Open source alternative to Descript, RunwayML, HeyGen and Google Gemini API (Veo)
Last verified
Edit videos with coding agents: drop raw footage, describe your cut, and get final.mp4 with color grading, subtitles, and filler removal. MIT licensed.
video-use fits directly into a development workflow: record a terminal session or screen capture, point the agent at the folder, and describe the edit without leaving the terminal. Filler removal and subtitle burning happen automatically.
Skip if you need frame-accurate cuts for motion graphics or narrative editing where visual timing is critical. The text-based workflow is strongest for speech-driven content.
Handles the repetitive editing tasks that consume the most time on talking-head content: removing filler words, cutting dead air between takes, grading color consistently across segments, and burning captions in a consistent style.
Skip if your edit requires multi-camera switching with timecoded syncing. video-use works best with single-camera or sequentially-shot footage organized in one folder.
Drop multiple takes in a folder, ask the agent to edit them into a launch video, and get a cut with color grading and subtitles ready for upload. The agent proposes a strategy and waits for approval before touching the footage.
Skip if your launch video requires motion design, b-roll from multiple sources, or precise sound design beyond automatic audio fades at cut boundaries.
video-use can run through Browser Use Box for an always-on agent endpoint accessible from Telegram or any messaging client, suited to teams that produce regular video content and want automated editing as a persistent background service.
Skip if your infrastructure budget is limited. The always-on path requires a VPS with sufficient RAM for ffmpeg rendering and an ongoing ElevenLabs API budget.
Video editing for developers and solo creators involves a painful mismatch: the intent is simple (cut dead air, grade warm, add captions) but executing it requires navigating timeline UIs, plugin menus, and export dialogs that interrupt the coding workflow. Commercial tools like Descript reduce some of this friction, but they are cloud-hosted subscription services. Footage leaves your machine, pricing is per-minute or per-seat, and the edit workflow does not compose with the shell tools or agent sessions you already use.
The deeper problem is how AI models process video. Naive approaches feed raw frames into a vision model: 30,000 frames at 1,500 tokens each produces 45 million tokens of noise with no signal about when words were spoken or where silence gaps fall. Without word-level timestamps and speech-boundary data, no model can make precision cuts that sound natural. This is the gap that existing commercial tools paper over with GUIs rather than addressing at the pipeline level.
Transcribes all takes with ElevenLabs Scribe to get word-level timestamps. The agent identifies umm, uh, false starts, and silence gaps, then cuts them at speech boundaries so the edit sounds intentional rather than clipped.
Applies a color grade to every segment through ffmpeg. Default presets include warm cinematic and neutral punch; any custom ffmpeg chain can be substituted. Color grading runs per-segment so retakes with different lighting match.
Burns subtitles directly into the video in 2-word UPPERCASE chunks by default, matching the pacing style common in tutorial and social media content. Font, size, and chunking rules are fully customizable.
Adds 30ms audio fades at every cut point automatically, preventing the audio pops that result from hard cuts between takes recorded at different microphone positions or room tones.
Runs a visual check on the rendered output at every cut boundary to detect visual jumps, audio pops, and hidden subtitles. The agent re-renders up to three times if it finds issues; you see the preview only after the output passes.
Persists the edit strategy, file inventory, and cut decisions in a project.md file next to the footage. Future sessions pick up where the last left off without re-transcribing or re-proposing a strategy.
Descript and video-use both remove filler words and add captions to talking-head footage, but they take opposite approaches to the workflow. Descript is a cloud-hosted document editor where you edit a transcript and the video follows. video-use is a local agent skill where you describe the edit in plain language and ffmpeg executes it.
| Feature | video-use | Descript |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Self-hosting | Yes, fully local | No |
| Filler removal | Yes, via ElevenLabs timestamps | Yes |
| Subtitle burning | Yes, customizable | Yes |
| GUI | None | Full visual editor |
| Pricing | Free (ElevenLabs API costs apply) | $12-24/month subscription |
video-use is the better choice when you want local data control, no subscription, and an edit pipeline that composes with shell scripts and agent workflows. Descript is the better choice when you need a visual timeline, team collaboration features, or a no-code interface for non-technical editors.
RunwayML focuses on AI-generated video content: text-to-video synthesis, background removal, motion tracking, and generative inpainting. video-use focuses on editing raw footage you have already recorded. The overlap is limited; both use AI but for different stages of video production.
| Feature | video-use | RunwayML |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Self-hosting | Yes, fully local | No |
| AI video generation | No | Yes |
| Editing existing footage | Yes | Limited |
| Filler removal | Yes | No |
| Pricing | Free (API costs apply) | Credit-based, from $15/month |
video-use is the better choice when your footage exists and you need to edit it through agent commands with local control. RunwayML is the better choice when you need generative video effects, text-to-video synthesis, or AI visual tools beyond timeline editing.
HeyGen specializes in AI avatar generation and lip-sync dubbing for marketing and localization workflows. Google Gemini API (Veo) is a text-to-video generation service. Neither directly competes with video-use's core workflow of editing raw footage through a coding agent; they serve generative use cases where no source footage exists yet.
Setup requires cloning the repo, linking it as a coding agent skill, and installing ffmpeg.
```bash
git clone https://github.com/browser-use/video-use ~/Developer/video-use
ln -sfn ~/Developer/video-use ~/.claude/skills/video-use
cd ~/Developer/video-use
uv sync
brew install ffmpeg
cp .env.example .env
```Yes. video-use works with Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, Openclaw, and any agent with shell access. The setup prompt is universal: paste it into your agent and it handles cloning, dependency installation, and skill registration automatically. The helpers and ffmpeg pipeline are shell-agnostic.
ElevenLabs Scribe provides word-level timestamps, speaker diarization, and audio event labels from each raw take. These timestamps are what let the agent cut precisely at speech boundaries rather than guessing from waveform amplitude alone. The agent prompts you for your ElevenLabs API key during setup.
Almost entirely. The ffmpeg pipeline, color grading, subtitle burning, and rendering all run locally. The one external call is the ElevenLabs transcription API. The current version ships no local transcription adapter, so an ElevenLabs account is required. All rendered output stays on your own machine.
The README lists talking heads, montages, tutorials, travel footage, and interviews as supported content types. The agent makes no assumptions about content: it inspects the footage, proposes an edit strategy, and waits for your approval before cutting. Any footage that can be transcribed to word-level timestamps works.
Yes. video-use is MIT licensed, so there are no restrictions on commercial use, modification, or redistribution of the pipeline code. ElevenLabs API costs apply separately and depend on the volume and length of footage you transcribe.
Alternative to
HeyGen LiveAvatar
Talking-avatar SDK for voice AI agents, MIT-licensed, Python and Node.
Alternative toKalakar
Offline AI captions and timeline editor for Malayalam creators
Alternative toHeyGen
Local AI workspace for video, image, voice, and translation
Alternative to
InVideo AI
AI-powered short video generation from topic to publish
Alternative to
ElevenLabs
Voice cloning, dubbing, and transcription that runs fully offline
Alternative to
MacWhisper
Local speech-to-text with multi-format output and GPU acceleration
Featured
Alternative toClaude Managed Agents
Open-source agent deployment API. Self-host or use Omnara Cloud.
Alternative to
Grok Bot
AI teammates you own: your keys, your model, your machine.
Alternative to
Superhuman
AI email assistant that drafts replies and clears your inbox
The projects we add and every new guide. Free, unsubscribe any time.
Claude Code to 
OpenCode
Jira to 
Windshift
Notion to 
AppFlowy
Slack to 
Mattermost
Linear to 
GitLab
Wispr Flow to 
Handy
CapCut to 
Concat
Grok Bot to 
rakazo
Superhuman to 
Inbox Zero
Airtable to 
AITable
Muse to 
OpenClaw
GitHub Copilot to 
Cline
Datadog to 
Netdata
Microsoft Teams to 
Rocket.Chat
Pinecone to 
Qdrant
Zapier to 
n8n
Devin AI to 
OpenHands
Firebase to 
Supabase
1Password to 
KeePassXCConfluence to 
Docmost
Contentful to 
Strapi
Adobe Premiere Pro to 
Shotcut
ChatGPT to 
AnythingLLM
LangSmith to 
Langfuse
