What is it?

EffectCraft provides the After Effects shape of the work: compositions, every kind of layer (solids, shapes, text, footage, nested compositions, nulls, adjustment layers, cameras, lights), parenting, track mattes, 38 blend modes, and the familiar keyframe types (linear, bezier, hold, eased, roving) with a graph editor. 259 effects cover blur, color, distortion, generators, keying, particles and simulation, stylize and time. JavaScript expressions link properties inline. It exports H.264, ProRes with alpha, PNG, TIFF, 32-bit EXR, GIF and Lottie — again without FFmpeg inside.

What can it do?

• Keyframes: linear, bezier, hold, eased, roving with graph editor
• 259 effects including blur, color correction, distortion, keying and particles
• 3D layers with cameras, depth of field and ray-traced soft shadows
• JavaScript expressions with wiggle, loops and layer references
• H.264, ProRes with alpha, PNG, TIFF, 32-bit EXR, GIF and Lottie export

Who is it for?

Motion designers who want After Effects conventions with an open, scriptable engine

Pros

• Apache-2.0 open source
• macOS, Windows, Linux native plus web (wasm)
• Scriptable via CLI, JSON control channel and MCP
• ~7.5k stars

Cautions

• Labeled In development and honestly described as young
• AEP import compatibility needs verification before migrating projects
• Not installed or run during this review

Choosing EffectCraft

EffectCraft sits in the Craft category at Medium difficulty. everyday use is simple, but integration and setup expect some prior experience. runs on Browser · Personal PC. This page records 5 features, 4 pros and 3 cautions, so trade-offs can be reviewed in one place before adoption.

Other tools in this category

The Craft category also lists AgentCAD, doop, OpenDesign, Open CoDesign, video-use, OpenPencil, slides-grab, SolidCraft, OpenCut, Compositor, ArtCraft, PhotoCraft, VectorCraft, FilmCraft, LightCraft, PdfCraft, DesignCraft, FigCraft, WordCraft, SoundCraft, DeckCraft, CADCraft, GridCraft. AgentCAD has the same difficulty (Medium), so compare features and runtime environments to find where they split. Within a category the deciding factors are difficulty and runtime environment; each item below links to its own detail page.

• AgentCAD — A CAD tool that runs CAD scripts written by coding agents and exports STEP and mesh files (Medium)
• doop — An open-source multiplayer design canvas that replaces Paper.design, edited by people and AI agents together (Medium)
• OpenDesign — An open-source design workspace that takes a brief to a prototype together with coding agents (Medium)
• Open CoDesign — A desktop app that makes prototypes, slides and PDFs locally from prompts, as an open-source Claude Design alternative (Easy)
• video-use — An open-source video editing workflow that handles cuts, subtitles and color from a clip folder and a Claude Code chat (Hard)
• OpenPencil — An open-source design editor that opens Figma files and edits them through AI chat, CLI and MCP (Medium)
• slides-grab — A slide workflow that lets you drag a region on AI-generated HTML slides and ask an agent to edit it (Medium)
• SolidCraft — Open-source parametric 3D CAD in pure Rust — desktop, web, and MCP automation (Medium)
• OpenCut — Open-source video editor aimed at CapCut and Premiere workflows — web, desktop, mobile (Easy)
• Compositor — Open-source Photoshop alternative for macOS — layers, masks, Camera Raw (Medium)
• ArtCraft — Open-source AI image and video studio for artists — world compositing, 3D blocking and character posing (Medium)
• PhotoCraft — Clean-room reimplementation of Adobe Photoshop in pure Rust — layers, masks, adjustment layers and real PSD files (Easy)
• VectorCraft — Adobe Illustrator workflow reimagined in pure Rust — fast vector illustration with live-editable effects (Medium)
• FilmCraft — Adobe Premiere-class editor rebuilt from scratch in pure Rust, down to its own codecs (Medium)
• LightCraft — Adobe Lightroom-class photo library and raw developer in open source — no account, no cloud, no telemetry (Easy)
• PdfCraft — Open-source PDF workbench — read, organize, combine, split and secure without Acrobat subscription (Easy)
• DesignCraft — InDesign-class page layout rebuilt in pure Rust with a Knuth–Plass paragraph composer (Medium)
• FigCraft — Figma-class interface design and prototyping rebuilt in pure Rust — auto layout, variants, variables and Dev Mode (Medium)
• WordCraft — Microsoft Word-class word processor built in pure Rust, reading and writing .docx (Easy)
• SoundCraft — Pro Tools/Audition-class DAW built in pure Rust — Edit/Mix windows, automation and 9.1.6 surround (Medium)
• DeckCraft — PowerPoint-class presentations rebuilt in pure Rust with .pptx compatibility and slide masters (Easy)
• CADCraft — AutoCAD-class 2D drafting in pure Rust — command line, snaps, layouts and associative dimensioning (Medium)
• GridCraft — Excel-class spreadsheets rebuilt in pure Rust — 500-plus functions, dynamic arrays and PivotTables on .xlsx (Easy)

Tags

Hands-on Testing

Repository, website, and license checked (2026-10-21). GitHub 7,536 stars, Apache-2.0, last push 2026-10-20. Version 0.11.1 site, release page. Not installed or run.