Diffusion Studio

New

The free alternative toCapCut Pro

GitHub stars3,234

🟡 Intermediate⏱️ ~10 min to installYou save €24/mo

Diffusion Studio is an open source video editor (MPL 2.0 licence) built to be driven by your coding agent. It replaces CapCut Pro for editing and export. You drop your footage in a folder and ask Claude Code: cut the silences, build a vertical edit, make a promo video from your website, animate titles, cut out a person. Every change is written as code, and you take over on the timeline. The desktop app is free (Apple Silicon Mac or Windows), with a mandatory account, and exports up to 4K without a watermark. The limit: as soon as the AI has to listen to or watch your video (transcription, automatic captions, best moments), it uses credits: 50 free once, then the Pro plan, about €22 a month.

GitHub stars3,234

3.2kView on GitHub ↗

Versus CapCut Pro: the match

Price
Diffusion Studio
€0 to edit and export, paid credits for the AI
CapCut Pro
€24/month on a monthly subscription
Who edits
Diffusion Studio
You, or Claude Code, Codex, Cursor connected to the editor
CapCut Pro
You, with the app's AI on Pro
Automatic captions
Diffusion Studio
With credits (50 free once), or free if you import an .srt file
CapCut Pro
Yes

CapCut Pro ↗

VS	Diffusion Studio	CapCut Pro ↗
Price	€0 to edit and export, paid credits for the AI	€24/month on a monthly subscription
Who edits	You, or Claude Code, Codex, Cursor connected to the editor	You, with the app's AI on Pro
Automatic captions	With credits (50 free once), or free if you import an .srt file	Yes
Animations and motion graphics	Written as code by your agent, editable in the editor	Huge library of templates and effects
Where your videos live	In a folder on your machine; the audio goes to their servers when the AI transcribes	On CapCut's servers for online features
Mobile app	No, Apple Silicon Mac and Windows	iOS and Android
Code	Open, MPL 2.0 licence	Closed, ByteDance

How to install it (even from zero)

A desktop app to install (Apple Silicon Mac or Windows), a free account to create, then Claude Code to connect from the settings. Count ten minutes: the prompt does the install and starts your first edit.

Paste this prompt into Claude Code

It installs the app from the official repository, connects Claude Code and starts a first edit while avoiding credits:

Je veux installer Diffusion Studio (l'éditeur vidéo open source piloté par les agents de code, dépôt GitHub diffusionstudio/editor, site diffusion.studio) et l'utiliser avec Claude Code à la place de CapCut Pro. Guide-moi pas à pas, en me posant des questions. Vérifie d'abord ma machine : il faut un Mac Apple Silicon (M1 ou plus récent, macOS 12 minimum) ou un PC Windows x64. Installe l'appli depuis les releases officielles du dépôt diffusionstudio/editor : sur Mac avec Homebrew (brew install --cask diffusionstudio/tap/editor) ou avec le fichier Diffusion-Studio-arm64.dmg, sur Windows avec Diffusion-Studio-x64-Setup.exe. Ouvre l'appli et laisse-moi créer mon compte gratuit (Google, GitHub ou lien par e-mail). Ensuite, dans Settings, rubrique MCP & CLI, connecte Claude Code et installe la commande dapi, puis vérifie avec dapi --help. Si j'ai Node, ajoute aussi les skills officiels (npx skills add diffusionstudio/skills). Puis crée un dossier de projet, copie mes rushes dedans, ouvre-le avec dapi open et lance un premier montage : un Reel vertical 1080 x 1920 sans les silences, avec un titre animé, exporté en MP4. Règle importante : la transcription, les sous-titres automatiques, l'analyse de mes vidéos par l'IA et la génération d'images, de vidéos ou de voix consomment des crédits payants (50 offerts une seule fois). Demande-moi toujours avant d'en utiliser, et privilégie ce qui est gratuit : la forme d'onde pour repérer les silences, les captures d'images pour vérifier, l'export.

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.

2
Connect your agent in one click
In Settings, under MCP & CLI: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, Copilot or Gemini CLI. You can also talk to Claude Code or Codex in the editor's Chat tab, with your own subscription.
3
Know what costs credits
Free: editing, animations, silence detection, cutting out a person or an object, export. In credits: transcription, automatic captions, footage analysis and image, video or voice generation. Captions imported from an .srt file cost nothing.

What you actually do with it

A promo video written by Claude

Give it your website address: Claude picks up your colours and composes a 20 second animated video with a call to action, which you then polish in the editor.

A talking head without the dead air

Claude spots the silences on the waveform, without spending a credit, and puts the good takes back to back. To also cut the hesitations word by word, it needs the transcription, so credits.

Titles and scenes as code

An animated title, a lower third with your name and job, a 3D scene, a colour effect on your video: Claude writes each element as code, and you adjust it with the mouse afterwards.

Project health, at a glance

Before installing an open-source tool, one question matters: is the project alive? These scores are computed from public GitHub data. They are not made up.

69/100

Good

Healthy, followed project: a good everyday choice.

Activity: 100; Is the code moving? (commits in the last 30 days)
Maintenance: 100; How fresh is the latest update? Fresher is better.
Community: 58; Stars and contributors: people around means help and fixes.
Maturity: 40; Project age. Old enough to be solid, still alive.
Momentum: 46; Current pace versus its usual pace: speeding up or dozing off?

The repo in numbers

GitHub stars: 3.2k
Forks: 294
Contributors: 2
Commits: 661
Project age: 0.3 yrs
Last commit: today
Size: 20.4 MB
License: MPL-2.0

Built with

TypeScript 97.7%
JavaScript 0.8%
Python 0.6%

Scores computed automatically from the GitHub API (last-30-days activity, update freshness, community size, project age). Refreshed daily.

Loucash’s take

6/10

Diffusion Studio is the first video editor I have seen built for Claude Code: you give it your footage and a brief, it edits and animates, then you take over on a real timeline. Editing, animations and export up to 4K are free, with no watermark. What I like: every change is written as code, so Claude always sees the latest version. You can ask it for a promo video from your website, or animated titles that you then adjust with the mouse. Why 6 and not more: you need an account with them, and everything that requires the AI to listen to your video (transcription, automatic captions, best moments) is paid in credits, with no way to plug in your own key. The project is three months old, still in alpha, and relies almost entirely on a single developer.

It’s for you if: You already work with Claude Code and want it to edit and animate your videos for you, on an Apple Silicon Mac or a Windows PC. If you mostly want free automatic captions for your Reels, OpenCut does better, with no account. And to cut a long podcast into clips, that part is paid in credits: it does not replace OpusClip.

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Diffusion Studio

Versus CapCut Pro: the match