Products · Product
FFmpeg
Raised as a usability problem by 79 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 70 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Command-line interface takes weeks to learnUnreviewed
20122026- Too error-prone and complicated, with an unfriendly command-line interface for beginners2026-01-02
- Command-line tool's manual is huge, so basic tasks require reading a lot2025-12-27
- Command-line tools lack good UX; learning exact commands without seeing them in context is hard2025-10-21
Command syntax is harder to use than natural languageUnreviewed
20122026- Non-obvious command syntax makes it hard for newcomers to extract a file2025-08-22
- Command-line syntax is hard to use compared with natural language2024-04-05
- Command syntax is so complex that users must google everything to do anything2022-06-11
Command syntax is hard to read, especially complex filter chainsUnreviewed
20122026- Powerful filters are confusing to use and not elegant2026-08-04
- Command syntax is hard to read and deduce, especially complex filter chains2026-03-20
- Complex filter chains are cumbersome and error messages are misleading when a typo breaks the chain2026-03-17
Order-dependent options are hard to reason aboutUnreviewed
20122026- Order-dependent CLI options are hard to reason about; the user hates command lines2025-01-14
- Option order matters and it is easy to mess up commands2024-09-30
- CLI options aren't intuitive, hard to remember or guess2024-02-03
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Powerful filters are confusing to use and not elegant2026-08-04
- Presets are so confusing that the user's wife can't tell which to pick2026-06-19
- Famously complex developer experience with many confusing knobs2026-06-16
- Presets confusing for non-expert users, who can't tell which to choose2026-05-13
- Presets are confusing; wife asks which to use and finds it very confusing2026-04-28
- Presets are so confusing that the author's wife keeps asking which to use2026-04-19
- Presets are confusing for non-technical users to choose from2026-04-14
- Presets are confusing; user doesn't know which preset to pick2026-04-02
- Command syntax is hard to read and deduce, especially complex filter chains2026-03-20
- Complex filter chains are cumbersome and error messages are misleading when a typo breaks the chain2026-03-17
- Too error-prone and complicated, with an unfriendly command-line interface for beginners2026-01-02
- Must leave the terminal to read poorly searchable man pages to use it2025-12-27
- Can't remember inconsistent option syntax, so has to look up flags repeatedly2025-12-27
- Default reencoding and single-stream selection make it easy to lose quality or drop streams2025-12-27
- Command-line tool's manual is huge, so basic tasks require reading a lot2025-12-27
- Ffmpeg is extremely confusing, so even LLMs get confused using it2025-12-27
- Video codec options are numerous and opaque, hard to figure out2025-12-25
- Infrequent use means users forget the syntax and must relearn it each time2025-11-04
- Command-line tools lack good UX; learning exact commands without seeing them in context is hard2025-10-21
- Users must guess flags like -i; can't just drag a video onto it2025-10-01
- Non-obvious command syntax makes it hard for newcomers to extract a file2025-08-22
- Too many flags needed; couldn't get trimmed video to work in Quick Look or iMessage2025-08-19
- Cryptic shorthand switches and unclear error messages make it hard to learn or diagnose2025-07-23
- Ten entangled parameters make it hard to build a mental model and adjust trimming2025-06-25
- Virtually zero documentation, fragile old C code, hard to build on2025-06-09
- Ffmpeg CLI feels tedious to use for converting many files2025-02-24
- Examples are outdated, don't compile, and lack explanatory comments2025-02-23
- Docs were unusable, leaving the author to find help in an IRC channel2025-02-23
- Shrinking and cropping recordings needed a tutorial and trial-and-error through many options2025-01-19
- Huge number of options, arcane settings, poor defaults and confusing errors make it hard to use2025-01-18
- Must know source file layout and add workaround flags to avoid unwanted forced/default subtitle behaviour2025-01-15
- Upvote-looking element is just a bullet decoration, misleading users2025-01-15
- Hard to get a working command; output colors come out wrong unless user learns colorspaces2025-01-15
- Order-dependent CLI options are hard to reason about; the user hates command lines2025-01-14
- Its syntax is unintuitive and hard to remember for occasional users2025-01-14
- Option order matters and it is easy to mess up commands2024-09-30
- Needs constant lookup of ffmpeg invocations, making it nearly unusable without help2024-08-28
- Charts and code blocks overflow and get clipped on mobile screens2024-06-02
- Command-line syntax is hard to use compared with natural language2024-04-05
- Command-line tool is hard to discover and use without a GUI or wizard2024-04-05
- Getting a conversion done is clunky and slow, unlike drag-and-drop with checkboxes2024-04-05
- Complex CLI is hard to discover and learn, with no integrated documentation2024-04-05
- Ffmpeg is basically unusable without Stack Overflow to figure out commands2024-02-28
- CLI options aren't intuitive, hard to remember or guess2024-02-03
- Command-line-only operation keeps some people from using FFmpeg2023-11-06
- Took a week to find examples, and needed deep encoding knowledge to get anything working2023-08-01
- Poor contrast, hard-to-read font, and inconsistent back button placement2023-06-15
- Encoder settings are so hard to tune that a week of testing yielded nothing usable2023-04-18
- Developers must support both APIs with different quirks, which confuses them2023-04-16
- Documentation, API and command-line experience are poor, making it hard to learn2023-02-28