head to head · open source
Shotcut vs RawTherapee
Shotcut has 15,230 GitHub stars, 1,507 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. RawTherapee has 4,178 stars, 417 forks, 1,028 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Shotcut leads on adoption by 265% (15,230 vs 4,178 stars). Shotcut is written in C++ under GPL-3.0; RawTherapee is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Shotcut has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, RawTherapee 10%. Shotcut was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | RawTherapee | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 417 |
| 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 RawTherapee if
- You want the RawTherapee 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 RawTherapee 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 RawTherapee
RawTherapee is a cross platform raw photo processing program released as libre software under the GNU General Public License Version 3. It is written mostly in C++ with a GTK+ front end, and it reads raw files through a patched version of dcraw combined with an in house solution that adds support for certain camera models dcraw does not handle and improves the accuracy of certain raw files dcraw already supports. The project lives in the open source photography ecosystem, with its documentation hosted on RawPedia and its community discussion taking place in the RawTherapee section of the pixls.us forum.…
read the full RawTherapee overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Shotcut or RawTherapee more popular?
Shotcut has 15,230 GitHub stars and RawTherapee has 4,178. Shotcut has the larger community by that measure.
Are Shotcut and RawTherapee free?
Both are open source. Shotcut is licensed under GPL-3.0 and RawTherapee under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Shotcut and RawTherapee?
Shotcut is written in C++ and RawTherapee 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, Shotcut or RawTherapee?
Choose Shotcut if you want the larger community (15,230 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose RawTherapee if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.