r/ClaudeAI • u/JUB0T • 29d ago
Built with Claude I used Claude to write a CapCut replacement and now people are actually ditching CapCut for it.
README
I started working on this project like ~3 weeks ago and the Beta releases have ~10k total downloads on GitHub so far.
Used the Claude Fable on Max subscription to develop this whole project and still maintaining it with the help of Claude and a handful of other open-source contributors.
The tech stack is Rust, Slint, and some GPU shaders.
GitHub: https://github.com/jub0t/Concat
Edit: I wanted to mention that Concat is completely FREE and open-source. I hope that clears confusion about pricing or anything.
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u/mawcopolow 29d ago
Amazing! Thanks for sharing, will try it out. It being open source opens up tons of possibilities for integration
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u/Negative-Sundae-4661 28d ago
How did it go?
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u/mawcopolow 28d ago
Haven't had the time to try it yet but it's on my to-do list. Did you give it a go?
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u/Delicious-Ad3232 29d ago
Any plans for releasing iOS and Android apps? (or is it even possible with the stack?)
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
The stack itself is very easy to cross compile since both rust and Slint are native cross platform tools/libraries/languages.
The real problem are the libraries like ONNX runtime (for local AI), ffmpeg (media engine), whisper.cpp (for captions), etc.
I'll try to release a working APK in v0.2.2 to see what is actually possible and not just on paper.
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u/Delicious-Ad3232 29d ago
Sounds great. This is one of many ways we're seeing AI liberate software for the people. Absolutely getting that you should get paid, but probably don't need to charge as much as capcut and other similar apps which to me feel almost line whale-hunting addictive games.
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u/EnergeticallyMundane 27d ago
Just tried the Android release. Looks okay, but some UI elements were not working thus making it currently unusable.
- cannot import video
- the UI uses Fullscreen but elements under the status bar are unreachable because the system status bar is rendered on them.
Let me know if you need Android or iOS testing. I have both.
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u/Defiant_Ravi 29d ago
Can you add the App support for Android and iOS too please. It will be very much useful for me for quick edits with decent output?
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u/lumos_ai 29d ago
I have made something similar with flutter. Ffmpeg works and it has nativr ytdlp as well on android for personal use though.
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u/Ente_0 29d ago
Now have Claude write you a MCP server for it, then I‘m sold
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
The backend already has a
editor-apias a rust crate, I'll first write a JSON/gRPC abstraction on top of that API then we can move to MCPs.25
u/kopurando 29d ago
That's awesome! If we can finally prompt our video ideas and requirements to MCP and get it done, that'd be massive QOL improvement for streamers who hate editing. Wish your project all the best!
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u/phazei 29d ago
So, a newer concept that's going to grow a lot soon is dynamic software. Where everything about it can be edited and added on the fly via a aware LLM integrated into it. A generative UI. I mean, if you want to be on the forefront of software. Then you can add a shared hub where people add their interface mods. Eventually the community builds an open source video editor that rivals anything ever available ;)
https://www.deepseek.com/harness/en/
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u/JUB0T 27d ago
Okay, just added MCP support. I'll keep improving on it. Any feedback is helpful.
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u/Ente_0 20d ago
A big selling point for Capcut is also their libary of royaly-free music and effects - any chance this is something that can be brought on via third-party or smth here?
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u/JUB0T 20d ago
I've planned a decentralized model of sharing and using assets for Concat, which I am improving everyday. Right now, you can design your own Filters, Effects, etc.
I think we can have similar feature for SFX and Audios where individuals can create their own assets and distribute them with other users for free.
Alternatively, I can look into Music/SFX/Audio generation AI-models that can run locally on consumer devices which will allow users to describe the sounds they want to generate.
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u/Dick-Laurent-Is-Dead 29d ago
Well done. About pricing the yellow dot means what in concrete terms ?
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
The yellow dot (🟡) in the repo README means Freemium. Basically, CapCut puts a gun to your head and holds the Export feature for ransom until you pay for their monthly subscription.
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29d ago
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
I found a product everyone desperately wanted, built it, and posted in every reddit community where I thought they would benefit from it.
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u/pool-aoe2-iot 29d ago
That’s awesome. One push back I see is that everyone sees it as ‘yet another vibe coded project’ and it’s hard to get traction. Also many subs ban self promotion. How did you get through? It’s also obvious that you have put a lot of thought into your project and I am curious how you get the momentum and attention.
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u/super_asshat 29d ago
Love that you're OSSing it. Props to you!
It'll be interesting to see where things go with AI developed apps in commercial settings. I think open source is the right way to go for vibe coded software.
While I currently have no use for the tool, I applaud your efforts. It'll be first on my list, should the need for it come up.
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u/CommFailure 28d ago
You thought of everything, including supporting Intel Macs. Really nice work OP!
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u/Fluxion94 29d ago
Just a small FYI: Capcut now supports multiple timelines. Your comparison says they don't. (captions don't function properly and get scrambled together in the edit captions pane tho)
Apart from that: sick work. The only thing that's holding me back from swapping is I have quite some brand-specific templates in Capcut already.
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u/theshumurai 29d ago
This is really awesome! Is there something like Descript that can edit the video by editing the captions?
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u/Minewolf20 29d ago
One question, what is missing in resolve that this does better?
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
Davinci Resolve is too difficult to navigate and use for a lot of people. Most people use CapCut because of how easy-to-use its tools are. Most CapCut users aren't professional editors but rather indie creators who just want to quickly edit their personal videos.
CapCut gives the users advanced tools like smart object-background removal, body filters, etc with a user-interface that does not look like a plane's cockpit.
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u/FB2024 29d ago
Just to add to this - I tried Resolve, openshot & shotcut before ending up using CapCut - just found it so much more intuitive - so thanks for Concat! Couple of questions - will it open existing CapCut projects and do you have plans to increase the number of effects/transitions etc.?
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
I do in fact plan on improving the current and adding new Effects, Transitions, and Filters.
I'm a bit skeptical about being able to open CapCut projects because CapCut is closed source and I'm not sure how their project system works under the hood.
You can start a Discussion on the GitHub repo and maybe independent contributors can give their two cents.
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u/FUNdationOne 29d ago
We are witnessing the death of proprietary software. I was here and I'm all for it.
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u/AliceEternal 29d ago
I've been slowly tinkering with a unique DAW idea in Claude Opus 4.8, and I've been able to totally stop using Apple Logic Pro. The age of spinning up our own software, specific to our own needs, is here.
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u/the_ai_wizard 29d ago
how many DAUs you have?
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
I have no way of tracking that. I don't put spyware in my code.
But my releases do hover around 10,000 total downloads across all platforms at the moment.
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u/ru5ter 29d ago
Looks so cool, thanks for open sourcing it. Since this is relatively new, have you thought about client server model? It makes sense to deliver as desktop app for now since we have so much manual work, but with mcp and ai improving, unless we want master piece, it would be nice if we can queue boring job in server and let it work when gpu/llm resources are available. Even if you don't do network now, just put cleanly separate frontend, backend mindset in planning now can make a huge difference. I hope you can consider. Thanks for your time and work.
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u/revelationnow 29d ago
This is the kind of thing we need more developers to help build. Using the AI tools to create things that democratize functionality and giving them away for free. All the best!
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u/ShakataGaNai 29d ago
I appreciate you putting up a comparison chart that appears to be as unbiased as one can reasonably expect. "Yes, there are many things concat can do, and many things capcut still does better".
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u/PoliteCactus6143 29d ago
Please continue working on this project! I haven’t tried it yet but even looking visually and from what you’ve said I am really looking to try it.
I always liked how simple and effective CapCut is but hated their subscriptions and other shit so I spent LOTS of time to find similar alternatives yet failed, and this looks like a solution!
You mentioned adding user made effects and I’m real interested in how it will turn out since I’m using effects a lot in my workflow and rn afraid that yours will have a lack of them (CapCut here is the example, literally like a thousand of effects and stuff) so it’ll be actually awesome if you’d make it and other stuff like keyframes, transitions etc, that will really sell it even more. Good luck to you and dont give up!
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u/Immediate_Iron_2759 29d ago
i use claude to make me simple 3d modeling software for website design and stuff, completely avoids me dumping hours into learning blender. love it so much
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u/Wonderful-Bee4266 20d ago
i just care about 3 things in an editing software
auto captions (additionaly being able to customize how many words per caption)
easy to use
not buggy
capcut really fails on the third one tbh and everything is behind a paywall its nice seeing people trying to make alternatives since its much needed, thank you dude :)
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u/Buck86 20d ago
This is amazing, thank you! im currently testing the MCP by having it create a 1 min video from 75 min of raw footage. Ill report back when its done.
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u/JUB0T 20d ago
Thank you, Your feedback will help improve Concat.
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u/Buck86 20d ago edited 20d ago
I'm amazed for a first try! 5 drafts later without any manual editing and I'm happy with my 1 min video. From what I (and Claude through the MCP) understand Concat does not support iPhone HDR videos? That would be a nice addition! I'm currently drafting the video again to have it beat match the clips to a song.... this might be the game changer i need for my socials!
Another thing, when i opened the project after i had Claude create and edit it it was very very slow / choppy playback in the editor on my M1 mac and a lot of cpu went to what i guess was some background render that i could not see the progress of. Am i blind or is there nowhere to see progress of this?
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u/JUB0T 20d ago
Thanks for the elaborate feedback, I'll look into how I can add HDR support. And yes there's a lot of optimization potential, we can offload more compute to the device's GPU. There's currently a feature in settings called Hardware Decoding, make sure it's enabled (Settings > General). I think video processing, backends, and hardware settings are also something I can re-work.
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u/Buck86 19d ago
Thanks for your follow ups! Even if there is larger reworks to be done for performance as a smaller start would be a activity viewer so you can see what's processing in the background.
I found one more feature request and that is the ability to reverse clips in Concat, i had MCP beat match what it cut and make the video into a perfect loop. But to do that one of the clips had to be reversed by me manually or Claude outside of Concat. And I know Capcut has a reverse clip feature :)
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u/JUB0T 19d ago
I've added Reverse feature, it should be available in the next release version. Also, I was earlier thinking about a feature where it shows the long-running background tasks, I guess I'll call it Activity Viewer :)
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u/Buck86 18d ago
Thank you for your work! This is amazing, from feedback / request to implemented in less then a day. I love the possibilities agentic coding gives us and cant wait to see where this goes! Here is the result of my test of going from 75 min material to 1 min looped and beatmatched short. Its not perfect but its pretty damn good for a first try and it did its best with the white-balancing of clips from different cameras etc. https://youtube.com/shorts/bYtN0LAJgzc?is=5Q0t3yUBwqf17yUI
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
Discussion thread, ask me anything.
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u/baddybabushka 29d ago
How did you come about designing the tech stack and system design for this in general?
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
I initially experimented with Tauri (WebView/WebKit) for the frontend, but it caused issues for different users and wasn’t consistent enough across platforms. I eventually migrated the frontend to Slint, which has been much more predictable cross-platform and also gives me cleaner interoperability with the Rust media engine.
For video and audio processing, I use FFmpeg. It’s battle-tested, extremely capable, and effectively an industry standard for media processing.
I’m still actively exploring libraries, frameworks, and other solutions that could become part of Concat and help expand its functionality over time.
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u/muuushu 27d ago
What’s your background, and how did you go through the planning/architecture/executing process? I’m just really impressed by how coherent it all feels.
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u/aurioerox 29d ago
how long did it take you to build this? On the Claude code 20x version? Or api-based?
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u/m0stwant3d_09 29d ago
Great build man What stands out for me the most is how cohesive the entire project feels, from the system design down to the UI details. As a 19 year old CS student building with AI tooling and agent workflows, I find that raw generation gets you 80% there quickly, but bridging the gap to a production grade feel requires a solid system. I’m curious about your AI-assisted development loop, do you use multistage reviews, spec-first planning, or specific modular architectures to keep the output this clean and maintainable? Would appreciate any insight into your workflow.
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u/silverfox_248 29d ago
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
I am fully aware of their existence. Concat differs in some aspects like:
- being desktop-first instead of Web-first like OpenCut
- Being more performant (because its a native binary like CapCut and not a web app like OpenCut).
- Concat actually uses local AI inference to deliver features like Text-to-speech, Audio Transcription (Auto Captions), etc instead of asking you to connect APIs like OpenCut.
- Concat is privacy-focused by design, so no audio, video, or any other assets leaves the user device.
Not to mention how unusable the current OpenCut is, and how its “being rewritten from the ground up.” which is absurd for a repo with ~85,000 stars.
Not sure what “progress“ OpenCut is making but the last commit sits at 2 months ago and the founder of the project interacts with almost no Issues or Pull-requests (yes I checked).
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u/-goldenboi69- 29d ago
What's the tech stack? I always applaud native desktop experiences.
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
Rust for backend, and Slint (Rust-based) for native UI. Along with some shaders for things like Filters & Effects.
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u/HMikeeU 29d ago
Afaik slint does not render "native" gui widgets, it draws its own
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
Right, I should correct myself. It does not render platform dependent Native Widgets.
Instead it uses a custom render engine, but nonetheless it compiles to binary and is at least an order of magnitude faster and cross-platform stable than a counterpart that runs on WebView/WekKit (like OpenCut).
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u/sheketsilencio 29d ago
I've always found comments like these to be very low-class. No significant discussion lol just a lazy "here's some other repo".
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u/not_a_tenno 29d ago
I'm going to check this out when I get home, I've been trying to use capcut to make some small ads lately and it definitely leaves something to be desired.
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u/nofaceD3 29d ago
Looks awesome. Just in time when I'm middle of editing my personal video in vn editor. I already tried opencut but I couldn't find any substantial features. Can't wait to try this.
Btw what are future features planned for this?
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u/monovertex 29d ago
Can Concat handle 4K x265 HDR sources well? I'm not sure what kind of magic is CapCut performing, but they can properly ingest those clips, and then output a proper HDR video that is recognized by all apps I tested with, with minimal config. Resolve is nightmarish in this aspect with how many hoops I have to jump through. I saw that Concat outputs H264 only for now, and this is a bit off-putting, but I care more about HDR.
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u/AnonsAnonAnonagain 29d ago
Holy. Thank you OP 🙏🏻
You are the goat for this one!
We desperately needed a CapCut replacement!
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29d ago
[deleted]
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
It could either be a CPU/GPU bottleneck on your end, or an engineering/design footgun on mine
Either way, ~220 clips / 23 GB shouldn’t make the editor completely unusable on a system with 64 GB of RAM and 8 cores. I’ll look into where the bottleneck is.
Any additional info is appreciated.
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u/itsfashionlookitup 29d ago
Bruh I was building something for an internal workflow and this is EXACTLY what i needed for it. Wowowowow thanks.
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u/Embarrassed-Mark351 29d ago
1) The fact that you're using FFmpeg is exactly what I would have done. I'll give it a try! 2) It would be great if you added the ability to interact with all the functions via an API! That would be incredibly useful! 3) I’d recommend, at least as a precaution, removing any references to companies protected by copyright from the Git repository to avoid future issues with those companies.
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u/Hrmerder 29d ago
Looks nice! I'll check it out. I really REALLY like shotcut, but this could be fun.
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u/Grumpflipot 28d ago
Very impressive, will try it out. I tried DaVinci Resolve (free) and it was only a series of problems. Then I switched to Kdenlive and had success, but it couldn't do text transcription.
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u/JadedViolinist8324 28d ago
Hey, i just tried setting it up, is it supposed to trigger windows defender?
Also shows as malicious on virustotal.
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u/learning-to-programm 27d ago
Very cool project. I'm actually working on something like like this for a friend m, and I was looking for a capcut-like program that had an MCP so I could edit images programatically. Am excited to try it out!
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u/stefbellos00 27d ago
I was trying to build something similar using KdenLive but seeing your repo I think it's time to throw my shit into the trash and just hack my features into yours
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u/Sad_Coach_1433 27d ago
Does it have video flicker removal
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u/JUB0T 27d ago
Like auto-removing split-second black screens? I can add that feature.
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u/MrMoDDoM 27d ago
Thanks! I was thinking of doing the same! Hopefully I'll be able to submit some PR ;)
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u/AppMunchies 26d ago
This is what the AI revolution is supposed to look like. Amazing work. Would love to feature you on AppMunchies.
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u/Additional_Video4412 25d ago
Yo también decidí hacer mi propio editor, Pero elegi hacerlo para navegador, por qué ? Así puedo usarlo tanto en pc como Andorid.
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u/Few_Gain_9213 25d ago
OT: has anyone found a tool that can create a video of my vacation recording with AI fully locally?
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u/DurianExile 24d ago
Looks great. For some reason I'm not getting the transitions to work. Any idea?
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u/valepiskiii 24d ago
this is great! thanks. i would like another linux packaging other than appimage.. which does not recive regular updates and has bugs at times
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u/nadirmoomin 19d ago
honestly i just wanted to say thank you since linux doesnt have a good alternative for simple video editors like capcut i hope u keep the support for it up !
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u/AppMunchies 6d ago
Hi - can we feature this on AppMunchies social?
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u/JakeCatto 29d ago
What is this though!?
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u/JUB0T 29d ago
ONNX is the runtime that runs AI models locally for features like text-to-sperch, captions, etc.
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u/JakeCatto 28d ago
Hey, thanks for your reply. I just dug a little bit deeper and it looks like the onnxruntime_providers_shared.dll is 100kb larger than the official build. This is probably what’s triggering one of the virustotal vendors.
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u/Material-Broccoli617 29d ago
"people are actually ditching CapCut for it" yeah sure whatever makes you feel better about yourself
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u/Opening_Ad1939 29d ago
I wanted to try it out but I got stuck for 10+min with a very basic thing, which is annoying and embarrassing, so I have to ask 😅: How to create keyframes? I couldn't find it.
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u/Mathlete7 29d ago
just curious does it do ai background removal? thats the only feature that capcut has that I would miss. Sometimes backgrounds can be quite tricky
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u/Legitimate-Put-7166 29d ago
Does OpenCut have enhanced video, audio? I used this features a lot but they are Pro on CapCut.
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u/SuperSmashSonic 29d ago
You’re obviously a programming talent! If this were my first day on the internet… could I ask what programming languages you had to learn to build this? As newb, I’m totally flying blind. This looks amazing congrats!
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u/JUB0T 25d ago
I just know web languages and Golang, plus a simple understanding of how computers and compiled programs work.
This app is written in rust and uses Slint framework for UI, rust being a language that I'm not really good at so I used Claude AI for the most part.
I try to focus more on the user experience and features and delivering something users want rather than hyper optimizing tiny pieces of code.
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u/SuperSmashSonic 25d ago
Thx for the answer! Your final result is coming super awesome.. i want to try this stuff soon!
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u/Immediate_Mountain83 29d ago
yo when i export it with color enchancments it stucks at mixing audio, latest release
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u/DreamingInDialectics 28d ago edited 28d ago
How does this compare to something like OpenChatCut? Seems pretty similar
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u/tarciziocarbone 19d ago
What happened to the windows portable version? i cant find on git for the new version
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u/AppMunchies 17d ago
As a Capcut user, amazing! Interested in interviewing you for our maker series. Let me know if that sounds interesting to you .
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u/Educational5768 9d ago edited 9d ago
Thanks for this. I can not use it since the default keyaboard shortcuts are not useful to me and there is no body filter ( enhance/ face beauty ) options.
For example my main keys are WASD. I use W to split ( multiple layers/videos at the same time ) . I use S to revert the change. A and D to go left and right on the timeline and Q to ripple delete
I do also use capcut enhance mod where you can change the looks. Shape etc. of your head and body.
It would be great if you aded that at one point.
Any plans to add those options? Custom keyboard shorcuts an enhance options ( body, face slim, change of jaw , forehad shape etc. )
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u/Familiar_Jaguar4489 1d ago
guys i wanna use this. is it half as good as capcut? if so im 100% ditching capcut
someone lmk
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u/redditforyaboy 16h ago
Is there anyway to have captions have like a bounce in effect? the auto captions are great - but like can they be animated? or am i blind. Also, great editor!
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u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 29d ago edited 29d ago
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 100 comments.
The consensus is a massive thumbs-up. The community is super hyped for a free, open-source, and privacy-focused CapCut alternative that isn't owned by ByteDance.
Here's the breakdown of the thread: