Best Visual Effects (VFX) Software for Mac
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Compare the Top Visual Effects (VFX) Software for Mac as of July 2025
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What is Visual Effects (VFX) Software for Mac?
Visual effects (VFX) software, also known as video effects software, enables video editing professionals to edit and enhance videos in order to add or remove special effects, credits, animations, visual details, and more. Compare and read user reviews of the best Visual Effects (VFX) software for Mac currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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1
Adobe After Effects
Adobe
Create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions. Remove an object from a clip. Start a fire or make it rain. Animate a logo or character. With After Effects, the industry-standard motion graphics and visual effects software, you can take any idea and make it move. Animate titles, credits, and lower thirds. Start from scratch or with presets available right from the app. From spin to swipe to slide — your text is on the move. Combine videos and images to create anything you can imagine. Choose exciting effects from hundreds of options, remove unwanted objects or people, and create VR videos to drop your audience right into the action. Set anything in motion with keyframes or expressions. Or use presets to kick-off your designs for unique results. Create compositions in Premiere Pro. Use Dynamic Link to eliminate intermediate rendering between applications. Import from Photoshop, Illustrator, Character Animator, Adobe XD, and Animate.Starting Price: $54.99 per month -
2
Blender
Blender Foundation
Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipeline. Cycles is Blender’s built-in powerful unbiased path-tracer engine that offers stunning ultra-realistic rendering. Blender’s comprehensive array of modeling tools make creating, transforming and editing your models a breeze. VFX professionals say: “Probably the best tracker in the market”. Blender includes production ready camera and object tracking. Allowing you to import raw footage, track the footage, mask areas and see the camera movements live in your 3D scene. Eliminating the need to switch between programs. Thanks to the high quality rigging and animation tools, Blender is being used for numerous short films, advertisements, TV series and feature films now. -
3
DaVinci Resolve
Blackmagic Design
DaVinci Resolve is an all-in-one post-production software that integrates professional editing, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production into a single platform. Its intuitive interface makes it accessible to beginners while offering advanced tools for professionals, making it the go-to solution for filmmakers, television editors, and content creators. DaVinci Resolve is known for its Emmy-winning color grading capabilities and industry-leading audio processing with Fairlight. The software includes dedicated workspaces for each task—editing, color grading, visual effects, and audio—enabling users to seamlessly switch between tasks. Its powerful features are enhanced by AI tools and real-time collaboration capabilities, allowing teams to work simultaneously on the same project without the need for complex file transfers or conversions.Starting Price: $295 -
4
HitFilm Pro
FXhome Limited
HitFilm Pro is the top choice for artists and video editors worldwide. No need to jump from video editing software to VFX software and back again – HitFilm gives you editing, compositing, titling and 3D tools in a single product. You have everything you need to make videos in one place. Our video editing software is industry-leading, with powerful chroma key, particle and text tools – not to mention the world’s biggest VFX software toolkit. We also work with the biggest names in the industry to bring professional technology and creative tools to you, including Foundry’s 3D camera tracking, Boris FX’s pro titling tools and support for VideoCopilot’s After Effects plugins. Let our powerful video editing software take you where you want to go, faster. From industry-standard video editing tools to our own unique technology, HitFilm Pro’s video editor gives you everything you need to create dynamic, snappy edits.Starting Price: $349 per license -
5
HitFilm
FXHome
HitFilm is free video editing software with professional-grade VFX tools and everything you need to make awesome content, films or gaming videos. Perfect for beginners, film students, gamers, YouTubers, or any creative without a budget. You got talent and the drive, so we give you what you need, free video editing software. Why? Because you shouldn’t have to pay to play. And that way, we get to be a part of your origin story — which is pretty awesome. Get access to the world’s most powerful free video editing and VFX software for Mac or PC. Join our growing community of 6 million filmmakers and content creators today. Wanna level up your skills? Masterclass editing and VFX tutorials are made for every brand of hero. Create your own 3D shield-wielding super-soldiers or plunge your audience into the Wild West with a sci-fi twist. We bring opportunity and equality to the creative industry. Together with our community, we develop powerful accessible tools, training, and support. -
6
Natron
Natron
Natron is a powerful digital compositor that can handle all of your 2D/2.5D needs. Its robust OIIO file formats and OpenFX architecture is what make Natron the most flexible open source compositor for the visual effects community. Its interface and functionally are the same across all platforms such as MacOS, Linux and Windows. Natron has a powerful keying, roto/rotopaint, 2D tracking tools that are staple for all current film production project that requires visual effects. On the surface Natron has a powerful GUI interface that is a flexible and intuitive multi-platform node based engine. Natron may seem to be a simple compositing application but it does have layers of complexity that will allow your creativity to reach new heights. Natron has flexible Roto and Rotopaint tool-set that can generate unlimited layers of masks, mattes and shapes. -
7
VideoPad
NCH Software
VideoPad Master's Edition for Windows can create movies and edit videos of many different formats including avi, wmv, .3gp, wmv, divx and more. Create videos or movies easily with the intuitive user interface. Simply drag and drop video clips. Choose from over 50 visual effects and transitions including chroma key or green screen technology. Fine tune color and visual effects. Show your friends by burning to DVD or uploading to YouTube.Starting Price: $69.95/one-time/user -
8
Lightworks
LWKS
LWKS, established in 2020, LWKS is a new creative technology company developing software for content creators and distributors in the media and entertainment industry, including the popular and multiple award-winning Lightworks and QScan products. Lightworks is a non-linear editing system for editing and mastering digital video. For over 30 years, Lightworks has helped every type of video editor and creator imaginable, from Oscar-winning Hollywood legends to YouTubers. QScan, everything you need to automate your media QC. The professional automated media QC platform that takes all the effort out of ensuring video files meet international delivery standards.Starting Price: $9.99 (Create), Pro $23.99 -
9
Red Giant Complete
Maxon
Get up-to-speed with all the latest features in Red Giant Complete. Trapcode brings the power of 3D particle systems right into After Effects. Use particle emitters to create fire, water, smoke, snow and other organic visual effects, or create technological marvels and user interfaces with immortal particle grids and 3D forms. With a subscription to Red Giant, get even more 3D geometry input options thanks to Cineware .c4d file import. Use Cinema 4D files (including animation) in particle systems or as 3D models in After Effects. Magic Bullet is a set of plugins for color correction, finishing and film looks. With powerful real-time color grading tools, video denoising, and cosmetic retouching, you’ll have everything you need to make your footage look great, right on your editing timeline. Universe is a set of video transition and effects plugins for editors and motion graphics artists.Starting Price: $49.91 per month -
10
Autodesk Flame
Autodesk
3D visual effects (VFX), finishing, and color grading software. Flame® 3D VFX and finishing software provides powerful tools for 3D compositing, visual effects, and editorial finishing. An integrated, creative environment means faster compositing, advanced graphics, color correction, and more. Extract mattes of the human body, head, and face with AI-powered tools for color adjustment, relighting, and digital cosmetic and beauty work. Isolate skies and salient objects quickly for grading and VFX jobs. Edit, composite, and color correct in one environment, without toggling between software. Create and iterate quickly for more productive client sessions. Tools for fast and interactive visual effects finishing and 3D compositing. A timeline-centric, fully compatible assistant station for Flame. A fully compatible creative assistant station for Flame in collaborative VFX workflows. Real-time color grading software for creative look development.Starting Price: $331.11 per month -
11
V-Ray
Chaos
Chaos® V-Ray® is a 3D rendering plugin available for SketchUp, 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Rhino, Revit, and more. It is widely used in architectural visualization, advertising, and visual effects for film and television. With V-Ray, artists and designers can explore and share their projects with real-time ray tracing and render high-quality visualizations. V-Ray has a large community of users and is recognized for its incredible versatility. V-Ray has been honored with a Sci-Tech Academy Award® and an Engineering Emmy Award® for bringing fully ray-traced photorealistic CGI to the film and television industries. For more information, please visit chaos.comStarting Price: $60 per month -
12
Boris FX Sapphire
Boris FX
Sapphire plug-ins let you create stunning organic looks unmatched by any host native effect tools. Key features include over 270 effects and 3000+ presets, a powerful effect and transition builder, and integrated tracking and masking with the academy award-winning mocha. Sapphire’s superior image quality, control, and render speed offers massive time-savings — allowing creatives to focus on what matters most, delivering an impact that keeps audiences coming back. Mac users with Sapphire 2021 will rejoice with the introduction of Metal GPU acceleration for over 60 Sapphire effect. Dramatic speed gains can be achieved with Metal acceleration in Sapphire; S_Rays renders over 4x faster with metal than CPU only. Performance can vary depending on GPU specs, host application, OS version, and individual Sapphire effects, but on average Sapphire 2021 with Metal acceleration renders 20% faster than CPU only.Starting Price: $47 per month -
13
Boris FX Silhoutte
Boris FX
Academy and Emmy Award-Winning VFX Tools Silhouette is a best-in-class, GPU-accelerated compositing application, delivering the industry’s most robust non-destructive paint and roto tools to feature film and visual effects teams. Since 2005, Silhouette has made its mark on Hollywood’s biggest film and TV shows including Avatar, Black Panther, Stranger Things and many more. Silhouette is officially recommended by the Netflix Post Technology Alliance in the VFX category. The artists tool for Roto, Paint & Tracking. Silhouette 2020.5 goes beyond traditional roto and cleanup as a professional stereoscopic enabled node-based compositing system with 146 nodes designed for every finishing task. Silhouette is available as a standalone application for macOS, Windows, and Linux with floating license options for enterprise. New Silhouette Paint plug-in! Our paint tools have now been streamlined into a multi-host plug-in supporting Adobe and OFX hosts, free for all Silhouette 2020 owners.Starting Price: $94 per month -
14
Boris FX Optics
Boris FX
Optics is the definitive digital toolbox for photos. Created by professional feature film VFX artists, Optics is designed to simulate optical camera filters, specialized lenses, film stocks and grain, lens flares, optical lab processes, color correction as well as natural light and photographic effects. Take your images to the next level, try Optics. Available now as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, as well as a standalone application for macOS and Windows. Apply Optics and choose from 160 filters and thousands of presets. Optics provides everything you need to creatively enhance and improve photos using a staggering amount of filters and presets. Color grade your image using film style controls or go from reality to sci-fi with incredible lighting effects. All filters can be limited to a portion of the image using sophisticated but simple to use masking controls. A layering system to apply multiple filters, a built-in paint system for touch-ups,Starting Price: $7 per month -
15
Boris Continuum
Boris FX
Meeting tight turnarounds just got easier. The post-production industry’s most complete plugin collection delivers nearly 350 creative effects in 20 categories, 4000+ presets, built-in Academy Award-winning Mocha planar tracking and masking, a beat reactor that drives VFX to music, and the FX Browser. Busy editors and artists rely on continuum to get the job done. Continuum 2021 is the biggest release in its storied history with 80+ new effects, 1000+ new professionally-designed presets, 3 new Unit categories, major additions to particle illusion, a new keying effect, improvements to Mocha’s planar tracking, and more. The Cinematographer’s Toolkit gives artists access to 80 new effects, 3 new Continuum Units, and 1000+ new presets that pay homage to the bygone era of shooting on film. The built-in FX Editor makes it simple to browse the presets and create your own custom presets directly inside the interface. Recreate classic Hollywood looks in just one click.Starting Price: $27.75 per month -
16
INSYDIUM Fused
INSYDIUM
INSYDIUM Fused contains all of our plugins and products in one complete collection. Everything you need to create stunning particle effects, realistic terrains and fulfil modeling tasks through to the final render. Plus, all our available 3D resources, hours of training, technical support, and content repository files. Get your copy of INSYDIUM Fused, which includes X-Particles, the ultimate particle engine for Cinema 4D, TerraformFX, Mesh Tools, Cycles 4D and much more. An essential component of an artist’s toolkit, X-Particles is the solution to satisfy all your particle needs, cloth, smoke, fire, fluids, grains and dynamics. Designers can switch effortlessly between motion graphics and VFX, within a unified system. Create outstanding ParticleFX from solar systems, FUI, holograms and medical visualizations to abstract artwork. Multiple options to combine emitters and modifiers, gives you a range of possibilities.Starting Price: $188.34 per 3 months -
17
3DEqualizer
3DEqualizer
3DEqualizer4 is the dominating 3D tracking solution in today's vfx world - merging live action footage with digital visual effects at highest quality possible. It is a cornerstone of modern post production business and used by virtually all of the major players around the globe working in this field. Many of those companies rely on 3DEqualizer since its very first version which has been introduced over 20 years ago - some of them exclusively! But this is just the tip of the iceberg. 3DEqualizer is widely being used throughout the entire vfx industry, which means if you go to the box office today to watch the latest visual effects driven blockbuster movie, you will most likely be entertained by the help of our work! The best product is nothing worth without reliable support - this is even more important for professional clients. The things we learn, while using 3DEqualizer under real production conditions, makes us understand our client's demands much better.Starting Price: €129 per month -
18
Trapcode Suite
Maxon
Trapcode Suite brings the power of 3D particle systems right into After Effects. Use particle emitters to create fire, water, smoke, snow and other organic visual effects, or create technological marvels and user interfaces with immortal particle grids, text and 3D forms. Combine multiple particle systems into one unified 3D space and design emitters that emit full emitters for creating visually stunning results. With GPU acceleration, Trapcode plugins help you get beautiful results fast. Trapcode Suite includes a physics engine with powerful behaviors, forces and environmental controls. Particular brings particles to life with new flocking/swarming and predator/prey behaviors, and adds more realism with combined bounce and air physics. Particular and form both include the ability to create organic fluid simulations where particle systems interact with beautiful results.Starting Price: $49.91 per month -
19
Mocha Pro
Boris FX
Mocha Pro is the world renowned software for planar tracking, rotoscoping and object removal. Essential to visual effects and post-production workflows, Mocha has been recognized with prestigious Academy and Emmy Awards for contribution to the film and television industry. Mocha Pro has recently been used on global hits including The Mandalorian, Stranger Things, Avengers: Endgame, and many more. The next evolution of Mocha. PowerMesh enables a powerful new sub-planar tracking engine for VFX, roto and stabilization. Warped surface tracking and roto that sticks. Track complex organic surfaces through occlusions and blur using Mocha’s intuitive layer based interface. Simple to use and faster than most optical flow based techniques. Apply to source files for realistic match moves, convert to AE Nulls to drive motion graphics, render a mesh warped stabilize/reverse stabilize plate for compositing, or export dense tracking data to host applications.Starting Price: $27.75 per month -
20
TimelineFX
RigzSoft
Export the particle effects as static animations onto sprite sheets, animation strips or image sequences in PNG format, or if you develop for the iPhone or iPad, you can export using the PVRTC format (Mac only). If you program games using the powerful Blitzmax programming language, you can also use the effects directly using the TimelineFX Module. Create an endless amount of different and varied particle effects including explosions, smoke, fire, water, steam, bubbles, and much more! Animations can be easily configured to loop seamlessly with just one click of the mouse, and with another click, you can even make animations tile seamlessly too for use as animated textures. Including smoke, fire, explosions, water, flares, clouds and much more! Plus, we also have plenty of free effects for you to download. Particle emitters have 24 attributes to control your effects with precision using graphs to draw their behaviour overtime.Starting Price: $41.52 per license -
21
Motion
Apple
Motion is the powerful motion graphics tool that makes it easy to create cinematic 2D, 3D, and 360° titles, fluid transitions, and realistic effects in real time. And with its Metal engine and improved performance and efficiency on Mac computers with Apple silicon, Motion lets you build and play back effects at incredible speeds. Designed with editors in mind, Motion’s streamlined interface and incredible performance lets you create and play back titles, transitions, and effects in real time. Take the guesswork out by seeing your designs without the need to render. Design in a modern interface that matches the look of Final Cut Pro and puts the focus on your work. Easily locate assets using visual content browsers, then build motion graphics with a logical layers list, full-length timeline, and keyframe editor. It’s simple to customize the interface to match the way you work.Starting Price: $49.99 per license -
22
Zibra AI
Zibra AI
We build AI-powered solutions for VFX and 3D creation for gaming, TV, filming, and beyond, offer custom creative services, and drive innovation through dedicated R&D efforts. Founded in 2021, Zibra AI is a Ukrainian deep-tech company that builds AI-powered solutions for VFX and 3D creation. Our suite of tools allows you to seamlessly incorporate high-quality, real-time VFX and OpenVDB effects into any engine, democratizing the creative process and making it much more efficient. We offer custom creative services and drive innovation through dedicated R&D efforts. Composed of passionate gaming enthusiasts and seasoned experts in 3D programming, VFX creation, and physics, our team draws on years of experience from leading gaming and tech companies and will manage your project with precision, ensuring you get precisely what you need.Starting Price: $120 per year -
23
PixelConduit
PixelConduit
Render in realtime even above HD resolutions. Thanks to the optimizing Conduit Effect System, you can combine dozens of full-quality effects such as keyers, blurs and tone curves while still editing live. Like high-end video effects systems, PixelConduit uses a node-based interface that shines for creating complex effects. The user interface is modern, ergonomic and respects the desktop environment. PixelConduit is a lightweight app that is easy to integrate in your workflow. But Conduit also integrates as plugins into popular video and graphics apps like Final Cut Pro and After Effects. Build an effect once, reuse anywhere. Everything in PixelConduit is designed for realtime performance and high color precision. With its flexible user interface and advanced extension possibilities, PixelConduit is at home in any scenario that deals with video, whether it’s live effects, dynamic video installations, or post-production work like compositing and workflow automation. -
24
Fusion 18
Blackmagic Design
Fusion’s curve editor uses splines for creating smooth motion between keyframes. They can be interpolated as linear, bezier or as b‑splines. This lets you apply custom curves to loop, reverse, or ping pong between keyframes to create sophisticated animations. You can also move, stretch and squish groups of keyframes to create incredible variations! The replicate tool automatically creates rows of repeated objects that can fill any pattern. You can create complex and sophisticated-looking animations by simply offsetting parameters on replicated objects! There are also randomized controls for adding subtle variations to create organic-looking animations that would be impossible on another system! Build fantastic particle effects that glow, swirl and sparkle using physics like avoidance, gravity and bounce! Each behavior influences and alters the particles in natural ways. -
25
Final Effects
Boris FX
Final Effects Complete Version 7. See how flexible the transitions are to use from within Avid editing systems and how they can be easily tweaked to give the desired effect. Features: Includes 120 filters & 800 presets, quickly generate 3D particle animations, includes the BCC Beat Reactor - Animate your effects to the sound of music, stylized filters such as Vector Blur, Glass, Kaleida, and 3D Relief, auto-animating transitions including Blur Dissolve, Glass Wipe, and Light Wipe, integrated pixel chooser for masking options. Compatibility: Adobe After Affects, Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer. -
26
Simulon
Simulon
Simulon is a comprehensive VFX workflow solution for iPhone, enabling creators to craft VFX shots using a real-time AR experience. These shots are then rendered in the cloud, achieving true photorealism. Additionally, Simulon integrates seamlessly with Blender, providing creators with a robust, professional workflow. Simulon is designed to be accessible to creators of all skill levels, from those with no prior VFX experience to advanced 3D artists and studios. The platform's capabilities expand with the user's 3D expertise, allowing for increasingly sophisticated use as skills develop. Ensure your asset correctly touches the ground, as this determines its spawn position in Simulon relative to the real-world surface. Simulon’s scale is based on real-world values. In Simulon, assets are initially auto-scaled based on screenspace and distance to prevent unusable sizing from the creator's perspective. -
27
SpeedTree
IDV
Emmy and Academy Award-winning modeling and animation suite used to create trees and plants for films and television. The industry standard for 3D vegetation modeling in games. Tools include the SpeedTree Modeler, Compiler, and full source SDK. Subscription pipelines for the most popular and cutting-edge game engines. SpeedTree for Games is an Award-winning 3D Procedural vegetation middleware product with fine-tuned art controls. Includes Modeler, Compiler, Tree Library and full-source SDK. Increased performance throughout, including faster instance paging, constant buffer updates, and shader optimizations. SpeedTree Cinema is the award-winning 3D-modeling suite that allows you to model, texture, and animate, both stylized and photoreal vegetation for VFX, arch/viz, or matte paintings. Model and shape any type of vegetation using a combination of procedural and fine-tuned art controls.
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