Free (Or Cheaper) Alternatives To After Effects
Whilst After Effects is an amazing tool to design, create and experiment with effects and transitions, it does come at a price. For the latest build of Adobe’s After Effects software, you will need to subscribe to their CC or Creative Cloud platform, which will cost you £241.43 ($239.88) for a years use of After Effects, quite a hefty sum. We understand that your budget might not stretch that far, but fear not! Because not all software costs that much, here we have listed some of the cheaper alternatives to After Effects, so you can start building your way up to really heavy duty software.
Filmora is the first one we will recommend as a starting point, it does have a free download version without a usage limit so you don’t have to pay the much cheaper price of £46.11 ($59.99) straight away. Whilst it is more limited in the features it offers, it has all of the basics you need to start growing your experience.
Wax, whilst it may not look like it’s up to the job, has a whole list of useful features to let you add special effects. It is totally free, and it comes ready to be integrated into any other software you have or will have in the future like Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere.
Blackmagic Design’s Fusion software has the capability to create a whole host of different visual effects, motion graphics and 3D animations. It does have a free download version, but with a slightly smaller list of functions than the paid version which will cost you a substantial £765.54 ($995), but it is one the world's leading visual effects software packages.
Hopefully, with these few examples (there are plenty of other alternatives with varying functionality and pricing, these are just our favourite) you can kickstart your interest in Visual Effects into a career or a more experienced hobby.