JavaScript

Editly is a Free Video Editing Framework for Node.js

Hazem Abbas

12 Mar 2024 — 2 min read

Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev / Unsplash

Editly is a tool and framework for declarative NLE (non-linear video editing) using Node.js and ffmpeg. Editly allows you to easily and programmatically create a video from a set of clips, images, audio and titles, with smooth transitions and music overlaid.

Editly has a simple CLI for quickly assembling a video from a set of clips or images, or you can use its more flexible JavaScript API.

Inspired by ffmpeg-concat, editly is much faster and doesn't require much storage because it uses streaming editing. Editly aims to be very extensible and feature rich with a pluggable interface for adding new dynamic content.

Use-cases

Create a slideshow from a set of pictures with text overlay
Create a fast-paced trailer or promo video
Create a tutorial video with help text
Create news stories
Create an animated GIF
Resize video to any size or framerate and with automatic letterboxing/cropping (e.g. if you need to upload a video somewhere but the site complains Video must be 1337x1000 30fps)
Create a podcast with multiple mixed tracks

Features

Edit videos with code! 🤓
Declarative API with fun defaults
Create colorful videos with random colors generated from aesthetically pleasing palettes and random effects
Supports any input size, e.g. 4K video and DSLR photos
Can output to any dimensions and aspect ratio, e.g. Instagram post (1:1), Instagram story (9:16), YouTube (16:9), or any other dimensions you like.
Content is scaled and letterboxed automatically, even if the input aspect ratio is not the same and the framerate will be converted.
Speed up / slow down videos automatically to match the cutFrom/cutTo segment length with each clip's duration
Overlay text and subtitles on videos, images or backgrounds
Accepts custom HTML5 Canvas / Fabric.js JavaScript code for custom screens or dynamic overlays
Render custom GL shaders (for example from shadertoy)
Can output GIF
Overlay transparent images or even videos with alpha channel
Show different sub-clips for parts of a clips duration (B-roll)
Picture-in-picture
Vignette
Preserve/mix multiple audio sources
Automatic audio crossfading
Automatic audio ducking and normalization

Requirements

Windows, MacOS or Linux
Node.js installed (Use of the latest LTS version is recommended, v12.16.2 or newer on MacOS.)
ffmpeg (and ffprobe) installed and available in PATH
(Linux) may require some extra steps. See headless-gl.
Editly is now ESM only

License

MIT License

Resources & Downloads

Source-code and Library

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