GoZen 0.14-beta: The Minimalist Video Editor Reaches Its First Beta

gozen video-editing open-source godot ffmpeg

GoZen has released version 0.14-beta, the first beta of the open-source video editor built with the Godot engine and FFmpeg. After a longer stretch in alpha, this release marks a shift in how the project develops: from here on, the focus lies on bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements instead of big new features.

What is GoZen?

GoZen describes itself as a minimalist video editor. It is developed primarily for Linux, with Windows and macOS builds also available, and relies on FFmpeg for media handling, which means support for all codecs FFmpeg can handle. The timeline is unified, so audio and video clips are not separated into dedicated track types. The project is licensed under GPLv3, and the source code lives on Codeberg.

The target audience are everyday creators and hobbyists who want a straightforward editing experience without the complexity of a full NLE. Because the editor is built with Godot, effects, transitions, and UI extensions can be added as modules.

New Effects

Version 0.14 adds five new effects:

There is also a new angle parameter control for effects, and module versioning information is now saved directly within projects.

Stability Work

The bigger part of this release went into fixes. Startup crashes, crashes during thumbnail generation, audio waveforms disappearing from clips, broken fade handles, clip resizing on the end handle, missing file extensions when saving, and several timeline problems have been addressed. Render profiles and their icons were fixed as well, along with effect dragging and copy-and-paste behavior. The keyframe bar now has navigation arrows for jumping between keyframes, and the drop shadow effect gained a size option.

Dutch and Japanese translations were updated. On macOS, the menu bar behavior received fixes.

What Comes Next

According to the release notes, upcoming beta releases will concentrate on bug fixing. The only larger addition planned before version 1.0 is a welcome screen that introduces new users to the editor and its initial settings. Beta builds are planned to arrive at a faster rate, with weekly builds so users no longer have to wait weeks for bug fixes.

This release also introduces Full and Demo versions on itch.io, which fund further development. A Steam release is planned once the project reaches version 1.0, and until then GoZen is available at a discounted price. The project stays open source, so compiling it yourself remains an option.