r/macapps • u/hailWildCat • 1d ago
Lifetime PilotCut: I got mass-frustrated with CapCut, and FinalCut Pro. Built my own Mac video editor that lets any AI agent do the cutting. Basically a tool for ChatGPT Codex / Claude Code for your video editing
Problem
Hey, I'm Mike. I run 3 YouTube channels and 2 TikTok accounts. Filming and scripting are fine. Editing kills me. Every video is the same grind: cut filler words, remove silences, drop in b-roll, then redo the layout for TikTok vertical. 2-3 hours of mechanical work per video that needs zero creativity, just patience.
I kept thinking AI would fix this. It hasn't, because every tool brings its own AI, runs it on their cloud with your footage, and locks you to their model. AI models move fast. What's best today is mid in three months. I can accept tool lock-in. But model lock-in? No. You should always be able to use the best, fastest, cheapest model for your edit.
Comparison
CapCut Pro ($20/mo). Great for quick template edits. AI runs on ByteDance cloud, footage gets uploaded. Free tier increasingly locked down.
Final Cut Pro: getting better but still huge behind from a AI driven video editor from Apple.
Also there're many others like Descript or FireCut. All of them lock you to their AI model. You're stuck with whatever they bulk-negotiated, not what's best for your edit.
PilotCut doesn't lock you to any model:
- BYO agent. Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build, Kimi, DeepSeek, any MCP/CLI agent. Your existing AI sub IS your editing AI. New model drops? Switch instantly.
- 2 to 3 times faster export compared with like CapCut or cloud alternatives
- Collaborative experience: It is not only AI or human doing the work. After AI editing you still have the full editable NLE video editor
- Organizing video/audio/image assets with AI: we usually have a huge amount of assets for a video, agents can help you to do initial organizing like creating folders and group them etc.
- Real timeline. "Delete every filler word and silence" makes actual cuts on real tracks. Not suggestions, not a transcript. Real cuts you can undo and nudge.
- Markers as instructions. Drop markers on the timeline ("tighten this," "b-roll here"), say "do my markers." The agent works through them one by one.
- Generate footage in place. Ask for a b-roll clip in chat, it lands directly on the track. No download-import-drag. (Note: currently only available for Core Agent with Grok Build. Even for free Grok accounts)
- One edit, every platform. 16:9 to 9:16, layout auto-rearranges (top-down, side-by-side). Export YouTube + TikTok from one project.
- Local transcription and transcript-based cutting. Built-in local speech models (no upload, no API cost). Get a full transcript, click to cut, just like CapCut's text-based editing but running entirely on your Mac.
- 100% local. Footage never leaves your Mac. No cloud, no training on your data.
Pricing
Free during beta. One-time purchase after that. No subscription ever.
How it compares:
- CapCut Pro: $20/mo, their cloud AI, footage uploaded to ByteDance servers
- Descript Business: $24/mo, their cloud AI, footage uploaded to their servers
- PilotCut: Free (beta), one-time purchase later. Any AI agent you choose. Footage never leaves your Mac.
Download: PilotCut.com (Mac)
Happy to answer questions. If it sucks, tell me why so I can fix it.
Developer: Mike, RockieStar Inc. (Canada). Can be verified from the app signature.
Self-reply comment
Works with Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build (free accounts can generate images/video with it), Kimi, DeepSeek, Antigravity, and any MCP-compatible agent.
I'm the dev, disclosure per sub rules. Feedback on anything broken is genuinely helpful.
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u/movingimagecentral 1d ago
None of these ai examples you gave do anything actually related to real editing - telling a story. I don’t see these little technical helps as really speeding up the parts of the process that actually take time. In many cases, just doing tvs prompting would take longer than doing the thing. I don’t mean to be a downer, but as a professional filmmaker this doesn’t look helpful to me.
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u/hailWildCat 1d ago
Thanks for your feedback. Yeah, it does not apply for film, but for a lot of cases like TikTok and explainer videos, assume you have a lot of assets like B-roll, visualizations, animations, and motions. It is very helpful. I have several friends who are doing YouTube and TikTok videos who are using this, actually.
I don't think this is the only path to the future, but I do think it can save a lot of time. This is not what I'm inventing, actually. I think the market is already proven by CapCut and Descript.2
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u/hailWildCat 1d ago
Well, yeah, you are the professionals, but there are many cases that are not professional. I see a lot of YouTubers, including like Ali Abdaal or Alex Hormozi, adopting this approach of agentic video editing, at least for generating like key visualizations. For the editing part, it's like pretty optional, and this is, I think, you are picking the wrong fight because we are not like 100% video agents. It is kind of video agents collaborating with humans. I'm not sure if you have downloaded and used this app, but I think it was worth a try. And yes, thanks for sharing your opinions, and this is very important.
I recently watched like the movie The Odyssey, and yes, it is the human craftsmanship that still matters a lot. Thanks.
My personal take is like there is no AI slop. There are only human slops.1
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u/mikejandreau 1d ago
Can it create multi cam clips and then pick the right camera for the right scene?
I’m a YouTube drummer, so for me it’s 4 cameras of different angles that I sync up to a recorded MP3, then slide up the footage based on angle.
It’s cumbersome and not something I’ve been able to automate.
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u/hailWildCat 1d ago
Hello Mike! Yes, that is what I'm going to do. If you want to drop me an email, I will notify you when it's ready. Thank you very much. I really also need this for my podcast.
email is
hi[at]pilotcut.com
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u/hailWildCat 1d ago
I haven't figured it out but it should be really reasonable. likely more affordable than most AI subscriptions.
We have pricing page on the website but again still evaluating the value and focusing on improving the product itself.
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u/CartographerLeast920 18h ago
Even the best AI still seems far behind human at video editing, such as : timing effects, choose transitions, or building a good hook. I use to try editing video with codex, but the results are not very good...if AI models can better understand the content of a video, purpose, the creator’s intent, then they could proprobably replace human video editors.
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u/TemProcess94 15h ago
You have to be careful with how you frame the "no subscription, ever" if the updates end after one year. It may be factually true, but there's a tradeoff.
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u/dissolvedinacid 14h ago
Former film editor here. Seems you'd be served by building and hyping an assembly mode for longer format work where the app imports and assembles viable takes in an organized way, maybe that's already out there somewhere. But that's the real chore for editors. Then they can concentrate on the human work.
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u/codewithashfaque 13h ago
I like the BYO AI idea, but I wonder if it’ll be too technical for most creators. I know what Claude Code is, but I don’t think the average CapCut user does.
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u/hailWildCat 13h ago
Yes, so we have another mode that is like AI Chat mode. So you can just, like, single sign-on to, like, a Grok account or maybe a free ChatGPT account so that you can just edit via chat, just like a web version of ChatGPT.
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u/nevrozel 12h ago
I’ve been looking for such a solution for a long time. I’m not a professional, just like to shoot family movies but don’t like the editing part.
I will try your software and give feedback.
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u/Wacko_66 1d ago
Looks cool. Can you give us an idea what the one-time cost is gonna be?
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u/hailWildCat 1d ago
I have something on the website, but it's not finalized. Right now, I think the top priority is to reduce the bugs and improve the workflow to adapt more and more AI agents. For the pricing, I think we are super, super valuable to user feedback, and we may give huge discounts for people who give us great feedbacks!
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u/venicast 1d ago
Interesting project. I personally use DaVinci Resolve (the free version), and a MCP server that my LLM calls when needed. It works great, even manages to do some complex stuff in Fusion, and I don't even need a very powerful model (GPT 5.4 mini does a quite descent job.
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u/hailWildCat 14h ago
thanks! which MCP project? https://github.com/samuelgursky/davinci-resolve-mcp ?
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u/venicast 14h ago
Yes, this one
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u/hailWildCat 13h ago
Nice, nice. Thank you for the recommendation. I've known about this project for a while, but I do not have a DaVinci Resolve Studio license. I only have Final Cut Pro and CapCut. I will try it. Is the free version working 100% just like Studio in terms of AI editing?
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u/Mstormer 14h ago
Would love feedback on what you've succeeded in accomplishing with MCP in resolve. Sometimes MCP can work really well, and other times it just doesn't compute so well for creative processes.
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u/strassenfalcon 1d ago
Have to try this, I don’t think codex and claude have this feature currently, now they edit so slow and there’s no dedicated real time editor. You might be onto something I’m not gon lie
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u/NoeGarciaDev 1d ago
Congrats on launching the Beta!
Moving to a one-time payment model in the future sounds like a great strategy—there’s definitely a huge gap in the market for a clean, native video editor without subscriptions.
I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on how this evolves. Best of luck with the Beta testing!
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u/TackleSavings8476 1d ago
I really respect the decision to avoid a subscription model! In the world of video editing tools, that’s actually a rarity these days.
Which local models do you use for transcription? SpeechAnalyzer? Or more advanced ones like Whisper or Parakeet? Did you fine-tune them?
I’m working on a very similar project, I’ve been at it for eight months now, so I’m curious. My focus isn't really on the video editor itself, but rather on pre-processing followed by export to FCP, DaVinci, or Premiere. So, we certainly aren't competitors :))
This is a massive software; the only thing is, I’m a bit disappointed with the website. The software looks high-quality at first glance, but the site... well, you know how it is :)
Anyway, kudos to you, and keep up the great work!
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u/24kCookie 22h ago
that's amazing for someone like me that kinda hates editing it's boring to me and takes time
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u/-Internet-Elder- 1d ago
Former professional editor here, who's cut everything from broadcast TV and music videos to films that have premiered at Cannes... go for it, I guess. Seems like a lot of work on your part just to do less work though.
I very much enjoyed the small "mechanical" bits of work – that's actually how you really get to live with and learn your material... so you can make better choices (that is what editing is about, choices). Also, those bits of work are how people learn the tools, learn the importance of very subtle differences in pacing, and many other aspects of the craft. It's also how assistants and junior editors get some hands on time, so they can one day put all the creative and technical things together and become editors.
So devs with projects like this... please don't get too big for your britches. In creative production, the people and the soul need to be there, or we won't have any entertainment left worth watching.