Clips go straight onto the timeline
Shotcut is a GPLv3 video editor for Windows, macOS and Linux. There is no import step: files dropped onto the timeline are edited as they are, and one project can mix resolutions and frame rates. Underneath sits the MLT multimedia framework, with FFmpeg handling formats and codecs, so Shotcut never relies on whatever codecs the operating system has installed. Projects are saved as MLT XML, a plain-text format you can read and edit by hand.
HDR grading, audio mixing and subtitles in one timeline
- 10-bit processing end to end, linear color, HDR10 (PQ) and HLG with tone mapping down to SDR, and alpha-channel video both read and written.
- Low-resolution proxies for faster seeking through footage, plus preview scaling to speed up real-time effects.
- A volume control and level meter on every track header, automatic ducking, RNNoise noise reduction, 5.1 and Ambisonic audio, and voiceover recorded straight to the timeline.
- Subtitles imported from SRT, VTT, ASS or SSA, or transcribed from speech, then burned into the picture or embedded in the exported file.
- SDI and HDMI capture and external monitoring through Blackmagic Design cards, with jog and shuttle control from a Contour Shuttle PRO.
- The interface exposes only a selection of the LADSPA and frei0r filters, on purpose according to the FAQ; a hand-written MLT XML project can call any of them.
- No network access is needed to activate the program, check a subscription or send usage analytics.
Eight cores for 4K, and still no multicam
The CPU does most of the work. The FAQ asks for 4 cores and 8 GB of RAM to edit HD, 8 cores and 16 GB for 4K, and tells owners of lower-end machines to turn on both proxies and preview scaling. In the default processing modes, filters, transitions, track compositing and audio mixing all run on the CPU, and hardware decoding only applies up to 1080p or with preview scaling on. GPU processing through OpenGL is labeled experimental and covers a small subset of filters.
Cross-platform support comes before an all-GPU pipeline, by the project's own account. Other editors, the FAQ notes, limit themselves to one GPU vendor's API such as CUDA to keep nearly everything on the graphics card. Shotcut chose not to, because it targets Windows, macOS and Linux alike.
Several advanced editing features are still on the roadmap, listed "in no particular order or estimated delivery time": multicam editing, slip and slide modes, OpenTimelineIO import and export, EDL import, raw video such as CinemaDNG, and background removal. Shotcut writes CMX3600 EDLs but cannot read them. The FAQ sends sample-level audio work to Audacity, and cutting without re-encoding to LosslessCut or Avidemux.
External plugins ship switched off. VST2, LV2 and OpenFX support is marked as work in progress. Since 26.9 they only load once the "Allow External Plugins" box is ticked, because some VST2 plugins were causing trouble at startup and during export on Windows and macOS.
Latest release: 26.9.27, announced on September 27, 2026. Through 2026 a stable release has landed every one to two months, each preceded by a public pre-release, and the most recent commit is dated October 27, 2026. The floor is Windows 10 build 1809, macOS 12, or 64-bit Linux with glibc 2.35.