[HN Gopher] Show HN: Kimu - Open-Source Video Editor
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Show HN: Kimu - Open-Source Video Editor
I wanted a proper non-linear video editor built for the web. It
always annoyed me how there are practically zero functioning web
video editors. And here we are :) Kimu can: - Work with Video,
Audio & Text. - Supports Transitions. - Non-Linear Video Editing
with z-axis overlays. - Split/trim - Export - A cute AI agent
(coming soon!) I'm in uni and I started this project out of sheer
annoyance that there are zero good web video editors. It is open-
source here (https://github.com/robinroy03/videoeditor). What do
y'all think?
Author : robinroy03
Score : 67 points
Date : 2025-08-04 16:27 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.trykimu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.trykimu.com)
| leptons wrote:
| >A cute AI agent (coming soon!)
|
| Why??? You don't need this just because "AI" is popular right
| now, it will distract you from the goal of developing "video
| editor built for the web". It's really not going to improve the
| video editing experience.
| robinroy03 wrote:
| our goal is to make a solid web video editor first and
| foremost. Then we'll try to make it super accessible.
|
| I'm thinking of including AI features like captions, auto color
| grading etc. I get your point of forcing AI, we won't do that.
|
| No AI for AI, but AI for making it more accessible and helping
| novice users to also make cinematic videos.
| kfarr wrote:
| Captions would be a very useful feature and one of the top
| feature that paid platforms use as a hook for payment. There
| are enough models that can run client-side to make this good
| enough for social media captions, for example.
| robinroy03 wrote:
| yeah. im working on a PR for it rn. If you like our work,
| join discord :)
| leptons wrote:
| So you are spending time shoe-horning "AI" into a web-
| based video editor, when you could have been creating PRs
| for actual video-editing functionality.
| xnx wrote:
| How does it compare to https://omniclip.app/ ?
| robinroy03 wrote:
| kimu offers a better user experience and is more intuitive.
| Also, we match the features with omni.
|
| Our roadmap included automated captions, color grading and the
| like. We'll be a capcut alternative on the web.
| xnx wrote:
| Sounds great. CapCut is the editor I use the most.
| ojr wrote:
| Another remotion video editor with vibe-coded features? There are
| so many of them... A video editor in the long term needs to be
| mobile-first. A web video editor in the big year of 2025 is not
| going to move the needle. Capcut has a free desktop app that you
| must compete with. I think a better idea is building a mobile
| video editor, it's much harder to vibe code. To be the "Cursor
| for Video Editing," it's a must.
| robinroy03 wrote:
| Capcut TOS change is very unfortunate. They now claim broad
| licenses over user content.
| (https://www.isabokelaw.com/blog/capcuts-new-terms-of-
| service...)
|
| Also, what makes you think it is vibe coded? Is the app not
| functioning as you expected? Let me know and I'll fix them
| asap.
| anthk wrote:
| mobile-first it's how to degrade computing in first place.
| Uehreka wrote:
| So I appreciate the aim here, but for me to trust any video
| editor, I need to see an example timeline that's like, 30 minutes
| long with clips from at least 10 1080p video files and at least
| one effect on each track.
|
| And for the record I wouldn't consider that a stress test (a
| stress test would be more like 3 hours, 100 tracks, 4K and like a
| dozen precomps that are being reversed or something). That's just
| to make sure this thing won't fall over during casual usage.
|
| You may be inclined to respond that your editor is targeting
| beginner editors, to which I'd note that beginner editors are
| MUCH less disciplined than experts when it comes to trimming
| footage, splitting things up into comps, pre-rendering chunks,
| using proxies, etc. Beginner editors (I'd know, I used to be one)
| will dump a 1 hour 4K-HDR iPhone video of a presenter speaking,
| and a screen recording of presentation slides they accidentally
| took in 4K60 into your timeline. Being able to demonstrate that
| you've got that level of memory management handled is what
| separates video editors people can use from mere "good ideas".
|
| Edit: Another thought, you call your product "Cursor for video
| editing", and that's a valid goal. But bear in mind that a LARGE
| part of why Cursor is successful is because they didn't try to
| build an IDE from scratch. They got to absorb all of the nice UX
| (not to mention the extensive plugin ecosystem) of VS Code, and
| then spend their time on AI features. If that's how you want to
| spend your time, you definitely don't want to be building an
| editor from scratch.
| ascorbic wrote:
| I dont get this attitude. If there is some specific test you
| need before you'll trust it, what's stopping you doing that? I
| can understand your response if it was a paid product, but this
| doesn't even require you to install anything. Instead of
| appreciating the work that they've put in, you come right in
| with a negative comment that's not even based on trying it or
| knowing anything about it.
| Uehreka wrote:
| I'm on my phone at the moment, and didn't want to judge this
| product on its iOS Safari performance, as that wouldn't be
| fair.
|
| With regard to my attitude: I've run into a lot of people who
| are trying to build "AI video editors", and many of them
| don't realize how intense a basic video editor actually is.
| It's the kind of area where, the faster someone gets to the
| brick wall, the sooner they can start working on getting
| through it.
|
| Furthermore I think it's good for them to know that if
| achieving what I described seems daunting and they want to
| focus on the AI angle, it's totally fine to fork an existing
| mature OSS video editor and just build the AI features on
| top. That's what Cursor did for IDEs, and they're finding a
| lot of success.
| ascorbic wrote:
| It's ok to wait til you've had a chance to try it before
| commenting.
|
| They don't seem to me to be focusing on the AI angle at
| all. They mention one AI feature as coming soon.
| creativenolo wrote:
| Weird critique. Someone builds a quality pair of lightweight
| scissors, and you critique it like a boastful 5-axis CNC
| operator.
|
| Like the rest of us needing to edit many couple of minutes long
| videos, there is massive gap in the market for something
| lighter weight. Look at Capcuts success over Adobe: 200+
| million active user per month for Capcut.
| Mr_Eri_Atlov wrote:
| Well, my very simple 3-minutes playing around with this were
| enjoyable.
|
| Please add the ability to center images if you upload different-
| sized images, so the smaller images don't all clump in the upper
| left corner.
|
| I'll try this with larger video clips later
| robinroy03 wrote:
| sure :)
|
| try with larger clips and let me know in discord / github
| discussions
| sitkack wrote:
| You should prepopulate the timeline with an in progress edit so
| people can jump in start playing with it.
| microflash wrote:
| How does it compare with OpenCut?
|
| https://opencut.app
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