, and aimed at developers who want editing capability inside a web application rather than in a desktop program.
read the full fabric-video-editor overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Shotcut or fabric-video-editor more popular?
Shotcut has 15,319 GitHub stars and fabric-video-editor has 574. Shotcut has the larger community by that measure.
Are Shotcut and fabric-video-editor free?
Both are open source. Shotcut is licensed under GPL-3.0 and fabric-video-editor under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Shotcut and fabric-video-editor?
Shotcut is written in C++ and fabric-video-editor 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, Shotcut or fabric-video-editor?
Choose Shotcut if you want the larger community (15,319 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose fabric-video-editor if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.