Remotion

Remotion lets you write video content as React components and render them to MP4, perfect for data-driven animations and personalized video at scale. Instead of After Effects templates, you write JSX.

The idea is wild and it works: your video is a React component, each frame is a render, and Remotion stitches them into video using FFmpeg. You can use any React library: charts, maps, 3D with Three.js, and it becomes video.

The core Remotion player and composition tools are free. Rendering to video requires a license for companies with revenue above $100K/yr. Remotion Lambda (serverless rendering on AWS) is a separate paid product. Individual and small-revenue companies can use it free.

The catch: rendering is slow and compute-heavy. A 60-second video can take minutes to render locally. Remotion Lambda speeds this up but adds AWS costs. The license model is unusual: it's free below a revenue threshold, then you pay. Check their pricing page carefully. And if you just need simple video editing (trim, concatenate, add text), FFmpeg with a wrapper is way simpler.