An OpusClip alternative that makes short clips on your own computer

OpusClip turns a long video into short clips for you. You upload a file or paste a YouTube link (paid plans add Google Drive, Vimeo, Zoom and more), its AI picks the moments worth posting, adds captions, reframes them for vertical feeds, and on paid plans can post them to your social accounts. It runs in the cloud, on credits, and its free plan adds a watermark. If you want an OpusClip alternative that runs on your own computer, Barside's Clips editor cuts a video by its words, removes filler words and pauses, adds animated captions, reframes to 9:16 around the speaker and renders an MP4 into your note. It is free, with no credits and no watermark, and your own AI can pick the moments if you want.

This page compares the two honestly, including the jobs where OpusClip is the better tool, and shows how to make your first clips.

The short answer

OpusClip is built to be hands-off. On paid plans, its ClipAnything model looks for moments using visual, audio and sentiment cues, so it works even on videos with little dialogue, and it rates each scene for its viral potential. Its captions cover more than 20 languages, and Pro adds reframing that tracks moving subjects, a social media scheduler, team seats, more AI B-roll and export to Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve.

People look for an alternative for a few common reasons: credits that run out, a watermark on free clips, footage they would rather not upload, or a monthly bill for something they do a few times a month.

Barside takes the opposite approach. Clips is a free editor inside a desktop app for Windows, Linux and Mac. You edit a video by editing its transcript, and everything runs on your computer. It does not post for you, generate B-roll or score clips on its own. When you want AI help, your own AI app reads the transcript and makes the clips through Barside's AI connections.

Why people look for an OpusClip alternative

• Credits. OpusClip charges 1 credit per minute of the original video you import, not per clip you keep. The free plan has 60 credits a month, Starter 150 and Pro 300, as of September 2026. Four one-hour episodes a month need 240 credits, more than Starter's 150.
• Free-plan limits. Free clips carry a watermark, render up to 1080p, cannot be edited, and can no longer be exported after 3 days.
• Uploading. Every video goes to OpusClip's servers first: a local file of up to 10 GB on Free and Starter, or 30 GB on Pro, or a link. Client work, internal demos or unreleased products may be footage you would rather keep on your own drive.
• The monthly bill. Starter is US$15 a month and only sold monthly. Pro is US$29 a month, or US$174 a year. Unused credits on monthly plans roll over for one more month, then expire.

Barside at a glance

Barside is a free desktop app with notes, reading, tasks, recordings, meetings and AI features. Clips is its short-video editor.

• Your videos in one place. The Clips tab lists every video and recording in your notes, with the clips made from each. Add video puts a file in its own note, and Record starts a screen recording. MP4, WebM, MOV and M4V work.
• Words first. Choose Make clips, and Barside makes a first clip (the whole video if it is 3 minutes or shorter, otherwise its first minute) and writes down every word with its local speech engine.
• Four tabs. Words to cut, Captions to style, Format to reframe, B-roll to cover.
• An MP4 in your note. Make clip renders it next to the source video, and Save as MP4 copies it anywhere. Share link gives you a private link that plays on barside.space.

The full walkthrough is in the guide to turning long videos into short clips.

OpusClip vs Barside: feature comparison

OpusClip facts come from its pricing page, feature pages and help center, as of September 2026.

Pricing compared

Prices are as OpusClip's pricing page shows them in the US, as of September 2026.

OpusClip rounds a video shorter than a minute up to 1 credit and drops partial minutes on longer videos. Posting or scheduling a clip to X costs 3 credits for each X account. Its help center says credits on monthly plans expire after 60 days and credits on yearly plans are valid for 12 months. Its pricing page says unused Pro credits roll over for 2 months on yearly billing, so the two pages differ. The yearly Pro price also depends on your country, so check the page before you buy.

Barside Plus is not needed for Clips. Without it, a share link plays for 7 days and works for files up to 50 MB; with Plus, links can carry files up to 2 GB and stay until you remove them.

Where OpusClip is better

OpusClip is the stronger tool for several jobs. If these describe your work, stay with it.

• Hands-off clipping. Drop in a video and get ranked clips back, with no transcript reading and no AI setup. On paid plans, ClipAnything also handles vlogs, sports and other videos with little talking, where Barside's word-based editing has little to work with.
• A virality score. From Starter up, OpusClip rates each moment with its own model. In Barside, your AI app can give a clip a score and a reason, but it is that AI's judgment.
• Generated media. AI B-roll, stock footage, AI voice-over, dubbing and speech enhancement. Barside's B-roll comes from your own photos and videos.
• Publishing. Auto posting to YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Reels, a scheduler for several platforms, and titles, descriptions and hashtags written for you.
• Teams and brands. Shared workspaces, brand templates, custom fonts and export to Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve.
• Tracking. On Pro, AI Reframe follows moving subjects, like a speaker walking across a stage. Barside follows the biggest face.
• Any computer, and a phone. OpusClip runs in the browser on any system, and it has an iPhone app. Barside needs Windows, Linux or Mac.

How to make your first clips in Barside

There is nothing to import from OpusClip: your source videos are the starting point.

1. Install Barside from the download page and open it.
2. Add the video. Open the Clips tab and choose Add video, or drag the file into any note.
3. Choose Make clips. The first time, choose Install video tools: a one-time download of FFmpeg 8.1.3 (50 to 70 MB, depending on your system), checked before it runs.
4. Get the words. If the speech engine is not installed yet, install it once in Assistant settings (about 150 MB), then choose Get the words. For languages other than English, pick yours under Speech language (a one-time 141 MB download).
5. Find the moments. Read the transcript in the Words tab. Drag across a passage and choose New clip. Each video can hold up to 50 clips.
6. Tighten it. Choose Remove filler words and Shorten pauses, and Cut anything else. Drag the timeline's edges to start earlier or end later.
7. Style it. In Captions, pick a style, position, size, highlight color and words per caption. In Format, choose Vertical 9:16 and Follow the speaker, or Whole picture, blurred sides for a screen recording.
8. Make clip. Barside renders an MP4 of 1080 × 1920 pixels at 30 frames per second, with the captions burned in. Choose Save as MP4 and post it wherever you like.

If this is most of your work, switch to Creator Mode, which shows Recordings, Clips, drawings, your notes and Spaces and opens on the Recordings tab. See app modes. If you run a community in Spaces, post a clip's share link in the chat and pin that message, so members can open it from the Pinned bar at the top of the chat.

Let your own AI pick the moments

OpusClip's AI is built in. Barside's AI part is yours: an AI app you already use does the picking, through Barside's AI connections.

1. Open Settings → Use Barside in your AI app → More apps and options, and pick a connection, such as the one Add to Claude Desktop made.
2. In its Permissions tab, tick the workspace that holds the video under Shared workspaces, turn on Allow adding and updating notes, bookmarks, tasks and reminders, then Allow making video clips.
3. In the clips editor, choose Ask your AI and copy a ready-made request into your AI app, such as finding the 3 best moments of 30 to 60 seconds and making each a 9:16 clip with bold captions.

The AI reads timed sentences from the transcript and never receives the video file. The clips it makes appear in the editor with its reason for each one, ready for you to check and adjust. The video tools your AI app can use are listed on the AI connections page.

What stays on your computer

With a cloud clip maker, your footage lives on someone else's servers. With Barside, this is where each part goes:

• The video. It is never uploaded to make clips. FFmpeg cuts, captions, reframes and renders on your computer.
• The words. The local speech engine, Whisper, writes them down on your computer, with no AI key.
• Faces. A small model, MediaPipe BlazeFace, finds them on your computer, only to keep the speaker in frame.
• Your edits. Each video's clips, words, pauses and face positions are saved next to it in your media folder, so your backups carry them.
• AI apps. Only if you allow video clips for a connection, and they read transcripts, never video files.
• Share links. A clip leaves your computer only when you choose Share link. It uploads to Barside's storage, and anyone with the link can watch until the link expires or you remove it.

See Clips and your data and how share links work.

Who should switch, and who should stay

Barside is a good fit if you:

• make clips from talking videos: podcasts, interviews, lessons, demos and webinars;
• want to choose every cut yourself, by reading the words;
• would rather keep your footage on your own computer;
• make clips now and then and do not want a monthly plan or credits;
• record screen tutorials and want the recording, the clips and your notes in one app.

Stay with OpusClip if you:

• want finished, ranked clips with no editing at all;
• clip sports, vlogs or other videos with little talking;
• post to several platforms on a schedule, or work in a team with brand templates;
• need generated B-roll, dubbing or Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve export.

Other alternatives worth a look

• Descript. Edits video by editing a document, with Create Clips among its AI tools. Hobbyist is US$16 a person a month billed annually, or US$24 monthly; the free plan includes 60 media minutes a month, as of September 2026.
• Vizard. An AI clip maker with a free plan of 60 credits a month (a credit is a minute of uploaded video), 720p exports and 3-day storage. Paid plans remove the watermark and export in 4K.
• Klap. Turns videos into shorts, from US$14 a month billed yearly for 100 clips a month, as of September 2026.

For a ranked list, see the best AI clip makers. If you mostly need to capture the video in the first place, compare the best screen recorders.

Works well with Clips