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.

This GIF / YouTube was created with this command: "editly commonFeatures.json5". See more examples here.

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

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

See examples

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

Installing

npm i -g editly

Usage: Command line video editor

Run editly --help for usage

Create a simple randomized video edit from videos, images and text with an audio track:

editly \
  title:'My video' \
  clip1.mov \
  clip2.mov \
  title:'My slideshow' \
  img1.jpg \
  img2.jpg \
  title:'THE END' \
  --fast \
  --audio-file-path /path/to/music.mp3

Or create an MP4 (or GIF) from a JSON or JSON5 edit spec (JSON5 is just a more user friendly JSON format):

editly my-spec.json5 --fast --keep-source-audio --out output.gif

For examples of how to make a JSON edit spec, see below or examples.

Without --fast, it will default to using the width, height and frame rate from the first input video. All other clips will be converted to these dimensions. You can of course override any or all of these parameters.

TIP: Use this tool in conjunction with LosslessCut
TIP: If you need catchy music for your video, have a look at this YouTube or the YouTube audio library. Then use youtube-dl to download the video, and then point --audio-file-path at the video file. Be sure to respect their license!

JavaScript library

import editly from "editly";

// See editSpec documentation
await editly(editSpec);

Edit spec

Edit specs are JavaScript / JSON objects describing the whole edit operation with the following structure:

{
  outPath,
  width,
  height,
  fps,
  allowRemoteRequests: false,
  defaults: {
    duration: 4,
    transition: {
      duration: 0.5,
      name: 'random',
      audioOutCurve: 'tri',
      audioInCurve: 'tri',
    },
    layer: {
      fontPath,
      // ...more layer defaults
    },
    layerType: {
      'fill-color': {
        color: '#ff6666',
      }
      // ...more per-layer-type defaults
    },
  },
  clips: [
    {
      transition,
      duration,
      layers: [
        {
          type,
          // ...more layer-specific options
        }
        // ...more layers
      ],
    }
    // ...more clips
  ],
  audioFilePath,
  loopAudio: false,
  keepSourceAudio: false,
  clipsAudioVolume: 1,
  outputVolume: 1,
  audioTracks: [
    {
      path,
      mixVolume: 1,
      cutFrom: 0,
      cutTo,
      start: 0,
    },
    // ...more audio tracks
  ],
  audioNorm: {
    enable: false,
    gaussSize: 5,
    maxGain: 30,
  }

  // Testing options:
  enableFfmpegLog: false,
  verbose: false,
  fast: false,
}

Parameters

| Parameter | CLI equivalent | Description | Default | | | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------- | | outPath | --out | Output path (mp4, mkv), can also be a .gif | | | | width | --width | Width which all media will be converted to | 640 | | | height | --height | Height which all media will be converted to | auto based on width and aspect ratio of first video | | | fps | --fps | FPS which all videos will be converted to | First video FPS or 25 | | | customOutputArgs | | Specify custom output codec/format arguments for ffmpeg (See example) | auto (h264) | | | allowRemoteRequests | --allow-remote-requests | Allow remote URLs as paths | false | | | fast | --fast, -f | Fast mode (low resolution and FPS, useful for getting a quick preview ⏩) | false | | | defaults.layer.fontPath | --font-path | Set default font to a .ttf | System font | | | defaults.layer.* | | Set any layer parameter that all layers will inherit | | | | defaults.duration | --clip-duration | Set default clip duration for clips that don't have an own duration

Editly

Install / Use

README