After Effects free
Is After Effects free? No, but an After Effects-style editor is
After Effects is not free. Adobe offers a short free trial, and after that it is a Creative Cloud subscription. There is no free edition, and a "free download" of the full app from anywhere other than Adobe is an unlicensed copy. If what you want is the After Effects way of working without the subscription, Premation is a free, open-source desktop editor built on the same model: compositions, layers, keyframes, a graph editor, track mattes, 2.5D cameras and After Effects' shortcuts. It opens .aep projects too.
The honest options
Adobe's free trial
Adobe offers a short free trial of After Effects through Creative Cloud. It is the full application, and it is the only legal way to run After Effects without paying. When it ends, continuing means a subscription; current prices and trial terms are on Adobe's site.
Cracked copies and "free download" sites
A free copy of After Effects from a torrent, a repack or a download site is unlicensed, and installers like these are a common way malware reaches a machine. There is also no After Effects for Android, so an "After Effects APK" is not from Adobe. If the price is the problem, a free editor is the safer route.
Premation: free, and works the same way
The same layer-and-timeline model and the same names: pre-comps, track mattes, nulls, adjustment layers, hold keyframes, time remapping. The default keymap follows After Effects, so V, G, Q, U, F9 and Shift+F3 do what you expect, and tutorials written for After Effects mostly apply.
Your After Effects projects open
File ▸ Open After Effects Project... reads .aep and .aepx and converts them into a Premation project: compositions, layers and parenting, transforms with their keyframes and easing, masks, text, and effects matched by name. An import report lists anything that did not come across. It is a conversion, not a round trip.
Free means the whole editor
Every tool, unlimited local projects, and every export format with no watermark: MP4, WebM and ProRes 4444 with alpha, HDR10 and HLG, GIF, image sequences and Lottie. The only paid part is Premation Cloud, for hosting and Premation's own plugins.
Where After Effects is still ahead
Effect breadth (275 built in, against 400-plus once third parties are counted), plugins (After Effects plugins do not load, and there is no scripting language), tracking and rotoscoping on difficult footage, thirty years of ecosystem, and maturity: Premation reached 1.0 in October 2026. Shape-layer contents in an .aep do not convert yet.
Questions
- Is After Effects free?
- No. After Effects is paid Adobe software. Adobe offers a short free trial, and after it ends you need a Creative Cloud subscription to keep using it.
- Is there a free trial of After Effects?
- Yes, Adobe offers a short free trial of the full application through Creative Cloud. Adobe sets the length and terms, so check its site before you start one, especially if a payment method is asked for up front.
- How much does After Effects cost?
- It is sold as a Creative Cloud subscription, on its own or as part of a larger Adobe plan. Prices vary by plan and region and change over time, so the current figure is on Adobe's site.
- Is there a free version of After Effects for students?
- Not a free version. Adobe offers education pricing on Creative Cloud for eligible students and teachers, and some schools provide access through their own licences. Premation is free for everyone, students included, with no eligibility check.
- Is there a free After Effects for Android or mobile?
- No. Adobe does not make After Effects for Android or iPhone, so an "After Effects APK" is not an Adobe app. Premation is desktop-only as well: Windows, macOS and Linux.
- Is Premation really free?
- Yes. The free plan is the whole editor, forever: every tool, unlimited local projects, every export format with no watermark, and 5 cloud projects with 7 days of version history. Premation Cloud, $9 a month or $90 a year, adds unlimited cloud projects, 90 days of history and Premation's own plugins. Over 5 cloud projects the extra ones turn read-only, never deleted, and export always works.