In 2025, the Kdenlive team balanced new features with stability and performance improvements. Looking ahead to 2026, the project aims to integrate advanced AI tools, professional color support, and a revamped keyframing system.

State of Kdenlive - 2026

In 2025, the Kdenlive team continued grinding to push the project forward through steady development, collaboration, and community support. Over the past year we’ve found a nice balance between adding new features, bug fixing, polishing the user interface, and improving performance and workflow, with stability taking priority over feature creep.

We relaunched the website with a new content management system, refreshed some content and the design, and restored historic content dating back to 2002. We also strengthened upstream collaboration with the MLT developers and contributed several improvements to OpenTimelineIO.

Here’s a look at what we've been up to and what is ahead.

RELEASE HIGHLIGHTS

As part of KDE Apps, we follow the KDE Gear release cycle, with three major releases each year—in April, August, and December—each followed by three point maintenance releases.

25.04.0

This release added a powerful automatic masking tool and brought the last batch of features from our last fundraiser.

Background Removal

The new Object Segmentation plugin based on the SAM2 model allows to remove any selected object from the background.

OpenTimelineIO

We rewrote our OpenTimelineIO import and export function using the C++ library. Now you can exchange projects with other editing applications that support this open source file format.

Waveform improvements

Audio waveform generation got a 300% performance boost, along with a refactored sampling method that accurately renders the audio signal and higher-resolution waveforms for greater precision.

25.08.0

This release focused heavily on stabilization, bringing over 300 commits and fixing more than 15 crashes. Instead of major new features, the effort went into polishing and bug fixing.

Audio Mixer

We redesigned the audio mixer bringing levels with clearer visuals and thresholds. We also did some code refactoring and cleanup. This change fixes issues with HiDPI displays with fractional scaling.

Markers and Guides

Guides and Markers got a major overhaul this release to improve the project organization.

Titler improvements

This release the titler received some much needed love like improved SVG and image support with ability to move and resize items, added center resize with Shift + Drag, and renamed the Pattern tab to Templates and moved the templates dropdown to it

25.12.0

The focus of this release cycle was on improving the user experience and polishing the user interface.

Welcome Screen

We added a new first-run launch screen for first time users as well as added a Welcome Screen allowing to easily launch recent projects.

Docking System

We added a new, more flexible docking system that lets you group widgets, show or hide them on demand, and save layouts as separate files that can be shared or stored within projects.

Redesigned monitor

The audio waveform in the Project Monitor got a revamped interface with an added minimap.

THE ROAD AHEAD

26.04

This next release is just around the corner and brings a nice batch of nifty new features like monitor mirroring and animated transition previews, making it much easier to visualize how they will look before applying them. Additionally, dropping a transition onto the timeline can now automatically adjust its duration to match the clips above and below, saving time and reducing manual tweaking.

This feature allows you to mirror any monitor while working in fullscreen mode. It’s especially useful when working with multiple displays or collaborating with others in the editing room.

OTHER NOTEWORTHY FEATURES

Change the playback speed of multiple clips at once
Import a clip directly from the timeline context menu and insert it at the click position
Option to always zoom toward the mouse position instead of the timeline playhead
Generate audio thumbnails for sequences

ROADMAP

Our roadmap is constantly being reviewed and updated, and some of the upcoming highlights include implementing the new features in MLT, the multimedia framework which powers Kdenlive. Some exciting upcoming features include 10/12 bit color support, playback optimizations (decoding), and OpenFX support. Also expected is a refactoring of the subtitle system as well as continuing to develop the Advanced Trimming Tools.

DOPESHEET

We are currently working on refactoring the keyframing system and implementing a Dopesheet, basically it is a dedicated timeline for managing and viewing keyframes from multiple effects simultaneously. This work is made possible through an NGI Zero Commons grant via NLnet.

MICROSOFT STORE

We have been working on enabling and fixing multiple modules in MLT to compile with MSVC allowing us to ship Kdenlive in the Microsoft Store soon.

COMMUNITY

In 2025, 38 people contributed code to Kdenlive. Currently, the Kdenlive core team is made up of 8 active members. On behalf of the Kdenlive team, we salute you all!

SPRINTS AND EVENTS

AMSTERDAM SPRINT

In February, the team met in Amsterdam, visiting the Blender Foundation to share insights on product management. Technical progress included refining audio workflows and MLT patches.