OpenCut: The open-source CapCut alternative
90 comments
·July 13, 2025cddotdotslash
oefrha
Assholes online were not “made popular recently”.
Gotta love seeing a code of conduct:
> We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our community a harassment-free experience for everyone
And down in Enforcement (emphasis mine):
> Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be reported to the community leaders responsible for enforcement at [INSERT CONTACT METHOD]. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.
What’s the point of this dance when you can’t bother to fill out the contact.
worthless-trash
Because the code of conduct is ONLY ever intended to be used as a sword, not as a shield.
lucideer
Did anyone read that linked thread in full? There's no "style of discussion" there, there's a lot of people engaging in a very normal, constructive discussion, which is being interupted by a single disruptive commenter (Zaid).
Nothing there seems to reflect poorly on the project as far as I can tell?
lpln3452
"A single disruptive commenter (Zaid)" And he is one of the top contributors. That doesn't quite fit the narrative that it was just some weirdo interfering.
cheschire
“Top contributor” is being rather generous there. He just committed several really tiny changes to the CI
https://github.com/OpenCut-app/OpenCut/graphs/contributors
https://github.com/OpenCut-app/OpenCut/commits?author=Zaid-m...
edoceo
That thread is trash.
If anyone is looking for tips on what to NOT do, it's a gold mine.
zipping1549
Huge red flag. I doubt actual good product is coming out from a person with that much attitude on anywhere, let alone their project's issues...
Aurornis
Hard to tell who’s who, but the Zaid person who claims to be a maintainer is apparently not a maintainer. He contributed some small changes and started claiming to be a maintainer.
dqv
> I really hope it doesn't catch on further
It already has.
It is the late teens/young twenties online communication style. Generally pretty aggressive, but easy to ignore because they are usually not really saying anything of substance. They are "ragebaiting" you.
arp242
Cluely seems sort of AI tool? How does that relate to that thread?
Thorrez
I guess their team posts stuff in style like that sometimes. E.g.
AlienRobot
Wow.
greatgib
I like the idea but looks fishy at this point even if I did not look at the code or try it yet.
So many GitHub stars and not a single screenshot of it anywhere, not on GitHub, not on Google, not on the official webpage that just have a wait-list and their twitter Bash capcut with screenshots of capcut but none of opencutapp.
And I mean I wish something like that to succeed, but it doesn't look like that they have much to show for at the moment.
bsenftner
I tried to install, and their build instructions do not work. Waste of time, why is this here on HN at all?
acheong08
https://xcancel.com/OpenCutApp
Follower count and activity looks about right. There's some screenshots there. I assume the star count is due to some amount of marketing.
eddythompson80
The project is 3 weeks old with mainly 1 guy. I’m curious how you get (legit/organic) 17k start and 3k twitter followers for a 3 week old project presumably while I’m busy with it.
I know buying stars and followers is pretty straight forward.
muratsu
The timing of the project was pretty good and things were just aligned: AI video is booming, capcut is popular but changed pricing, there’s regulatory risk, and the dev is building publicly.
dawnerd
Smells vibe coded too
xnx
I really like the idea of an open source alternative to CapCut, but the project is currently very far from the ease-of-use that makess CapCut one of my favorite editors on Windows.
Very few casual desktop CapCut users are going to get past the prerequisits of instal "Bun, Docker and Docker Compose, and Node.js"
Blender, Shotcut, OpenShot, or Kdenlive are probably the better open source video editor options right now.
codedokode
> Very few casual desktop CapCut users are going to get past the prerequisits of instal "Bun, Docker and Docker Compose, and Node.js"
They just need to pack it as an single AppImage or Electron app. Bun and Docker are made for developers, not users.
eddythompson80
Aurornis
> You probably use CapCut and think your video editing is special. You think your fucking TikTok with 47 transitions and 12 different fonts is going to get you some viral fame. You think loading up every goddamn effect in their library makes your content better. Wrong, motherfucker.
I know this edgy style appeals to some people, but it’s a quick way to alienate most users. Nothing screams “this project is not for you” like copy that feels like it was targeted at impressing someone’s friends in an edgy Discord, not actual potential users.
Although I don’t think this project is trying to appeal to a general audience with the level of technical expertise required to even begin to use it.
lucideer
While nobody is required to like the copy, or "brand" of any project, commercial or otherwise, I do feel like the rhetoric of your comment is largely grounded in a kind of "maximum appeasement" strategy that belongs in for-profit corporate marketing & isn't really appropriate in the open source community.
For example: there's very reasonable arguments that COCs are needed to protect against actual material harm/bullying/abuse targeting individual contributors on projects but this copy specifically does none of that.
In that context, it's just a matter of taste - there's no real reason to police tone that isn't harmful (to anything other than a bottom line).
Aurornis
> I do feel like the rhetoric of your comment is largely grounded in a kind of "maximum appeasement" strategy that belongs in for-profit corporate marketing & isn't really appropriate in the open source community.
I’m not asking for corporate speak. I’m suggesting simple communication that explains the information without insulting the reader and calling them a “motherfucker” every other sentence would be less alienating
> In that context, it's just a matter of taste - there's no real reason to police tone that isn't harmful (to anything other than a bottom line)
I’m not here to police anything or anyone. They’re free to write as they please. I’m just pointing out that writing this way is a big red flag to a lot of people this project’s target audience is the edgelord crowd. If that’s what they’re aiming for then there’s nothing wrong with that, but I don’t think they realize how making strong appeals to that narrow target audience is a fast track to pigeon holing your project as an edgelord thing. Just taking one look at the low brow insults and trash talking in the GitHub issues confirms it.
nine_k
No need to police! But may make you despise. Or at least doubt.
Emotions going way overboard are usually not good for engineering, or for open-source project governance. Aggressive negative emotions, doubly so.
null
deadbabe
This style is a way to fight back against the inevitable entitlement that people get when they use an open source software and then demand the creators do this and that.
By dropping any pretense of being polite or approachable, you basically encourage people to shut the f*ck up and either be happy with what they got or else submit a PR.
Aurornis
It does the opposite.
It selects for people who are drawn to harsh language and think calling people “motherfucker” is both normal and cool.
Guess how those people are going to communicate right back to you when they want something?
ants_everywhere
The style is just standard insecure angry dude, it's not a way to fight back against anything.
A good deal of the site is just them complaining they don't get access to free stuff from CapCut anymore.
It's not "take it or leave it", it's "waah how dare you not give it to me."
nojs
Definitely AI generated
rfl890
Looks like a parody of this website: https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
pram
I kinda wonder why ByteDance charges for anything in CapCut at all, considering it would make sense to make it as easy and cheap as possible to get more slop on TikTok?
Aurornis
Simple: They charge because people pay for it.
It’s the back door way to collect money from content creators and businesses. Most of the people I know who were using CapCut either had their employers pay for it or had some way to tax deduct it as part of their creator activities.
Paying $20/month on top of an actual business is usually trivial, especially if it saves someone time or improves quality of the content.
The TikTok slop posts aren’t spending any time perfecting their edits. They’re mass producing content as rapidly as they can from phone camera to TikTok
null
rtaylorgarlock
Again?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44540804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44355853
edit: I am genuinely curious about spam prevention on HN. What systems we got working against fraudulent actors?
nateb2022
Considering the previous posts never got more than 2 points, I didn't think reposting it would be an issue.
I am not a fraudulent actor (not sure what basis there is for that accusation) and generally post things I come across. OpenCut was in my GitHub feed today, seemed like it could be useful to others, ergo I shared it.
danjl
TIL: there's a GitHub feed https://github.com/explore
NewJazz
Reposts aren't really moderated unless the previous posts were highly updated/commented and recent.
TheObviousOne
Beside the spam issue...Does the repo legit, though?
rtaylorgarlock
Wifey is an influencer and semi-dependent on capcut (features the mobile instagram vid editor doesn't offer), so I'm quite interested in quality 'simple' timeline-style editors. Testing is on my list, though repeat submissions to HN does NOT move it up my todo list.
limagnolia
Different accounts doing the submitting- could be the same person, but might not be too. Also, HN guidelines don't really discourage duplicate submissions, and in some cases, HN moderators are known to encourage re-submission.
echelon
Why are you upset that the author resubmitted? The last posts got no traction at all.
A post getting two submissions twice does not make this a re-post. Nobody on earth saw the previous submissions.
It's permissible for folks to submit posts a few times until they actually get noticed or dang steps in to tell them to stop. The author is doing things exactly as the rules permit.
If you've learned from your wife's social media career, you know that you often have to keep trying in order to pick up traction. The algorithm requires signal.
38
[flagged]
timhigins
You can test it out at https://opencut.app/projects. I added some screenshots to the README here (https://github.com/alexkreidler/OpenCut/tree/main?tab=readme...) and opened a PR to merge the update upstream.
lpln3452
Promotion without a single screenshot. Not interested in projects with READMEs like this. If it's actually good, it'll spread on its own.
Honestly the 'Project Structure' section which is just a directory listing, feels like it was generated by an LLM.
dawnerd
There’s been such a massive increase in LLM generated apps being shared especially on the self hosted subreddit. They get mad when you call them out. It’s incredibly obvious.
AlienRobot
>If it's actually good, it'll spread on its own.
That's not how it works, but I agree it's weird there is no screenshot.
satvikpendem
"If you build it, they will come" is one of the oldest myths tech founders seem to still believe, even though it's been disproven time and again.
laxd
Openshot, Shotcut, Opencut ... It's getting confusing.
m-p-3
Would have enjoyed some screenshots or a quick tour in video form.
null
alexfromapex
Does a waitlist mean it will be monetized?
m3kw9
This stuff sounds enterprising
https://github.com/OpenCut-app/OpenCut/issues/192
I don't know if this style of... discussion is something the Cluely team made popular recently, or if it took off sooner, but I really hope it doesn't catch on further.