In depth on · 2026 · Studio project
Directcut
A free, self-hosted app for AI video and images. Bring your own OpenRouter key and pay the model price, not a platform's markup.
Overview
Directcut is an open-source app that runs on your own computer and gives you one clean screen for the top AI video and image models on OpenRouter: Seedance, Kling, Veo, Wan and Hailuo for video, Seedream, Nano Banana, GPT Image and Flux for images. You bring your own key and pay per generation. There is no subscription and no credits, and every file is saved to your own disk. MIT licensed, made for the community. Gallery images in the screenshots are for demonstration only.
Scope
- The model price
- Directcut calls OpenRouter directly, so the cost shows before you click Generate, and the real charge replaces the estimate when it lands.
- One key, 14 models
- Seedance, Kling, Veo, Wan and Hailuo for video; Seedream, Nano Banana, GPT Image and Flux for images. Adding a model is one entry in one file.
- References that write the prompt
- Start and end frames, plus character, style, motion and voice slots. Drop a file in and its @tag lands in your prompt.
- A spending guard
- A daily cap, $10 by default, is checked on the server before every job, so a typo or a runaway script cannot drain the balance.
- Your files stay yours
- Outputs download the moment they finish, because provider links expire. The gallery keeps the model, settings and cost for each one.
- A tour, not a manual
- An 8 step guided tour on first launch and a 90 second how-to video. Setup asks for a password and a key, then you can generate.
Results
A studio tool released for everyone: the same models the paid platforms resell, on your own machine, at the price the model costs.
Motion
The 90 second how-to: the built-in tour, a shot built from character, style and voice references, and an image.
Recorded in the app itself. The same video ships in the GitHub README.