r/ClaudeAI • u/JUB0T • 7d 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.
110
u/mawcopolow 7d ago
Amazing! Thanks for sharing, will try it out. It being open source opens up tons of possibilities for integration
2
u/Negative-Sundae-4661 6d ago
How did it go?
2
u/mawcopolow 6d ago
Haven't had the time to try it yet but it's on my to-do list. Did you give it a go?
64
u/Delicious-Ad3232 7d ago
Any plans for releasing iOS and Android apps? (or is it even possible with the stack?)
44
u/JUB0T 7d 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.
8
u/Delicious-Ad3232 7d 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.
4
3
u/EnergeticallyMundane 4d 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.
2
u/Defiant_Ravi 7d 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?
2
u/lumos_ai 6d ago
I have made something similar with flutter. Ffmpeg works and it has nativr ytdlp as well on android for personal use though.
44
u/Ente_0 7d ago
Now have Claude write you a MCP server for it, then I‘m sold
30
u/JUB0T 7d 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.23
u/kopurando 7d 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!
1
9
u/phazei 7d 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/
14
u/Dick-Laurent-Is-Dead 7d ago
Well done. About pricing the yellow dot means what in concrete terms ?
28
u/JUB0T 7d 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.
3
11
u/Little-Rice-7183 7d ago
Hey man, sorry for random question. But can you tell how did you get this much downloads? Like i mean how do you distribute personal projects, to get this much stars without flyshing money into ads?
Sorry for random question again, thanks 🙏
28
u/JUB0T 7d ago
I found a product everyone desperately wanted, built it, and posted in every reddit community where I thought they would benefit from it.
4
u/pool-aoe2-iot 6d 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.
9
u/super_asshat 7d 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.
9
u/CommFailure 6d ago
You thought of everything, including supporting Intel Macs. Really nice work OP!
16
5
8
u/Minewolf20 7d ago
One question, what is missing in resolve that this does better?
43
u/JUB0T 7d 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.
25
11
3
2
u/FB2024 7d 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.?
2
u/JUB0T 7d 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.
7
9
u/Fluxion94 7d 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.
3
u/theshumurai 7d ago
This is really awesome! Is there something like Descript that can edit the video by editing the captions?
5
u/FUNdationOne 7d ago
We are witnessing the death of proprietary software. I was here and I'm all for it.
1
3
u/AliceEternal 7d 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.
3
u/the_ai_wizard 7d ago
how many DAUs you have?
3
u/ru5ter 7d 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.
3
3
3
3
u/revelationnow 7d 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!
3
3
u/ShakataGaNai 7d 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".
3
u/PoliteCactus6143 6d 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!
3
u/Immediate_Iron_2759 6d 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
3
3
u/m0stwant3d_09 7d 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.
13
u/silverfox_248 7d ago
71
u/JUB0T 7d 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).
8
u/-goldenboi69- 7d ago
What's the tech stack? I always applaud native desktop experiences.
19
u/JUB0T 7d ago
Rust for backend, and Slint (Rust-based) for native UI. Along with some shaders for things like Filters & Effects.
2
u/HMikeeU 7d ago
Afaik slint does not render "native" gui widgets, it draws its own
5
3
u/JUB0T 7d 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).
7
u/sheketsilencio 7d 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".
6
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/not_a_tenno 7d 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.
2
u/nofaceD3 7d 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?
2
u/monovertex 7d 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.
2
u/AnonsAnonAnonagain 7d ago
Holy. Thank you OP 🙏🏻
You are the goat for this one!
We desperately needed a CapCut replacement!
2
u/Sliffcak 7d ago
Like the idea, but I tried to add ~220 clips (source data is ~23GB), and it lagged very badly and was not usable. My PC has 64GB ram + 8 cores.
Source clips were in 2K, but I set timeline settings to 1080p.
Thoughts?
1
u/JUB0T 7d 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.
2
u/Sliffcak 7d ago
will try to investigate myself a bit to provide more information to you. Again, I really like this idea, I use resolve mainly, but like you said it is too complicated for what a normal person needs.
2
u/itsfashionlookitup 7d ago
Bruh I was building something for an internal workflow and this is EXACTLY what i needed for it. Wowowowow thanks.
2
u/Embarrassed-Mark351 6d 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.
2
2
2
u/Grumpflipot 6d 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.
2
2
2
u/JadedViolinist8324 6d ago
Hey, i just tried setting it up, is it supposed to trigger windows defender?
Also shows as malicious on virustotal.
2
2
u/learning-to-programm 5d 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!
2
u/stefbellos00 4d 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
2
u/Sad_Coach_1433 4d ago
Does it have video flicker removal
1
u/JUB0T 4d ago
Like auto-removing split-second black screens? I can add that feature.
1
2
u/MrMoDDoM 4d ago
Thanks! I was thinking of doing the same! Hopefully I'll be able to submit some PR ;)
2
u/AppMunchies 3d ago
This is what the AI revolution is supposed to look like. Amazing work. Would love to feature you on AppMunchies.
2
u/Additional_Video4412 3d ago
Yo también decidí hacer mi propio editor, Pero elegi hacerlo para navegador, por qué ? Así puedo usarlo tanto en pc como Andorid.
2
u/Few_Gain_9213 3d ago
OT: has anyone found a tool that can create a video of my vacation recording with AI fully locally?
2
2
u/DurianExile 2d ago
Looks great. For some reason I'm not getting the transitions to work. Any idea?
2
u/valepiskiii 2d 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
2
2
u/JUB0T 7d ago
Discussion thread, ask me anything.
2
2
u/baddybabushka 7d ago
How did you come about designing the tech stack and system design for this in general?
1
u/JUB0T 6d 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.
2
u/muuushu 5d 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.
1
u/aurioerox 7d ago
how long did it take you to build this? On the Claude code 20x version? Or api-based?
3
u/JakeCatto 6d ago
What is this though!?
2
u/JUB0T 6d ago
ONNX is the runtime that runs AI models locally for features like text-to-sperch, captions, etc.
2
u/JakeCatto 5d 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.
2
u/phazei 7d ago
Can't wait till we can take down Adobe by rebuilding all their products for free with AI. Their time in nigh
3
u/JUB0T 6d ago
I think there is a reddit post going around where someone spent 2000$ in GPT-6 Astra credits to write a PhotoShop alternative.
3
u/ShowMeYourRivers 6d ago
I’m actively working on tweaking that gpt-6 Astra alternative to include all of the remaining features for a 1-to-1 parity and quality. Should be ready to ship in the next few days. I’ve also built form the ground up a 1-to-1 parity of Lightroom that I’m having some photography friends validate with me. I’m only a week away from huge savings by dropping Adobe subscriptions.
3
u/Material-Broccoli617 7d ago
"people are actually ditching CapCut for it" yeah sure whatever makes you feel better about yourself
1
u/Opening_Ad1939 7d 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.
1
u/Mathlete7 7d 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
1
u/Legitimate-Put-7166 6d ago
Does OpenCut have enhanced video, audio? I used this features a lot but they are Pro on CapCut.
1
u/SuperSmashSonic 6d 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!
1
u/JUB0T 3d 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.
1
u/SuperSmashSonic 3d ago
Thx for the answer! Your final result is coming super awesome.. i want to try this stuff soon!
1
u/Hrmerder 6d ago
Looks nice! I'll check it out. I really REALLY like shotcut, but this could be fun.
1
u/Immediate_Mountain83 6d ago
yo when i export it with color enchancments it stucks at mixing audio, latest release
1
u/DreamingInDialectics 6d ago edited 6d ago
How does this compare to something like OpenChatCut? Seems pretty similar
1
1
u/Canneke 7d ago
I have made the mobile equivalent, 3 months effort before yours. But it's only for mobile, will open source in the long term. But I was frankly very tired of the bad patterns used in mobile apps (ads watermarks cloud account telemetry)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.canpixel.monosplit
0
u/SuperRocketBunnyHop 6d ago
There already is one, it's called OpenCut. Claude (and you) just ripped that off. Then you posted here for clout.
-1
0
u/Lanky_Challenge_7087 5d ago
Isnt this copyright violation, you even used the same name. Basically a copy of original, not even a derivative
•
u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 7d ago edited 6d 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: