FFmpeg
Prebuilt static FFmpeg binaries for Windows and Linux, rebuilt daily from source.BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds
- Stars
- 11.9k
- Forks
- 1.6k
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- Shell
- Last update
- 5 days ago
- Type
- Other
What it is
This project publishes ready-to-run builds of FFmpeg, a widely used tool for converting, editing, and streaming audio and video. Instead of compiling FFmpeg and its many dependencies yourself, you download a prebuilt archive for Windows or Linux. The builds are generated automatically by scripts in the repository, which the README says run daily.
- Convert a video file to another format using the ffmpeg binary from the archive
- Build a custom FFmpeg with extra libraries by running the repository's build scripts
- Use the shared-library variants to link FFmpeg libraries into your own program
- Pin to a specific release branch such as 7.1 instead of master
Great for
- People who need FFmpeg on Windows or Linux without building it from source
- Developers who want a recent FFmpeg master build or a specific release branch
- Users who want a single portable binary with few system dependencies
Not ideal for
- macOS users, since the README only covers Windows and Linux builds (reason: no macOS target is listed)
- Anyone needing 32-bit Windows builds from this project, since there are no automatic win32 builds (reason: the README says you must build them yourself)
- Users who need guaranteed support on Windows 7 or older Windows versions (reason: the README gives no guarantees below Windows 10 22H2)
How to get it
- 1
Download the app
Clone the repository to build locally
git clone https://github.com/BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds - 2
Run it
- Download the archive matching your OS and variant from the Releases page, such as ffmpeg-master-latest-linux64-gpl.tar.xz
- Extract the archive
- Run the ffmpeg binary from the extracted folder to confirm it works
- Optionally verify the download against checksums.sha256
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Choose the -shared variant if you need the libav* libraries for development, and the static variant for a single executable
- Pick the lgpl variant if you want to avoid GPL-only libraries such as libx264 and libx265
- Use a release branch addin such as 7.1 if you need stability over master
- Use the 'latest' URLs in scripts so you always get the newest daily build
Downloads
Strengths
- Automatically rebuilt on a daily schedule, with a stable 'latest' download URL
- Multiple variants (gpl, lgpl, nonfree, shared or static) cover different licensing and linking needs
- Includes checksums file for verifying downloads
Trade-offs
- Windows builds require UCRT to be installed, and the README gives no guarantees for older systems
- The lto addin is marked as highly experimental and broken on Windows
- Building your own copies requires bash and Docker, which adds setup work
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.