vj software / mac

vj software for mac

If free is the requirement, the honest answers are Hydra and TouchDesigner. Hydra is free, open source and runs in a browser. TouchDesigner is free for non-commercial use only, which means it is not free for a paid gig — that licence is about $600. Paid, the Mac field runs from Magic Music Visuals at about $69.95 through VDMX6 at $199 to Resolume Avenue at EUR 299.

kott is on this page because it is cheap, not because it is free. Before anything else: it has no NDI, no Syphon and no virtual camera output, so it cannot feed video to another application on your Mac. It is not a mixer or a media server — no clip grid, no cue list, no timeline. And the look is narrow on purpose: dither, halftone, print, ASCII, engraving, glitch and CRT, with no 3D, no generative geometry and no procedural systems. If any of that is disqualifying, stop here; it will not fit your rig at any price.

What you get instead is a native macOS app that runs with the wifi off, the same studio in any WebGL2 browser with nothing installed, a controller over WebMIDI, your MIDI clock read off the port at 24 PPQN, and onset, downbeat, build and drop and your own EQ bands patched onto individual effect parameters. $39 until 13 September, once, for both surfaces, with no subscription.

01/ FREE

what is actually free on a mac

Free with a condition attached is not the same as free. The condition is written next to each one.

hydra — free, open source, no catch
Hydra runs in a browser, costs nothing and is open source, so there is no licence to outgrow and no commercial restriction to read. You write the visuals as code rather than turning a knob, which is a different craft and the real reason to choose it or not. Whether it takes a MIDI controller is not something kott has verified, so treat that as an open question rather than a yes or a no.
touchdesigner — free, but only for non-commercial use
TouchDesigner's free licence is for non-commercial use. That word is the whole answer: if you are paid for the gig, the free tier is not the tier you are on, and the commercial licence is about $600 with a pro tier around $2,200. It is also a node graph rather than an instrument, so the interesting part is building the patch. If that is what you want to spend your evening doing, nothing else here compares.
kott's free tier — free to play, not free to export
Every effect in kott previews free, in the browser, with no account and no install. A free set exports without paying. Everything else needs the one-time licence, so kott is not the answer to “free VJ software” and this page is not going to pretend it is. It is the answer to “cheap”, and only if the instrument is the one you want.

03/ INSTEAD

when to buy one of those instead

  • Your Mac rig routes video between applications over Syphon or NDI. Buy Resolume Avenue at EUR 299. kott has no Syphon, no NDI and no virtual camera output, so nothing in it can feed video to another application on your machine. This is the most common reason a Mac VJ cannot use kott, which is why it is first.
  • You mix clips live. Buy Resolume Avenue at EUR 299, or Arena at EUR 799. kott is one instrument with one look — no clip grid, no cue list, no timeline.
  • You want the Mac-native standard and the budget is there. Buy VDMX6 at $199, or VDMX Plus at $349. One-time, macOS only, and it is what a lot of Mac VJs already have open.
  • You would rather build the instrument than play one. Get TouchDesigner — free for non-commercial use, about $600 commercial. kott has parameters, not a node graph.
  • You want a MIDI-mappable visualiser and nothing more. Synesthesia is $199, or $399 for Pro with optional $60-a-year updates; Magic Music Visuals is about $69.95. Neither asks you to like one particular visual language, which kott very much does.
  • You want free and you would rather type than turn knobs. Use Hydra. Free, open source, in a browser.

04/ KOTT

where kott fits on a mac

a native macOS app that runs with the wifi off
The licence covers the web studio and a native macOS app together, and the app runs fully offline. That is the venue answer: the wifi in the room is not a dependency, and neither is the browser.
and the same thing in a browser, with nothing installed
The web studio needs a browser with WebGL2 and nothing else. No install, no account to look, so you can find out whether you want it from someone else's laptop at the venue.
hardware MIDI in the browser
WebMIDI, so a controller works in a tab with no driver and no host application. A nanoKONTROL2 map ships with it, and any control MIDI-learns onto any parameter.
your clock, read off the port
kott reads MIDI realtime clock — 0xF8 at 24 PPQN, with start, continue and stop — and derives BPM and quarter-note phase from it. The beat tracker has three modes: autocorrelation off the audio, a fixed BPM set by hand, or locked to that external clock. When the tempo is already decided by something else in the room, the visuals follow it instead of guessing at it.
audio patched onto any parameter
kott does not ship a set of audio-reactive effects; it ships an audio bus you patch. Spectral-flux onset, a phase-locked beat pulse, downbeat on the first beat of every bar, build and drop detection, tempo tracked from 60 to 180 BPM, bass, mid and treble, plus EQ bands you define yourself with their own window, gain and gate. Any of those signals lands on any effect parameter through a modulation node with its own gain and smoothing.
camera and mic that stay on the machine
A live camera or the room mic can be the source, and both are processed on the device with nothing uploaded. That is what makes a live camera usable in a browser tool at all.
output, including output nobody else asks for
The canvas mirrors to a second window for a projector, and REC writes it to MP4 with the audio in sync. Stills come out as PNG or as vector paths for print and plotters, which is a different job from video and the reason some people buy it.
Open the studioSee pricing

every effect free to try · one payment of $39 · web studio + macOS app

05/ FAQ

questions

What is the best free VJ software for Mac?
Hydra, if free is the hard requirement: it is free, open source, runs in a browser, and has no commercial restriction. TouchDesigner is the other free option, but its free licence is non-commercial only, so it stops being free the moment you are paid for the gig — the commercial licence is about $600. Everything else worth naming on a Mac is paid: Magic Music Visuals at about $69.95, VDMX6 at $199, Synesthesia at $199, Resolume Avenue at EUR 299.
Is TouchDesigner really free?
For non-commercial use, yes, and that is the whole of it. If you are being paid for the show you need the commercial licence, which is around $600, with a pro tier around $2,200. The free tier is genuinely usable and genuinely not a commercial licence.
Can you VJ in a browser?
Yes, on a Mac with no install. kott is a browser-based visual instrument: GPU effects in one dither, halftone, print, ASCII, engraving, glitch and CRT language, a live camera in, hardware MIDI over WebMIDI, and MIDI clock sync at 24 PPQN. Hydra is free and open source and runs in a browser for live-coded visuals. Mosh-Pro runs in the browser and on the desktop at $49 once or $24 a year. Resolume, VDMX, TouchDesigner, Synesthesia and Magic Music Visuals are all desktop installs.
What is the cheapest VJ software for Mac?
Free first: Hydra costs nothing, and TouchDesigner costs nothing if your use is non-commercial. Paid, cheapest up: Mosh-Pro at $49 once, kott at $39 once for the browser studio and the macOS app together, Magic Music Visuals at about $69.95, then VDMX6 and Synesthesia at $199 and Resolume Avenue at EUR 299. Cheap only helps if the cheap tool does the job — none of the cheap ones is a media server.
What is the best VJ software for Mac?
VDMX6 at $199 one-time, for most people asking it that way. It is macOS-native, it has been the Mac VJ workhorse for years, and it does not ask you to like one particular look. Resolume Avenue at EUR 299 is the answer instead if you mix clips or route video between applications. kott is the answer if you want one visual language played live, with your MIDI clock and your audio wired onto individual effect parameters.
Does kott have a Mac app, or is it browser only?
Both, on one licence. There is a native macOS app that runs fully offline, and the same studio runs in any browser with WebGL2. One payment covers the two of them and there is no subscription.
Does kott support Syphon or NDI on Mac?
No. There is no Syphon, no NDI and no virtual camera output, so kott cannot send video to another application on your Mac. What it has instead is a second-window mirror for a projector, fullscreen output, and REC, which writes the canvas to MP4 with the audio in sync. If your set depends on routing video between apps, buy Resolume.
Is kott free?
No, and it is worth being exact about which parts are. Every effect previews free in the browser with no account, and a free set exports without paying. Everything beyond that free set needs the one-time licence, which covers the web studio and the macOS app together. There is no subscription and no trial that expires.

06/ NEXT

the rest of the field

The comparison page carries the same tools without the Mac filter, plus Mosh-Pro at $49 once or $24 a year, with real prices and the same “buy the other one when” list applied to each.

browser vj software, compared →

Arrived here from one product in particular? There is a page per rival: VDMX alternative for the Mac-native incumbent, and Photomosh alternative for the browser glitch lineage.