OpenShot 3.5 brings faster, smoother video editing

OpenShot 3.5 is here with better speed and smoothness upgrades that make video editing feel much more responsive and enjoyable.

The free and open source video editor OpenShot 3.5 arrives with greater speed, smoothness and power improvements. It is one of the biggest releases in its 18-year history.

A new default timeline, 35% overall performance improvement, smarter effects and better exports make video editing feel much more responsive and enjoyable. Let’s take a look at the main features.

OpenShot 3.5: Best New Features

The developers have focused a lot on making the editor faster and more reliable while adding practical creative tools.

Here’s what’s new:

• New default timeline: Much faster zooming, scrolling, dragging, trimming and scrubbing. Clipping feels smoother, multi-selection works better, and the whole experience is more responsive – especially on larger projects.
• New keyframe panel is enabled by default: Advanced animation and property editing become easier to discover and use. You get smoother dragging, improved clipping, HiDPI thumbnails and live trim feedback.
• Audio transitions: Cross-fade audio is now super simple. Fade-ins, fade-outs, and equal-strength crossfades happen automatically when you add transitions on the timeline.
• Mask support for all effects: Every effect now supports static or animated masks. New mask controls, improved timing, trim and inversion options give you more precise compositing power.
• New default Chroma Key effect: Softer edges, better quality, reduced halo issues and much faster performance. Ideal for green screen work.
• Experimental ComfyUI integration: For adventurous users, this opens the door to AI-powered workflows such as generation, detection, segmentation and SAM2 pipelines. It’s experimental and requires extra setup, but it’s an exciting glimpse into future creative possibilities. You might want to check it out at the guide.

These changes make OpenShot feel more modern and capable while staying true to its beginner-friendly roots.

Performance improvements

OpenShot 3.5 is over 35% faster overallwith the biggest gains in effects processing and frame handling.

You’ll see faster previews, faster rendering of clips with effects, and better responsiveness during editing. The team optimized hot paths in the engine, improved cache behavior, accelerated audio file handling and waveform generation, and refined GPU acceleration for both decoding and encoding.

Exports now produce smaller files with higher quality thanks to updated presets, better CRF standards and improved encoder tuning. Hardware acceleration is more reliable, with safer fallback to avoid black frame issues.

Other notable changes

• Tons of bug fixes on playback, dragging, trimming, caching and handling missing files.
• Improved stability through extended tests, UI tests and full cycle repeat tests.
• Better default behavior for many effects and tracks.
• Polished UI elements, including more stable preview updates and refined multi-clip editing.

The release also lays a strong foundation for future work, including Qt6 migration and a new Android build.

Download and installation

You can download OpenShot 3.5 directly from the official website.

For Linux users (recommended way):

• Grab the 64-bit AppImage of https://www.openshot.org/download/.
• No installation required – just download, right click on the file, go to Properties and mark it as executable. Then double click to start.
• It works on virtually any modern Linux distribution.

Alternative options:

• Available on Flathub – install with: flatpak install flathub org.openshot.OpenShot
• Some distributions may offer this via their package managers (check OpenShot in Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, etc., although the AppImage or Flatpak will usually give you the latest version the fastest).

Windows and macOS users can also download native installers from the same page.

If you’re updating from an older version, the new AppImage should feel noticeably better right away. Always backup your project files before attempting a major update, just in case.

Rounding off

OpenShot 3.5 brings solid improvements in speed, stability and creative tools. The faster timeline, easier audio transitions, improved masks and overall performance improvements make this a great version for both new and experienced users. The experimental AI features show that the project is forward looking while keeping the core experience friendly and powerful.

This free and open source video editor continues to improve in significant ways. You should try it if you need a capable, free tool for your video projects.

Via release notes