# Adobe After Effects

14 Hacker News commenters recommended Adobe After Effects and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as an industry-standard tool for motion graphics and animation with no good alternative yet; the most common caveat is that it is complicated and hard to learn.

## Why people recommend it

- Amazing animation and compositing power (3 comments): "which is still around and took full advantage of animating Photoshop and Illustrator files" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49406443)) "Adobe After Effects, which was absolutely amazing, but Resolve uses a node-based VFX chain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47822636)) "Adobe really could do some amazing stuff with Premiere and After Effects." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48389207))
- No viable alternative exists yet (3 comments): "theres just nothing as good as either" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012686)) "After Effects is quite hated among them, but has to be used, because there aren't viable alternatives." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46202899)) "There isn't really a good alternative for After Effects, despite its flaws." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47829773))
- Industry standard, very good software (2 comments): "Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much industry standards." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46602152)) "Still, After Effect, Illustrator, Indesign are very good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825769))

## What people warn about

- Complicated and hard to learn (6 comments): "But I would never have the patience to do that in After Effects." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50113416)) "much more complicated than using AE to design that" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47485960)) "it's not easy as After Effects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47763405))
- Layer model worse than node-based (2 comments): "Adobe After Effects, which was absolutely amazing, but Resolve uses a node-based VFX chain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47822636)) "It's almost like nodes are a better technique than layers for this sort of work, and AE was wrong all along" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47823954))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Apple Motion](https://hackerapproved.com/p/motion.md): 17 recommend
- [CorridorKey 2.0](https://hackerapproved.com/p/corridorkey-2-0.md): 17 recommend
- [ntsc-rs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ntsc-rs.md): 14 recommend
- [Nuke](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nuke.md): 6 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects.html)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Adobe After Effects", https://hackerapproved.com/p/adobe-after-effects/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).