Is After Effects free?

Not for good: the first paid plan costs €27 a month. EffectCraft does the same thing for free, in open source.

What is the free equivalent of After Effects?

EffectCraft, an open source rewrite of After Effects (MIT or Apache 2.0 license): compositions, shape and text layers, masks, expressions, 306 effects and 3D with cameras and lights. It exports to MP4, ProRes, WebM and Lottie. Free on Mac, Windows and Linux. It is an alpha: it does not open .aep projects.

Can you use After Effects without a subscription?

No: After Effects costs €27 a month with a one year commitment, and the only free version is a 7 day trial. EffectCraft installs with no subscription and no account.

Is EffectCraft really free?

Yes. EffectCraft is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. After Effects, on the other hand, costs €27 a month.

Do I need to code to install EffectCraft?

No. The level is beginner and the install takes about 5 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.

How is it different from After Effects?

EffectCraft does most of what After Effects does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.

Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.

Free alternative

Free alternative to After Effects

After Effects costs €27 a month. EffectCraft does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.

Price taken from After Effects’ website (adobe.com): After Effects plan, one year commitment paid monthly, VAT included. Over a year, that is €324 that stays in your pocket.

How much does After Effects cost in 2026?

After Effects’ public plans, checked on 12 October 2026 on adobe.com. Prices rounded up to the next euro.

After Effects
€27 a month
On desktop, with Adobe Express Premium, Frame.io, 100 GB of storage and 25 AI credits a month. One year commitment, paid monthly.
After Effects for teams
€34 a month per license, excluding VAT
The same plan for a business, with a one year commitment paid monthly.
Creative Cloud Pro
€79 a month
After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop and over 20 Adobe apps, with 4,000 AI credits a month. A €40 promotion for 3 months was shown on the day prices were checked.

Prices including VAT shown for France, except the team plan (excluding VAT). The only free version is a 7 day trial. See the official pricing page ↗

What replaces After Effects

The main alternative

EffectCraft

🟢 Beginner⏱️ ~5 min to installSave €27/mo

EffectCraft is an open source rewrite of After Effects, built from scratch by the ArtCraft team. You find After Effects’ panels, menus and shortcuts: compositions and precomps, shape and text layers, masks, keyframes with the Graph Editor, expressions (wiggle, loopOut), Puppet tools, 306 effects including every After Effects one, and 3D with cameras and lights. It exports to MP4, ProRes, WebM or image sequences, and to Lottie for the web. MIT or Apache 2.0 license, free on Mac, Windows and Linux, with no account. The catch: it is an alpha started in October 2026, which the team rates 45% ready for professional work. It cannot open .aep projects, and After Effects plug-ins do not run in it.

Loucash’s verdict on EffectCraft

6/10

The youngest of the suite, and maybe the most ambitious: an After Effects rewritten from scratch, with the same panels, the same shortcuts, expressions, 3D and 306 effects. And it does one thing After Effects cannot do without a plug-in: export to Lottie. What may bite: it is an alpha, started on 1 October. The team itself rates it 45% ready for professional work: it does not open .aep files, plug-ins do not run, and both Windows and Linux still have interface bugs. For your animated titles and Lottie files, it is worth a try. For a client project, keep After Effects for now.

Who it is for: You make animated titles, graphics packages for your videos or Lottie animations for your site, and you pay for After Effects mostly for that. If you work on clients’ .aep projects or live on plug-ins, keep After Effects for now.

See the full page →See the tool ↗

EffectCraft versus After Effects: the match

Price
EffectCraft
€0, on every platform
After Effects
€27/month, one year commitment
Account and sign in
EffectCraft
No account, no telemetry, everything stays on your machine
After Effects
Adobe account required
Projects and plug-ins
EffectCraft
Neither .aep files nor After Effects plug-ins
After Effects
Its native format and all its plug-ins

After Effects ↗

VS	EffectCraft	After Effects ↗
Price	€0, on every platform	€27/month, one year commitment
Account and sign in	No account, no telemetry, everything stays on your machine	Adobe account required
Projects and plug-ins	Neither .aep files nor After Effects plug-ins	Its native format and all its plug-ins
Lottie export	Built in, both ways	Through a third party plug-in
Maturity	Alpha, started in October 2026	Over 30 years of development

The prompt that installs EffectCraft

Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.

Je veux installer EffectCraft (le logiciel d’animation et d’effets visuels open source qui reprend After Effects, dépôt GitHub officiel storytold/effectcraft, site getartcraft.com/apps/effectcraft) à la place d’un abonnement After Effects. Guide-moi pas à pas et pose-moi des questions si besoin. Repère d’abord mon système (macOS, Windows ou Linux) et mon processeur (Apple Silicon, Intel, x64 ou ARM). Télécharge ensuite la dernière version publiée dans les releases du dépôt storytold/effectcraft, ou sur la page officielle getartcraft.com/apps/effectcraft, en prenant le fichier qui correspond : l’image disque universelle sur Mac, l’installateur .msi sur Windows (x64, ARM64 ou 32 bits), l’AppImage, le paquet .deb, le paquet .rpm ou le Flatpak sur Linux. Vérifie l’empreinte SHA-256 du fichier avec le fichier SHA256SUMS.txt publié avec la même version, et arrête-toi si elle ne correspond pas. Installe l’appli et vérifie qu’elle démarre. Si macOS bloque l’ouverture, explique-moi comment l’autoriser dans Réglages Système, sans désactiver la sécurité de mon Mac. Rappelle-moi qu’EffectCraft est encore en alpha, plus testé sur Mac que sur Windows et Linux : je garde mes projets After Effects et je travaille sur des copies de mes rushs. Si j’utilise Claude Code, propose-moi aussi d’installer l’outil en ligne de commande effectcraft-cli de la même version et de brancher son serveur MCP (effectcraft-cli mcp), pour que tu puisses animer à ma place. Pour finir, ouvre le projet de démonstration, crée avec moi un titre animé de cinq secondes et exporte-le en MP4, puis dis-moi ce qui marche et ce qui manque.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.

Frequently asked questions

How much does After Effects cost?: After Effects: €27 a month; After Effects for teams: €34 a month per license, excluding VAT; Creative Cloud Pro: €79 a month. Prices checked on 12 October 2026 on adobe.com.
Is After Effects free?: Not for good: the first paid plan costs €27 a month. EffectCraft does the same thing for free, in open source.
What is the free equivalent of After Effects?: EffectCraft, an open source rewrite of After Effects (MIT or Apache 2.0 license): compositions, shape and text layers, masks, expressions, 306 effects and 3D with cameras and lights. It exports to MP4, ProRes, WebM and Lottie. Free on Mac, Windows and Linux. It is an alpha: it does not open .aep projects.
Can you use After Effects without a subscription?: No: After Effects costs €27 a month with a one year commitment, and the only free version is a 7 day trial. EffectCraft installs with no subscription and no account.
Is EffectCraft really free?: Yes. EffectCraft is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. After Effects, on the other hand, costs €27 a month.
Do I need to code to install EffectCraft?: No. The level is beginner and the install takes about 5 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
How is it different from After Effects?: EffectCraft does most of what After Effects does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
Do I own my data?: Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.

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