Adobe After Effects
Shares rank 3 of 8 animation software by recommenders
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.
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.
26 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 54%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Amazing animation and compositing power
“which is still around and took full advantage of animating Photoshop and Illustrator files”
Comment from 23 Aug 2026 in “What's in a PowerPoint File?” “Adobe After Effects, which was absolutely amazing, but Resolve uses a node-based VFX chain”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “State of Kdenlive” “Adobe really could do some amazing stuff with Premiere and After Effects.”
Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “DaVinci Resolve 21” No viable alternative exists yet
“theres just nothing as good as either”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Show HN: Free open source Adobe Lightroom alternative, completely local with AI” “After Effects is quite hated among them, but has to be used, because there aren't viable alternatives.”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?” “There isn't really a good alternative for After Effects, despite its flaws.”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe” Industry standard, very good software
“Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much industry standards.”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Apple Creator Studio” “Still, After Effect, Illustrator, Indesign are very good.”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Complicated and hard to learn
“But I would never have the patience to do that in After Effects.”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “Any window from your Mac, on your iPhone and iPad” “much more complicated than using AE to design that”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Professional video editing, right in the browser with WebGPU and WASM” “it's not easy as After Effects”
Comment from 14 Apr 2026 in “DaVinci Resolve releases Photo Editor” - Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Macromedia Flash, from an Animator's Standpoint”
- Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Adobe Won't Discontinue Animate”
- Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Tixl: Open-source realtime motion graphics”
Layer model worse than node-based
“Adobe After Effects, which was absolutely amazing, but Resolve uses a node-based VFX chain”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “State of Kdenlive” “It's almost like nodes are a better technique than layers for this sort of work, and AE was wrong all along”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “State of Kdenlive”
Other animation software people recommend
The four most recommended other animation software, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Motion | 17 | 1 | 94% | 7 | — | Approved |
| CorridorKey 2.0 | 17 | 5 | 77% | 2 | — | — |
| Adobe After EffectsThis page | 14 | 12 | 54% | 10 | — | — |
| ntsc-rs | 14 | 1 | 93% | 2 | — | — |
| Adobe Animate | 9 | 23 | 28% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
22 of the 27 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“But I would never have the patience to do that in After Effects.”
“theres just nothing as good as either”
“After Effects still has some features that keep me stuck with it”
“2mins (Browser) vs 20mins (AfterEffects)”
“which is still around and took full advantage of animating Photoshop and Illustrator files”
“it has even replaced the last piece of Adobe software I was using”
“Adobe really could do some amazing stuff with Premiere and After Effects.”
“Software like AfterEffects doesn't naturally emulate terminal behavior”
“There isn't really a good alternative for After Effects, despite its flaws.”
“$264/year each for Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere, InDesign”
“Still, After Effect, Illustrator, Indesign are very good.”
“It's almost like nodes are a better technique than layers for this sort of work, and AE was wrong all along”
“Adobe After Effects, which was absolutely amazing, but Resolve uses a node-based VFX chain”
“it's not easy as After Effects”
“we just need a proper replacement for After Effects on Linux and I will stop dualbooting”
“much more complicated than using AE to design that”
“After Effects is way more complex for simple sprite work.”
“Photohsop, Illustrator and After Effects are pretty much industry standards.”
“now i know how to do all that in AE but it's way more complicated”
“I've gotten so frustrated with AE the past couple years”
“blows After Effects out of the water for me”
“After Effects is quite hated among them, but has to be used, because there aren't viable alternatives.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.