Remotion

Remotion lets you make videos by writing React components. Each frame is a render, and Remotion turns the sequence into an MP4. That makes data-driven and personalized video practical: connect a spreadsheet or an API and render thousands of variations instead of editing each one by hand.

One command, npx create-video@latest, gets a project running. Rendering happens where you choose: Node.js on your own servers, in the browser, or serverless on AWS Lambda, where the compute lands on your cloud bill. The documentation runs past a thousand pages, with templates, captions, transitions and agent skills.

Company size decides who pays, not features. Individuals, nonprofits and companies of up to three people use it free, even commercially. Bigger companies need a license: $25/mo per seat for making videos yourself, or $0.01 per render with a $100/mo minimum for apps that generate video automatically. The paid version has the same features as the free one.

The catch is the label. Remotion is source-available, not open source, and says so itself. You can read the code but not resell a derivative, a fourth person on the team flips you from free to paid, and codec patent licensing for formats like H.264 stays your responsibility. Just trimming clips or burning in captions? FFmpeg is simpler.