What is Shotcut?
Shotcut is a free, open-source video editor that does not look like a free video editor. It handles 4K and 8K, HDR10 and HLG, 10-bit video end to end and linear colour processing, and it composites, grades, mixes and subtitles in the same application. Because it builds on FFmpeg rather than on system codecs, it supports current formats on any platform, and its filter list runs to well over a hundred entries covering colour, keying, masks, motion tracking and 360-degree video. Editing is a native timeline with no import step, and the project publishes a universal macOS build. It is GPL-licensed, maintained by Dan Dennedy, and runs on Windows, Linux and macOS.
Verified product facts
- Type
- video editorEditorially reviewed
- Platform
- macOS
- Apple Silicon
- Yes
- Pricing
- Open sourceDeveloper-stated
- Open source
- Yes
- Developer
- Dan DennedyDeveloper-stated
- Relationship to Nuanyue
- Third-party product — not published by NuanyueEditorially reviewed
- Licence
- GPL-3.0
- Current version
- 26.9.27Developer-stated
- Official website
- www.shotcut.org/
Last updated . Facts marked developer-stated come from the developer and are not independently confirmed; editorially reviewed marks a Nuanyue judgement.
Key features
What Shotcut does at a glance.
Native timeline editing
With no import step, and frame-accurate seeking for many formats
Multi-format timeline
Can mix resolutions and frame rates within one project
4K and 8K support
With 10-bit video end to end and linear colour processing
HDR10 (PQ) and HLG HDR
Plus tone mapping from HDR to SDR
Wide format support
Through FFmpeg, including AVIF, WebP, SVG, TIFF and image sequences
Lottie, rawr, Rive and After Effects animations
With Glaxnimate included for editing vector animation
Subtitles
Create, import, edit, export, render and embed, with SRT, VTT, ASS and SSA import
Video compositing
Across tracks with 3-way colour wheels and an eyedropper for white balance
A large video filter set
Covering blur, chroma key, masks, motion tracking, stabilisation, 3D LUT and colour grading
360-degree video filters
Including equirectangular conversion and stabilisation
Audio mixing
Across all tracks, with fades, cross-fades, pitch compensation and automatic ducking
Audio scopes
Including loudness, peak meter, waveform, spectrum analyser and vectorscope
Speed ramping, reverse, freeze frame and object motion tracking
Keyframes
For filter parameters with easing functions
Proxy editing
At low resolution to keep seeking fast on large projects
Batch export, batch encoding
With job control, and slideshow or montage generation from the playlist
Video quality measurement
Using PSNR and SSIM, and integrity checking of media files
GPU image processing
In OpenGL with 16-bit floating point per colour component, and multi-core parallel processing
Hardware-accelerated decoding, scaling and encoding
With multiple GPU selection
External monitoring
Through a Blackmagic Design DeckLink card or a second display
Portable operation
From an external drive, independent of system codecs
What you can use Shotcut for
- Cutting and finishing a video without paying for an editor
- Editing 4K or 8K footage, including HDR material, on a desktop machine
- Burning in or exporting subtitles alongside the picture
- Stabilising, tracking or keying footage with effects that would normally cost money
- Batch-converting a folder of clips, or measuring the quality of an encode
Who is Shotcut for?
- Editors who want professional-format support and a large effect set for free
- People who prefer an application that is open source and independent of system codecs
Who is Shotcut not for?
- Anyone who wants a simplified consumer editor — Shotcut exposes a professional toolset rather than hiding it
- Users who need a vendor support contract, since it is a volunteer project funded by donations
Limitations
- The minimum macOS version is 12 for the current release; macOS 11 and macOS 10.14-10.15 need older builds, the last of which was 24.01.31
- Some features are explicitly marked as work in progress, including VST2 and LV2 audio plugins and OpenFX image effects
- The macOS build is published by the project rather than through the Mac App Store, so updates are manual
- It is a volunteer project, so there is no commercial support and no vendor to escalate to
- The breadth of the interface is a learning cost: the filter list alone runs to well over a hundred entries
Strengths and trade-offs
What Shotcut does well, and what to weigh before choosing it. Points marked developer-stated come from the developer’s own material and have not been independently confirmed.
Strengths
- Handles 4K and 8K, 10-bit video end to end, linear colour processing, and HDR10 (PQ) and HLG HDR with tone mapping to SDR.Developer-stated
- Edits natively on the timeline with no import step, and can mix resolutions and frame rates within one project.Developer-stated
- Builds on FFmpeg rather than system codecs, so format support does not depend on the operating system.Developer-stated
- Includes subtitling end to end: create, import, edit, export, render and embed, with SRT, VTT, ASS and SSA import.Developer-stated
- Provides a very large filter set, including colour grading, chroma key, masks, motion tracking, stabilisation, 3D LUT and 360-degree video filters.Developer-stated
- Processes images on the GPU in OpenGL with 16-bit floating point per colour component, and across multiple CPU cores.Developer-stated
- Free and open source under the GPL version 3, with no paid tier and no account.
- Publishes a universal macOS build, so one download covers both Intel and Apple silicon Macs.
- Can run as a portable application from an external drive, independent of the host's codecs.Developer-stated
Trade-offs
- The current release needs macOS 12 or later; macOS 11 and macOS 10.14-10.15 are limited to older builds, the last of which was 24.01.31.
- Two advertised capabilities are explicitly work in progress: VST2 and LV2 audio plugins, and OpenFX image effect plugins.
- The macOS build comes from the project's own site rather than a store, so nothing updates it automatically.Derived
- It is a volunteer project with no commercial support contract.
- The interface exposes a professional toolset with over a hundred filters, which is a substantial learning cost for simple work.Editorially reviewed
First-use experience
What the app asks of you when you set it up. Only established facts appear here; anything we could not confirm is left out rather than guessed at.
- Installation
- Downloaded as a universal macOS disk image from the project's site or GitHub releases; Windows and Linux builds are published alongside it, and it can also run portably from an external drive.
- First launch Developer-stated
- No account or licence key is involved. The application opens to a timeline with a playlist that doubles as a clip bin, and files can be dragged in from the file manager without an import step.
- System integration Developer-stated
- Codec-independent, so it does not rely on the system's media frameworks; supports external monitoring over Blackmagic DeckLink and on a second display, and the Contour Shuttle PRO for jog and shuttle control.
- Apple Silicon
- Supported
What it does
Shotcut is a free, open-source, cross-platform video editor — the project’s own one-line description — and the surprise is how much professional capability sits behind that sentence. It supports 4K and 8K resolutions, 10-bit video end to end, linear colour processing, and both HDR10 (PQ) and HLG HDR with tone mapping back to SDR. It edits natively on the timeline with no import step, and the timeline is multi-format, so different resolutions and frame rates can be mixed inside one project rather than conformed first.
Format support comes from FFmpeg rather than from the operating system, which is what makes it genuinely codec-independent: the same release works the same way on Windows, Linux and macOS, and it can even run portably from an external drive. It handles the expected image formats plus AVIF, WebP, SVG, TIFF and image sequences, plays network streams over HTTP, HLS, RTMP, RTSP, MMS and UDP, and can read and write video with an alpha channel.
Effects, audio and subtitles
The filter list is the largest part of the application, running to well over a hundred entries. They cover colour grading with 3-way wheels and an eyedropper for white balance, chroma keying with spill suppression, masks, motion tracking, stabilisation, 3D LUTs, old-film effects, glitch and distortion, and a full set of 360-degree filters including equirectangular conversion. Video is composited across tracks with a long list of blending modes and wipe transitions, and speed ramping, reverse, freeze frame and adjustment clips are all available.
Audio is handled with the same ambition: mixing across all tracks, fades and cross-fades, pitch compensation for speed changes, automatic ducking, and scopes including loudness, peak meter, waveform, spectrum analyser and vectorscope. Recording directly to the timeline is supported for voiceover, and there is speech-to-text for subtitles and text-to-speech alongside it. Subtitling is end-to-end — create, import, edit, export, render and embed — with SRT, VTT, ASS and SSA import.
Two advertised capabilities are marked as work in progress on the project’s own feature list: VST2 and LV2 audio plugin support, and OpenFX image effect plugins. That is worth knowing before planning a workflow around them.
Platform, performance and licensing
Image processing runs on the GPU in OpenGL with 16-bit floating point per colour component, in parallel across CPU cores, with hardware-accelerated decoding, scaling and encoding and the ability to select between multiple GPUs. External monitoring is supported over a Blackmagic Design DeckLink card or on a second display, and the Contour Shuttle PRO works for jog and shuttle control.
On macOS the current release requires macOS 12 or later, and the download is a universal build covering both Intel and Apple silicon. Older systems need older builds: the project states that the last version supporting macOS 11 was the 24.x series, and the last supporting macOS 10.14 and 10.15 was 24.01.31.
Shotcut is GPL-licensed, with Dan Dennedy as its main author, and built on the MLT framework, Qt 6, FFTW, FFmpeg, Frei0r and SDL. There is no paid tier and no account; the macOS build comes from the project’s own site rather than an app store, so updating it is a manual step.
Questions about Shotcut
Is Shotcut free?
Yes. It is free and open source under the GPL version 3, with no paid tier and no account. Development is funded by donations, and the project publishes its own downloads rather than selling through an app store.
What formats and resolutions does Shotcut support?
Format support comes from FFmpeg, so it follows the latest audio and video formats rather than the operating system's codecs. It supports 4K and 8K resolutions, 10-bit video end to end, HDR10 and HLG HDR with tone mapping to SDR, and a multi-format timeline that can mix resolutions and frame rates in one project.Developer-stated
Which macOS version does Shotcut need?
The current release supports macOS 12 and later. macOS 11 and macOS 10.14-10.15 require older builds, and the project states that the last version supporting 10.14 and 10.15 was 24.01.31. The macOS download is a universal build, so it runs natively on both Intel and Apple silicon.
Can Shotcut handle subtitles?
Yes, end to end. You can create, import, edit, export, render and embed subtitles, and it imports the SRT, VTT, ASS and SSA formats. There is also a filter for burning subtitles into the picture.Developer-stated
Is anything in Shotcut unfinished?
Two advertised capabilities are marked as work in progress on the feature list: VST2 and LV2 audio plugin support, and OpenFX image effect plugins. Everything else listed is presented as working.
Does Shotcut use my GPU?
Yes. It processes images on the GPU in OpenGL with 16-bit floating point per colour component, and supports hardware-accelerated decoding, scaling and encoding with multiple GPU selection, alongside multi-core parallel processing on the CPU.Developer-stated
Alternatives to Shotcut
Apps that could replace this one — the same job, a different trade-off.
DaVinci Resolve
Editing, colour, VFX and audio post in one app, with a free version.
Both are video editors that run on macOS, but DaVinci Resolve is a proprietary suite covering colour, visual effects and audio post while Shotcut is free, open-source software with a large filter set and no paid tier.
Works well with
Not a replacement — apps commonly used alongside this one.
HandBrake
Video transcoder for converting media to modern formats.
Shotcut edits and renders the project and HandBrake transcodes finished files into deliverable formats; Shotcut also has batch conversion and quality measurement for the same kind of work.
Blender
Free open-source 3D creation suite.
Blender covers 3D modelling and rendering while Shotcut handles the edit, and the two are commonly used together on the same production.
Links
Sources
Facts on this page are checked against the sources below. Last updated .
- Shotcut — official websiteGrade B
- Dan Dennedy — developer websiteGrade B
- Shotcut — documentationGrade C
- Shotcut — source repositoryGrade D
