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Both cover video editing. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
| Runway | Shotcut | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $15 | Free |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | None | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | Not stated | Not stated |
| Runs on | Web | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Covers | AI Video & Voice, Video Editing | Video Editing |
| Works with | Nothing in particular | Nothing in particular |
| Founded | Not listed | Not listed |
| Reader rating | No reviews yet | No reviews yet |
| Live deals | None right now | None right now |
Generative video with an editor around it
Runway is where the frontier video models arrive with a timeline attached, so a generated shot can be trimmed, upscaled and cut against footage you filmed. Credits are the unit of everything, and they go faster than the plan names suggest. Read the credit cost per second before picking a tier, because the gap between plans is nothing like the gap between prices.
Our note
Work out how many seconds of your chosen model each plan buys before subscribing, because the answer is usually smaller than the credit numbers suggest. Runway is the right pick when the shot cannot be filmed. For talking-head video from a script, Synthesia and HeyGen cost less and do it better.
Only on this side
A free desktop video editor, open source
Shotcut is a free desktop video editor that has been maintained for well over a decade and runs on Linux, macOS and Windows alike. It reads a wide range of formats because FFmpeg is doing the work underneath, and it asks for no account at any point. The interface takes a session to settle into. Nothing is upsold later.
Our note
This is the answer when the budget is nothing and the work is real, and the interface is the price you pay instead. DaVinci Resolve's free build is more capable if your machine can run it.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.