Edit Square vs Jitter. Which browser motion tool should you choose?

TL;DR

Edit Square is the stronger choice for video you make again and again. You design in real time in your browser, turn any project into a template your whole team can fill in, and render videos at scale through our API.

Jitter is a great fit for product and interface designers who want to animate their Figma designs and export them as video, GIF or Lottie.

Overview

What is each tool built for?

Edit Square is one platform to create, template and automate animated video. You design and animate on a GPU-powered canvas where everything plays back live. When you’re happy, you turn the project into a template, and your team or your own systems make every version after that.

Jitter is a motion design tool that also runs in your browser. It’s built around a canvas of artboards, which makes it a natural next step for designers coming from Figma.

Side by side

Edit Square vs Jitter: feature by feature

Let’s put the two side by side and pick a winner for each row.

Feature	Edit Square	Jitter	Winner
Where it runs	In your browser	In your browser	Tie
Animation	Keyframes, easing, motion presets and text animation	Keyframes, easing, presets and text animation	Tie
Expressions	Yes. Loops, wiggles, maths and linked properties	Not available	Edit Square
Templates for your team	Any project becomes a form with a live preview	Team members edit the file in the editor	Edit Square
Render API	Built in, with webhooks	Not available	Edit Square
Cloud rendering	Included on Premium	Not available	Edit Square
Versions from a spreadsheet	Through the API	Yes, built in to the editor	Jitter
Figma import	Not available	Yes	Jitter
Live collaboration	Not available	Yes, edit together in real time	Jitter
Export formats	MP4 video	Video, GIF and Lottie, with transparency	Jitter
Free tier	Free forever, watermarked 720p exports	Free plan, watermarked 720p exports	Tie

Create

How does the editing experience compare?

Edit Square is built on the GPU, so everything happens in real time. You scrub, play and edit with instant feedback. There are no previews to render and no waiting when you change a value.

Animations live on the timeline as chips you can move and trim, so you can build a title in seconds by stacking a few motion presets. When you want finer control, keyframes are one click away.

• Expressions. Link properties together and drive them with a line of code. Loops, wiggles and maths, no keyframes needed.
• 2D camera. Pan, zoom and glide across your whole scene without moving a single layer.
• Text animations. Full control over characters, words and lines, powered by a real text engine.
• Effects. Blur, glow, distort and more, all running on the GPU.

Jitter is a polished editor too, and it’s especially good if your designs start life in Figma. You can bring your frames across and animate them without redrawing anything.

Template

Which tool handles templates better?

Edit Square wins this category outright. You can turn any project into a template in three steps.

1. Create your variables. Link one or more properties to a variable. One colour can drive two layers, one text field can drive the headline.
2. Build your form. Choose which variables become fields. The form is all your team ever needs to see.
3. Anyone can render. Your team picks a template, fills in the form and watches the preview update as they type.

Forms open in a browser and work on a phone too, so you can send one to somebody who’s never opened a video editor.

In Jitter, your team makes a new version by opening the file and editing it. That’s fine for designers, but it means everyone needs to be comfortable in the editor.

Automate

Does Edit Square have an API? How does Jitter compare?

Edit Square has a render API built in. You send the fields, we send back an MP4. It’s one request from your app, CRM or workflow tool, and our cloud servers handle the rendering.

Here’s the data you’d send to our API. You name the template and pass through the values that change.

{
  "name": "Welcome - John Smith",
  "project_id": "proj_jd71dcg41pjy7rax1v2h4pvcmd7gtar9",
  "template_id": "tpl_8f2c1d4e6a7b9c0d1e2f3a4b5c6d7e8f",
  "values": { "customer_name": "John Smith" }
}

And that’s it! To track when your render is completed, you can set up a webhook and we’ll notify you of any changes. Take a look at our API docs for the full details.

Jitter doesn’t have a render API. It does let you create versions in bulk from a spreadsheet inside the editor, which is handy for a one-off campaign. For videos that are triggered by your own systems, you’ll need an API.

Pricing

What are the pricing differences?

Edit Square is free to use for as long as you like. You get the full editor in your browser with no sign-up, and you only pay when you want clean exports, cloud storage or automation.

	Edit Square	Jitter
Free	Full editor, free forever. 720p exports with a watermark	Free plan with watermarked 720p exports and a limited number of files
One person	$25 a month, or $240 a year. Exports up to 4K with 5 GB of cloud storage	Paid plans for each editor, with 4K on the higher tiers
Teams and automation	$60 a seat each month, or $600 a year. Template forms, the render API and 12.5 minutes of cloud rendering a month	Team plans for each editor. No API

Take a look at our pricing for the full details.

Note: exporting from the editor is free and unlimited on every plan. You only use cloud render credits for renders that run on our servers.

Beyond video

What about Figma and Lottie?

Edit Square is focused on video. If you’d like to import your Figma frames, or you need Lottie files to ship inside an app or website, Jitter is the tool for that job.

Plenty of teams could use both. Keep Jitter for animating your product designs, and use Edit Square for the videos you make on repeat.

Decide

Which tool is right for you?

Switching

Looking for a Jitter alternative?

If you’ve been using Jitter and find yourself remaking the same video by hand, being asked for versions by your team, or wishing you could trigger a render from your own systems, Edit Square solves all three.

• Remaking the same video? Turn it into a template and fill in a form.
• Your team keeps asking for versions? Send them the form and they can make their own.
• Need to render from your own systems? Call our API.

Our verdict

Edit Square is the more practical choice for video at scale

For marketing teams, agencies and developers who need to publish branded video consistently, Edit Square is the more practical choice. You’ll design in real time, your team can make their own versions and your systems can render videos without anybody lifting a finger.

Jitter is still a great tool for animating interface and product designs. If that’s most of what you do, stay where you are.

If you’re on the fence, open the editor and put your most common video through it. It’s free, there’s no sign-up and you’ll know within the first project whether it fits how you work.