Free Adobe After Effects Alternatives for Mac

There are many alternatives to Adobe After Effects for Mac if you are looking for a replacement. The best free Mac alternative is Natron, which is also Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to Adobe After Effects and many of them are free and available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting free Mac alternatives to Adobe After Effects are Blender, Blackmagic Design Fusion, NUKE and OpenToonz.

filter to find the best alternatives

Adobe After Effects alternatives are mainly Motion Graphics Software, but if you're looking for VFX Software or Video Editors you can filter on that. Other popular filters include Open Source, Free, Linux, Windows + Free, Windows, Mac and Mac + Free. You can also filter by region, for example EU-based alternatives if you prefer software developed in the European Union. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to Adobe After Effects.
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Alternatives list

  1. Natron icon
     222 likes

    Natron is an open source, cross platform nodal compositing application. It is built around industry standard open source tech such as OpenFX, OpenEXR, OpenColorIO and OpenImageIO. The feature set includes realtime playback/RAM cache, multi-threaded rendering, 2d tracking...

    21 Natron alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • FreeBSD
    • Flathub
     
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    9
  2. Blender icon
     1810 likes

    A comprehensive open-source 3D software suite for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, and animating. It supports renderings, simulations including fluid and cloth dynamics, complex compositing, video editing, and Python scripting, running across all major operating systems.

    146 Blender alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
    • Snapcraft
    • Flathub
    • PortableApps.com
    • Haiku
    • Steam
    • Flatpak
     
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    30
  3. Fusion is the world’s most advanced compositing software for visual effects artists, broadcast and motion graphic designers and 3D animators.

    25 Blackmagic Design Fusion alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
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    6
  4. NUKE icon
     36 likes

    NUKE is a powerful compositing application that delivers unparalleled speed, an efficient multi-channel scanline rendering engine, and a first-class feature set that is unrivalled in the desktop market.

    19 NUKE alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free Personal
    • Proprietary

    Application types

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
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    1
  5. OpenToonz icon
     136 likes

    Open-source 2D animation software supporting raster and vector workflows, node-based compositing, plug-in extensions, anti-aliased painting, and support for major platforms, developed in collaboration with Studio Ghibli and suitable for commercial projects.

    44 OpenToonz alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
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    1
  6. Friction icon
     33 likes

    Friction is a powerful and versatile motion graphics application that allows you to create vector and raster animations for web and video platforms with ease.

    10 Friction alternatives

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  7. CapCut icon
     76 likes

    This free video editing app offers features like cutting, speed adjustments, advanced filters, chroma key, and a vast music library. Enjoy non-destructive editing, keyframe animation, transitions, and 4K support across multiple devices without ads or registration.

    201 CapCut alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Online
    • Android
    • iPhone
    • Android Tablet
    • iPad
     
  8. OpenCut icon
     21 likes

    The open source video editor that gets the job done. Simple, powerful, and works on any platform.

    73 OpenCut alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Docker
    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
     
  9. Cavalry icon
     17 likes

    Cavalry makes 2d animation smarter, easier and faster to produce. Design in real-time for advertising, mobile, data visualisation, web, broadcast, UI, generative art, experiential, games and more.

    18 Cavalry alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
     
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    1
  10. PopcornFX icon
     6 likes

    A suite of tools dedicated to real-time visual effects creation, along with ready-to-run mainstream game engine integrations and a runtime simulation framework for custom integration.

    26 PopcornFX alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free Personal
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Mac
    • Flathub
    • Flatpak
     
  11. Maxon Autograph is a digital compositing and motion graphics software used in the post-production industry of movie-making or motion-graphics design video making. It covers a wide range of functionnalities such as 2D animation, Keying, Tracking, 2D and 3D compositing, Audio...

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
     
  12. Linearity Move is a revolutionary animation tool that simplifies motion graphics creation on both Mac and iPad. Whether you want to bring static designs to life or start a project from scratch, you can do it all in just a few clicks.

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • iPad
     
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