Question 1

What is Kiwi-Edit?

Accepted Answer

Kiwi-Edit is an open-source video editing framework from Show Lab. It pairs a multimodal large language model (MLLM) encoder, which reads your instruction, with a video diffusion transformer (DiT) that regenerates the clip. You describe the change in plain language and the model applies it across the whole video.

Question 2

What makes it different from other AI video editors?

Accepted Answer

Two things. First, it handles instruction editing and reference-guided editing in one model — most tools do only one. Second, it is fully open: code, weights, training scripts and benchmarks are all published, so you can inspect or fine-tune it rather than calling a closed API.

Question 3

Do I need a GPU to try it?

Accepted Answer

No. The Hugging Face Space embedded on this page runs on hosted hardware, so you can upload a clip and run an edit from the browser. A local install is what needs a GPU — the reference setup is Python 3.10 with CUDA 12.8 and PyTorch 2.7.

Question 4

What is a reference image used for?

Accepted Answer

It tells the model what something should look like, which is hard to pin down in words. Upload a photo of a specific person, product or location, and Kiwi-Edit puts that exact subject or background into your video instead of inventing its own interpretation.

Question 5

How long can the input video be?

Accepted Answer

The demo processes up to 81 frames per run — a few seconds of footage. That limit comes from the Wan2.2-TI2V-5B backbone the model is built on. For longer footage, split it into segments and edit each one.

Question 6

What makes a good edit prompt?

Accepted Answer

Say what should change and what should stay the same. "Replace the dog with a white cat, keep the camera movement and background unchanged" works far better than "make it a cat". The demo's Prompt Tips panel groups worked examples by edit type.

Question 7

Which checkpoint should I use?

Accepted Answer

kiwi-edit-5b-instruct-reference-diffusers is the general-purpose one and powers the demo. The instruct-only and reference-only checkpoints are specialists, useful if your workload is entirely one kind of edit or you are running comparisons.

Question 8

Is Kiwi-Edit free to use commercially?

Accepted Answer

The code and weights are published openly, but licence terms live in the GitHub repository and the individual Hugging Face model cards. Check those directly before any commercial use — and note Kiwi-Edit builds on Wan2.2 and Qwen2.5-VL, whose licences also apply.

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