CapRocket

The free, open-source desktop video editor in the style of CapCut.
Timeline editing · offline auto captions · GPU effects and transitions · text to speech · music and stock libraries · an AI assistant that edits for you.
No account. No subscription. No watermark.

 
_{Windows 10 / 11 · 64-bit · about 120 MB · all versions}

_{Real playback in the CapRocket player: Comic Cut and Flare Wipe transitions, a green-screen cat (chroma key) and text templates.}

• Why CapRocket?
• Download and install
• Tour of the app
• Features
• How it is built
• Run from source
• API keys and privacy
• Contributing
• Support the project
• License and credits

Most "free" editors lock their best tools behind a paid plan. CapRocket is built so that everything is free: features that are premium elsewhere are part of the app, with no limit and no watermark.

It is a desktop app for Windows built with Electron, React, WebGL and FFmpeg. Your media stays on your computer; online libraries are only contacted when you search them.

⬇ Download CapRocket-Setup-0.1.0.exe (Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit, about 120 MB)

Older and newer versions are on the Releases page.

1. Download CapRocket-Setup-0.1.0.exe with the link above.
2. Run it, pick the install folder and finish. CapRocket appears on the Desktop and in the Start menu.
3. The first time, Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC": the installer is not code-signed yet. Click More info, then Run anyway.

Big optional parts are downloaded only when you first use them: the speech model for auto captions (about 150 MB) and each text-to-speech voice (about 60 MB). Uninstall from Settings > Apps like any program.

The window follows the layout CapCut users already know:

┌───────────────┬──────────────────────────────┬────────────────┐
│ Library       │ Player                       │ Inspector      │
│ Media, Audio, │ move · resize · rotate       │ settings of    │
│ Text, Effects,│ pictures right on the video  │ the selection  │
│ Transitions…  │                              │                │
├───────────────┴──────────────────────────────┴────────────────┤
│ Toolbar                                                        │
│ Timeline: Effects · Stickers · Text · Overlay · Main · Audio   │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Click any picture in the player to select it, drag to move (it snaps to the centre), pull a corner to resize and the round handle to rotate.

Every tile is a live preview: hover it to see the effect or the transition play before you use it.

Effects: VHS Noise, Snow Storm, Fire Burn, Limelight…

Transitions: Comic Cut, Phone Reveal, Mosaic Wipe…

Remove BG: chroma key

Masks with feather and invert

Transition: type, duration, apply to all

_{Right-click a clip to copy / paste attributes, split, extract audio and more. Free effects sit on their own Effects lane.}

Media, Pixabay stock, favorites

Text and caption templates

Music and sound effects

Text to speech

RocketPilot: ask in your own words

Settings: optional keys, stored encrypted

CapRocket is an Electron app. The interface is React (built with Vite). Everything heavy runs in the main process with FFmpeg, and every visual effect runs on the GPU with WebGL2.

flowchart LR
  subgraph UI["Renderer (React)"]
    LP["Library<br/>Media · Audio · Text · Effects"]
    PV["Player<br/>video + WebGL + text canvas"]
    TL["Timeline"]
    IN["Inspector"]
    RP["RocketPilot"]
    ST[("store.js<br/>project · undo / redo")]
    LP --> ST
    TL --> ST
    IN --> ST
    RP --> ST
    ST --> PV
  end
  IPC{{"preload.cjs<br/>safe IPC bridge"}}
  subgraph MAIN["Main process (Node)"]
    FF["ffmpeg.cjs<br/>probe · proxies · export"]
    FX["fxjobs.cjs<br/>effects pass"]
    WH["whisper.cjs<br/>captions"]
    TTS["tts.cjs<br/>Piper · ElevenLabs"]
    LIB["library.cjs · stock.cjs<br/>music · SFX · Pixabay"]
    SET["settings.cjs<br/>keys encrypted (DPAPI)"]
    AI["ai.cjs<br/>Gemini and others"]
  end
  UI <--> IPC
  IPC <--> MAIN

The interface has no Node access and never sees an API key: it talks to the main process only through the small bridge in electron/preload.cjs. Online services are called from the main process, which adds the key there.

Each effect and transition is written once in a tiny expression language (src/fx/expr.js). The same source is compiled two ways:

flowchart TB
  SRC["Effect source<br/>(expression language)"] --> P["Parser"]
  P --> JS["JS closures<br/>(tests, tools)"]
  P --> GL["GLSL shader<br/>(src/fx/gl.js)"]
  GL --> PL["Player and live tiles<br/>WebGL2, real time"]
  GL --> EX["Export<br/>same shader, frame by frame"]

That is why the exported video looks exactly like the player. The compiler never uses eval or new Function, so it works under the app's strict Content Security Policy.

sequenceDiagram
  participant UI as Interface
  participant M as Main process
  participant F as FFmpeg
  UI->>M: export(project, settings)
  M->>F: decode the frames that need effects (raw RGBA)
  F-->>UI: frames
  UI->>UI: WebGL2 draws effects and transitions
  UI-->>M: processed frames
  M->>F: store them losslessly (FFV1)
  M->>F: one filter graph: clips, overlays, chroma key, masks, text, audio mix
  F-->>M: MP4 (H.264 + AAC)
  M-->>UI: progress, then done

flowchart LR
  T["Text + voice + speed"] --> C{"Already made?"}
  C -- yes --> A["Audio file"]
  C -- no --> E{"Engine"}
  E -- Free --> P["Piper on this PC<br/>(engine and voice downloaded once)"]
  E -- ElevenLabs --> X["ElevenLabs API<br/>(your key, from the main process)"]
  P --> A
  X --> A
  A --> TL["Audio track at the playhead"]

Requirements: Windows 10/11 and Node.js 18 or newer.

git clone https://github.com/medhachim/CapRocket.git
cd CapRocket
npm install
npm start

FFmpeg comes with the project (ffmpeg-static), nothing else to install. The first time you use auto captions, CapRocket downloads whisper.cpp and the base speech model (about 150 MB) to %APPDATA%\CapRocket\whisper.

npm run dev

Changes in src/ appear instantly without losing your project; changes in electron/ restart the app.

npm run dist

The installer is written to release/CapRocket-Setup-<version>.exe. It lets the user pick the folder and adds Desktop and Start menu shortcuts. It is not code-signed, so SmartScreen may ask for confirmation the first time.

npm run test:export

Other suites: test:captions, test:magnet, test:toolbar, test:clipmenu, test:layers, test:fx, test:library, test:stock, test:favorites, test:tts, test:ai, test:agent.

UI tests drive the real app with FVE_SMOKE=<folder> FVE_SMOKE_MODE=<mode> npx electron . (see electron/smoke.cjs) and never touch your real settings. The screenshots and animations in this README come from the readme mode (electron/smoke-readme.cjs).

• Open Settings (gear icon, top right) to add keys for the AI assistant (Gemini, Ollama, OpenAI-compatible, Claude), for Pixabay and for ElevenLabs.
• All keys are optional: everything else works without an account.
• Keys are encrypted with Windows secure storage (DPAPI) in %APPDATA%\CapRocket\settings.json: never written in plain text, never logged, never sent to the interface.
• Captions run offline. Online services only receive what you send them (a search, the text to speak, a request to RocketPilot).
• Never commit a key to this repository. If a key is ever exposed, revoke it and create a new one.

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Please:

• keep the app free of paywalls and trackers;
• keep interface text in English;
• never add code or assets taken from CapCut or other apps;
• run the tests that cover your change before opening a pull request.

CapRocket is free and will stay free. If it saves you time or money, you can support its development:

Starring the repository and sharing the app also help a lot.

CapRocket is released under the MIT License.

• FFmpeg comes from ffmpeg-static, a GPL build: if you distribute CapRocket, you must also follow FFmpeg's GPL license.
• Speech recognition: whisper.cpp and OpenAI's Whisper models (MIT).
• Voices: Piper (MIT) with voices under CC0, public domain or CC BY (the Arabic voice's dataset states no licence); ElevenLabs with your own key, under its terms.
• Online content: music from Jamendo through Openverse, sound effects from SFXMint and Freesound, stock media from Pixabay. Each item keeps its own license; CapRocket only lists sounds that may be used in videos and shows the credits CC BY requires.
• The demo footage in these screenshots comes from Pixabay (Pixabay Content License).
• Fonts from Fontsource (Open Font License). Icons from Lucide (ISC).

CapRocket is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to CapCut or ByteDance, and it contains no CapCut code or assets. "CapCut" is a trademark of its owner, used here only to describe the style of the app.

Made with ♥ by MedHachim
_{If CapRocket helps you, give it a ⭐ on GitHub or buy me a coffee:}