Shotcut

About

Shotcut

Shotcut is a free open-source cross-platform video editor developed by Dan Dennedy and released under the GNU General Public License. The project originally began as a test bed for the MLT multimedia framework in 2004 and was reintroduced as a full video editor by Dennedy in 2011. Shotcut runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux with native timeline editing, wide format support, and no watermark on export.

Shotcut originated in 2004 as a test-bed application for the MLT multimedia framework, a low-level video editing library used by several open-source video projects. Longtime MLT maintainer Dan Dennedy rewrote and relaunched Shotcut as a full-featured non-linear video editor in 2011, positioning it as a free open-source cross-platform alternative for hobbyists, educators, and independent creators who wanted a real timeline editor without a subscription or a watermark on export. Dennedy has continued to lead development of both MLT and Shotcut, and the project is licensed under the GNU General Public License and coordinated on GitHub. The application supports hundreds of audio, video, and image formats through its FFmpeg-based backend, multiple video and audio tracks with clip filters and track filters, keyframable effects, video transitions, chroma-key compositing, colorization tools, waveform and vectorscope video-scope displays, and audio mixing controls including channel routing and normalization. Common professional formats such as ProRes, DNxHD, and AV1 sit alongside consumer H.264 and H.265, and Shotcut exports directly to standard delivery presets or custom encoder options. The application handles 4K UHD editing and export on capable hardware and offers preview scaling to reduce load on slower systems. Shotcut is distributed as free binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux through shotcut.org, and mirrored on Flathub, the Snap store, and GitHub Releases. The project maintains community channels on its dedicated forum at forum.shotcut.org, a Facebook page, active YouTube tutorial contributors, a subreddit at r/shotcut, and the Meltytech GitHub organization that hosts the codebase. Dennedy publishes release notes and a public roadmap on shotcut.org, and independent educators and YouTubers have produced extensive free training material that has established Shotcut as one of the most-recommended beginner-to-intermediate open-source video editors.