- Category
- Developer Tools
- Rank
- No. 1521Tools index
Previous survey · No. 1506 ·
- Pricing
- Open Source
- Type
- TOOL
- Use case
- Design & Media
- Interfaces
- CLI
- GitHub
- 34 stars
- Latest release
- v1.6.0
- Date
About
Geneva is an open-source CLI video editor and compositor written in Rust that represents video edits as JSON and renders HTML/CSS overlays natively without a browser or Playwright. It began as a rewrite of ffmpeg's CLI, keeping the underlying libav codecs while replacing everything above them with a new cost-based planner, a layered compositor (keyframes, masks, transitions), and a from-scratch HTML/CSS layout engine for titles and graphics, shipped as a single dependency-free binary.
At a glance
Geneva is a command-line video editor that represents edits as JSON and draws titles and graphics from HTML and CSS. It is worth evaluating when a recurring edit should be reproducible from a file you can review.
Good fit
Developers automating trims, captions or simple graphics for a series of videos.
Consider something else when
Use an interactive editor if the cut depends on detailed visual judgment or your graphics require full browser rendering.
Start here
Use a short clip you already own and describe a trim and title. Render it twice, then compare the duration and title placement before changing a batch of files.
Cost and requirements
MIT-licensed Rust project with builds documented for Linux, Apple silicon macOS and Windows. The codecs use FFmpeg libraries.
Limits to know
Titles use Geneva’s own rendering engine. Check the subset of HTML and CSS you need and verify the encoder and output settings on your target.
Sources checked 2026-11-05. Source-based assessment.
Why it made the leaderboard
It replaces the common headless-browser-for-overlays hack with a native HTML/CSS layout engine baked into a single binary, useful for anyone scripting video generation pipelines.
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