Olive

What is Olive?

Olive started in 2018 as a hobby project by a small team of developers who wanted a lightweight alternative to expensive, feature‑rich editors like Adobe After Effects. The first stable release, 0.1.2, came out in November 2019, and the project has been updated regularly on Flathub, showing steady progress.

The editor is aimed at hobbyists, small‑budget filmmakers, and anyone who needs a decent set of editing tools without the cost or complexity of commercial software. It supports basic compositing, keyframing, and effects, but it is still catching up to the depth of professional suites.

Compared with Windows tools, Olive feels more like a learning‑curve friendly, no‑frills editor. It lacks some advanced color‑grading panels and the polished UI of After Effects, but it offers a clean interface and a straightforward workflow that can be a good stepping stone for new Linux users.

Best for: Small‑scale video projects where cost and simplicity matter more than full professional feature sets.

Key features of Olive

• Timeline editing with multiple tracks
• Basic keyframing for position, scale, opacity
• Built‑in effects like blur, color correction, and transitions
• Support for common video formats (MP4, MKV, AVI)
• Export to popular codecs (H.264, H.265)
• Node‑based compositing panel
• Keyboard shortcuts for cut, copy, paste, and render
• Integration with system file manager for drag‑and‑drop

Tips for Windows users

When moving from After Effects or other Windows editors, keep in mind that Olive uses a different keyframe system: you set keyframes on the timeline rather than in a separate animation panel. Export your footage as MP4 or MOV to avoid codec issues. Shortcuts differ; for example, ‘Ctrl+Z’ undoes, but ‘Ctrl+Shift+Z’ redoes. The interface is more linear, so you’ll need to adapt to a less modular workflow. Import media by dragging files into the project panel, then place them on the timeline. Rendering is done via the ‘Export’ button, which offers basic codec choices; you may need to use ffmpeg for more advanced settings.

Recent releases

• 0.1.2 — November 11, 2019