Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#1

Post by wassimgr » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 6:22 AM UTC

Descript costs $24/mo, so I built this over a single weekend with Fable!

Introducing Rescript: edit videos by simply editing the transcript text. Drop in a video and it is transcribed locally with per-word timestamps and speaker labels. Delete words in the transcript and the corresponding clip is cut from the video.

Runs fully in the browser: Local, free, offline and open source.

→ Github https://github.com/wassgha/rescript

→ App https://wassgha.github.io/rescript

Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend
github.com

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#2

Post by jadamczyk » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

The name has a collision with a programming language related to ocaml - ReScript, which evolved from ReasonML

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#3

Post by ZiiS » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

Whilst I love opensource; hitting with $24/mo saving when you invest 100x that much in your time is probably not the way to sell it.

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#4

Post by ray_v » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:01 PM UTC

ZiiS wrote: post #3

Whilst I love opensource; hitting with $24/mo saving when you invest 100x that much in your time is probably not the way to sell it.

Where it pays off is not when you reach parity with the built product compared to the vendored product - it's when you can continue to extend or customize the capabilities when the original vendor can not or will not support the features you can now build

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#5

Post by swaminarayan » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

How does this perform on longer videos, especially on lower-end machines? Is the transcription and video processing entirely local in the browser?

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#6

Post by zaydmulani » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:25 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#7

Post by ezekg » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:26 PM UTC

ray_v wrote: post #4

ZiiS wrote: post #3

Whilst I love opensource; hitting with $24/mo saving when you invest 100x that much in your time is probably not the way to sell it.

Where it pays off is not when you reach parity with the built product compared to the vendored product - it's when you can continue to extend or customize the capabilities when the original vendor can not or will not support the features you can now build

I promise you something like this will never monetarily "pay off."

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#8

Post by pajamasam » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:27 PM UTC

ZiiS wrote: post #3

Whilst I love opensource; hitting with $24/mo saving when you invest 100x that much in your time is probably not the way to sell it.

From the commits, it looks like it only took OP about 4 hours with Cursor.

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#9

Post by zeandcode » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 3:17 PM UTC

Interesting, i have the same goal except it's for daily productivity tool github.com/slaveofcode/goodwebtools

Re: Show HN: Descript wanted $24/mo, I built an open-source alternative in a weekend

#10

Post by saulpw » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

I hate Descript, not because of the cost but because of their dark patterns. (I learned recently that their CEO is the former CEO of Groupon, which explains a lot.) So I'd love something like this. But I need to edit an audio-only podcast. Is there a reason that it only accepts video files?