6 open-source alternatives to Apple’s Final Cut Pro

With a $300 price tag, Apple’s Final Cut Pro video editing tool is one of the pricier options for editing your videos. There are many different

alternative video editing programs
available, including a whole host of open-source options. Free, open-source editors don’t mean any less quality or fewer features. You can find exactly what you need for editing videos on your Mac without paying a hefty fee for it.

6

Gyroflow

Edit your videos for stabilization

While Final Cut Pro has many editing features, sometimes the open-source alternatives focus on more specific features of video editing. Gyroflow is an open-source video tool with a major focus on stabilizing your video content in post-production.

Gyroflow is best used when filming sports action, such as running or mountain biking POV videos, or generally any types of videos where the videographer wasn’t steady-handed — it happens to the best of us, unfortunately.

You can use Gyroflow for other video editing features too, such as using keyframes, speed ramping, shutter correction, and lens correction. Gyroflow also comes with

plugins for both DaVinci Resolve
and Adobe video tools for extra editing abilities.

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5

LiVES

Although you might use Final Cut Pro for a myriad of editing types, when finding alternative software, you sometimes need to use multiple programs for different aspects of your editing workflow. LiVES is a great open-source video editor with a focus on editing live event footage, such as concerts and performances.

With timeline-based editing, keyframes, real-time video performance capabilities, and advanced color correction tools, LiVES makes a great open-source alternative video tool. It features a library of effects and transitions for creative editing between clips and throughout your footage.

LiVES is only available for macOS and Linux systems, despite its open-source development, it’s not available for Windows systems. As a project, LiVES hasn’t received many updates since before 2020. It features an update from 2019 saying that support for Windows will be coming, but in 2024, it’s still not there.

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4

Shotcut

Easy-to-use open-source video tool

Shotcut began in 2004 and has since carried on improving with help from developers and the community it has found among open-source video software fans.

Shotcut features wide format video support, and no import required, meaning native editing, multi-format timelines, resolutions, and frame-rates all within your video projects. You can use almost any device and there are ways to easily transport your video to other

tools like DaVinci Resolve
if you need something more robust to complete your video.

There are great audio features and tools within Shotcut, including audio scopes and filters, volume control, decoders, compressors, and equalizers. You can mix audio across all tracks in the timeline, including easily fading in or out of audio and video.

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3

OpenShot

Simple and powerful award-winning video editing tool

This cross-platform video editing tool lets you create great videos from an open-source software. You can trim and slice footage to fit your timelines, use unlimited tracks for complex layers with footage, images, audio, and more, and also use a myriad of video effects and transition styles to improve your final result.

OpenShot also features animation and keyframes, so you can do more than just edit raw footage. You can add text titles and 3D animations, including warping time speed for fun effects.

OpenShot is a great option as a Final Cut Pro alternative if you’re compelled to use open-source tools.

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Related

OpenShot vs. Shotcut: comparing two popular free video editing platforms

Which one gets you the most bang for the non-existent buck?

2

Olive

The world’s most open and versatile video editor

Olive provides an open-source codebase to become the self-proclaimed ‘most versatile video editor out there.’ It’s a relatively new program, first released in 2018.

Olive offers a configurable render pipeline, allowing you to modify, rearrange, and augment any part of your video for the best results. It also provides a node-based compositor for better control in compositing your workflows.

Olive’s pipeline is GPU accelerated, and it offers a smooth and easy-to-learn user interface, unlike some

ugly open-source interfaces
found in other software. Olive has integral color management tools and scripting capabilities for a completely custom and easy workflow.

While it’s open-source and free-to-all at present, I suspect this project may take off and become something more premium in the future.

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1

Kdenlive

The GOAT of open-source video software

Source: Kdenlive

Kdenlive is an acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor — it’s named entirely for the very thing that it is. Despite being a great alternative to Apple’s Final Cut Pro, Kdenlive isn’t available on Apple’s macOS; it’s unfortunately only available for Windows, Linux//GNU, and BSD systems.

While no open-source video editing tool will be as comprehensive as paid-for proprietary software like Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, or DaVinci Resolve, Kdenlive does as good a job as any in the open-source hemisphere. Video editors around the world would choose Kdenlive if they had to move to open-source software options.

Kdenlive offers multi-track editing, including the ability to lock or mute each and any track. You have the versatility of importing nearly any format type to Kdenlive, allowing you to save time on re-encoding or the frustration of sourcing particular formats to use. It comes with a range of color effects, video transitions, and 2D titling abilities; nothing as complex as 3D animation or text animation, but it works well for what it is.

You can utilize proxy editing in Kdenlive — this gives you the ability to edit a low-resolution version of your video on another computer system, then send it back to your main system to render at high-resolution.

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There are great open-source Final Cut Pro alternatives

Final Cut Pro is Apple’s major video editing tool. With a large $300 price-tag, it’s easy to see why it might put people off using it; that, plus not wanting to utilize Apple for their video editing needs. With a great list of alternatives, you don’t have to rely on corporations to edit professional-level videos. This list of open-source alternatives gives you many options; there are also plenty of non-corporate non-open-source free video tools along with this set.

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Final Cut Pro

This software from Apple is available as a one-time purchase and is aimed at professionals and exceptional enthusiasts. If you don’t want to commit just yet, you may use it for 90 days without paying.