FFmpeg vs Freemake Video Converter

FFmpeg is free, open-source software for recording, converting, and streaming audio and video on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Its command-line tool converts media files between formats, supports local recording, and lists AVI among its output formats. Output protocols include HLS, RTMP, RTMPS, RTP, RTSP, SRT, and UDP. Hardware acceleration is available for encoding and decoding. Decoding support includes Vulkan, VAAPI, and OpenHarmony, and Vulkan codecs can work on implementations of Vulkan 1.3. The Vulkan compute approach supports FFv1 encoding and decoding and ProRes RAW decoding, but only for codecs designed for parallel decoding. FFmpeg’s transcoding components run in parallel, which can improve throughput and CPU use; gains may be limited when one component dominates the processing. The project accepts contributions through its Forgejo instance and offers mailing lists, IRC, forums, bug reports, a wiki, and conferences. Version 8.1 Hoare was announced as available for download on March 16, 2026.

Freemake Video Converter converts video and movies between 500+ formats, with batch conversion, hardware acceleration, and output resolution up to 4K. It supports formats including MP4, AVI, WMV, MKV, FLV, 3GP, MPEG, DVD, Blu-ray, MP3, SWF, WebM, and OGG. You can extract audio to MP3 and upload multiple files at once. Editing tools cut, join, and rotate clips, remove black bars, limit output size, and add subtitles. Disc tools rip DVDs, burn DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and create DVD folders or ISO files. Device presets cover Apple, Android, PSP, Xbox, Samsung, Nokia, Huawei, Xiaomi, and BlackBerry. Converted files can be uploaded directly to YouTube or sent automatically to iTunes and iOS. The free license does not expire, and the Free plan costs nothing. Free conversions add a Freemake logo and omit 4x conversion speed and premium features. Windows requirements include a 1 GHz processor,.NET Framework 4.5, at least 256 MB RAM, and 50 MB of disk space.