How to Get Adobe After Effects for Free (2025 Version)

Are you wondering how to get After Effects for free without using unlicensed software? Do you want to get access to all the available tools without paying $23 per month for a subscription?

Below, you will find out all you need to know about the secret dangers of cracked/torrent versions, an overview of the best alternatives to After Effects, and an opportunity to download free LUTs.

Adobe After Effects is the go-to solution for creating and compositing animations, as well producing motion graphics and a wide variety of visual effects. It provides endless customization freedom and convenient integration with other post-production software.

Benefits of After Effects Free:

• Adobe software integration
• Large library of downloadable plugins
• Advanced audio and video processing
• VR support
• Frequent updates

Now many users are interested in its latest 2025 upgrades that improved many of the existing features and added new ones, which should be to the taste of any creative professional. The main three additions serve to enable you to blend 3D assets seamlessly and realistically into real-world environments.

1. Embedded 3D Animations: After Effects is now compatible with embedded 3D animations that come from imported 3D assets. You can create dynamic scenes using characters and objects designed in third-party animation software.
2. Ultra-Realistic Shadows and Color Shadows: After Effects added shadow catchers, meaning 3D assets now have realistic interactions with environments in different videos.
3. Depth Mapping for 3D Models: Depth maps are crucial for compositing 3D assets into live-action videos. Extract depth maps from Advanced 3D environments by simply pre-composing them.

Additionally, the beta version of After Effects comes with caching and playback optimizations that allow you to preview longer sections of your comp, while the enhanced HDR support enables motion designers to evaluate their high dynamic range creations with better accuracy.

Since After Effects isn’t particularly cheap, particularly for beginners, many of them are looking for ways to learn how to get After Effects for free on PC or Mac. The first thing you can do is use the free trial, which should be sufficient for handling most basic tasks. I decided to compare the free functionality with the feature set offered by the paid subscription.

• How much does the full version of After Effects cost?

In case you want to buy After Effects, keep in mind that you will have to pay for a subscription.

In addition to the software itself, the subscription includes 100GB of cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark with premium features.

It includes a collection of 20+ creative desktop and mobile apps including Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, and After Effects, as well as 100GB of cloud storage, Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark with premium features.

• What will happen after the end of the trial period?

When your Adobe After Effects free trial period ends, the software will simply stop running, and you will have to subscribe. Adobe will not debit the funds on its own since you did not enter your credit card info.

• Is After Effects an improved version of Adobe Premiere Pro?

I’ve heard this misconception very often. That’s not strange considering both applications were made for video post-production. Moreover, their design and some features are very similar.

Premiere Pro is designed for video editing and has many convenient features for this purpose. At the same time, After Effects is a free VFX software suitable for creating motion graphics, visual effects, etc. The best choice is to use these solutions together.

You have already learned how to get Adobe After Effects for free. Now let’s discuss why it’s so important to download a legal version.

It’s not surprising that with such a price and capabilities, sooner or later, hackers will post a cracked version of the software.

Why do many users prefer to choose a license and pay for it each month rather than download Adobe After Effects free of charge from an illegal website?

Technical support. You can count on the support provided by professionals from Adobe’s technical team any time of the day.

Hackers and virus protection. By downloading software from the official site, you get a 100% clean and verified product. You can rest assured it doesn’t contain any viruses that might damage your computer. For users who chose an Adobe After Effects illegal download, the threat of suffering from viruses or malware increases dramatically.

When installing an Adobe After Effects crack, you never know who and for what purpose hacked it and what changes were made to the code. Different types of malware (for example, viruses, and trojans) can be secretly integrated into a pirated program.

Speed. You don’t have to worry about your PC’s performance, which can be an issue when using pirated copies. Licensed software doesn’t slow down your computer. The speed of pirated versions is often reduced due to a variety of factors.

Sometimes, cracked applications come with additional built-in software that is installed without the user’s agreement. As a result, it uses system resources slowing down its operation.

Reliability. You are much less likely to lose data if the program crashes. With a subscription, you can work without worries. Meanwhile, a pirated version of After Effects can crash at any moment.

Sometimes it can produce an error, which you won’t be able to fix since there is no technical support. If stability and reliability are important to you, stick to using legal software copies.

No risks. By using an illegal After Effects free download, you’re violating copyright. As a result, you can be subjected to criminal, administrative, and civil liability, especially if you’re connected to an organization that uses such software on many computers.

Law enforcement inspections usually involve seizing the computers, which leads to a complete halt or severe complications at work. The organization's activities can be paralyzed and the obligations it has towards its customers and partners cannot be carried out.

This can significantly impact the reputation of such a company. Pirated software can lead to severe losses, which is why I don’t recommend using AE for free.

Natron is an open-source video editor. Even if users don’t have any experience, they can edit video footage at a fairly professional level.

Natron allows you to work with many types of files and formats. Should the need arise, you can easily extend the functionality of this video editor with Open FX plugins.

The standard set of features should be enough for performing most common tasks. Among its other advantages, the software allows you to work with high-resolution videos (2K and 4K).

Hollywood studios have been creating over a thousand world-famous blockbusters with the help of this software for more than 30 years since its release.

This After Effects alternative offers a powerful set of tools with a user-friendly interface. In addition, it provides support for three-dimensional environments and virtual reality, a network rendering option on any number of computers, and GPU acceleration.

In Fusion Studio, post-processing is performed using a node-based system. As such, you can handle compositing, keying, vector drawing and animating in a real 3D space, as well as change the playback speed, set the tracking and image stabilization.

The developers created this software to help users with different levels of experience create movies using intuitive features and high-quality effects.

Filmora lets you enhance your content in a few clicks, so there is no need to worry about convoluted user interfaces that can be found in such programs as After Effects or Premiere Pro.

This software supports videos in different formats and has a collection of vibrant effects. You can easily overlay sound on top videos, combine photos to create collages, crop and merge videos, add captions, optimize the visuals of your footage, and perform other tasks.

After completing your project, you can quickly upload your videos to YouTube or burn them on DVDs.

This open-source software is completely free. You can use it to handle a large variety of video editing tasks. Blender allows users to add visual effects, create interactive 3D applications and animated graphics, as well as design video game assets.

Additionally, I would like to mention that this software supports UV unwrapping, 3D modeling, texturing, effects simulation, animating, video editing, and compositing.

The installation file doesn’t take up a lot of space and includes the video editor with the main features and a basic set of models, textures, and event handlers. You can further extend its functionality by adding official plugins released by the developers and add-ons built by users.

This collection of free LUTs can be used even by beginners. If you’ve already installed After Effects for free, you can use this bundle to give your videos a professional feel. These effects will help you make the colors richer, add soft highlights to the foreground, and remove harsh shadows.

The files in this bundle are in .cube format. You can download them and use them in After Effects CC and other similar video editing software for Windows and Mac.

I, along with my coworkers from the FixThePhoto team, decided to thoroughly review the free Adobe After Effects edition to see how it fares compared to getting a paid subscription.

This free Adobe software provides a 7-day trial that allows you to leverage most available features like you would in the paid edition, but with one caveat: any saved project will have a watermark, which makes it very inconvenient for professional use.

For our test, we checked out both standard, user-friendly tools and more advanced features like 3D rendering, motion tracking, etc.

It was also important for me to figure out if you can use AI-based tools in the free version and what kind of restrictions they have. That’s why we tested the following options:

• Content-Aware Fill: This AI feature enabled us to get rid of unwanted elements seamlessly when editing our videos.
• Roto Brush 2: It allowed us to isolate subjects for VFX in just a few clicks.
• Auto Keyframing: Artificial intelligence cut down the time spent on the project by generating smooth transitions.

The provided AI features delivered great results even when handling difficult tasks like isolating fine edges (e.g., hair), and the processing speed is also satisfying, even on a midrange PC. When using the free trial version, you can leverage the AI tools as many times as you want without any restrictions.

However, you should remember that you’re limited by the 7-day trail period, unless you decide to get a subscription. Additionally, all saved videos will have a watermark, which is why the trial verion is great for testing the software, but not handling important final projects.