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Open Source Free

CogVideoX

THUDM/Zhipu open text and image to video (2B/5B).

#Free#Open source
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About

CogVideoX is an open-source, self-hostable short-drama pipeline. THUDM/Zhipu open text and image to video (2B/5B).

Our take — CogVideoX for short drama

CogVideoX is Zhipu/THUDM's open video line — 2B and 5B models plus the CogVideoX1.5 refresh — and its enduring virtue is the entry price: the README cites diffusers memory floors as low as 4.4GB (2B, INT8) and about 10GB for 1.5-5B. Our read for short drama: a sensible sandbox for prototyping shot generation on modest GPUs before committing to heavier Wan or HunyuanVideo deployments.

Know what you are buying, though. The base 5B outputs 720x480 at 8 fps per the README — well below vertical-drama delivery specs — and prompts are English-only. Licensing splits: 2B is Apache 2.0 while 5B models sit under a custom CogVideoX license. The last major activity we saw dates to March 2025 (the CogKit announcement), so treat it as a stable previous-generation baseline rather than a frontier pick.

Best for

Prototyping shot generation on modest GPUs before committing to heavier open video models.

Watch out

Base 5B outputs 720x480 at 8fps, prompts are English-only, and the 5B license is custom, not Apache.

  • 2B runs from 4.4GB VRAM, per README
  • T2V, I2V and video continuation
  • Diffusers integration plus ComfyUI wrapper
  • CogVideoX1.5-5B outputs 1360x768

Written by the DramaSo Tools editorial team, 2026-07 — an editorial read of the official site, not a hands-on score.

Popularity & traffic

GitHub stars ★ 12.9k zai-org/CogVideo
Last commit 2025-11-04 repository activity

Stars and commit dates come from the public GitHub API, updated 2026-07-07.

CategoryOpen Source
PricingFree
Vertical 9:16—
Websitegithub.com

How short-drama creators use it

Technical teams self-host these to control cost and customize the script-to-video pipeline end to end.

FAQ

What is CogVideoX?

CogVideoX is an open-source, self-hostable short-drama pipeline. THUDM/Zhipu open text and image to video (2B/5B).

Is CogVideoX free?

Yes, CogVideoX is free to use.

Does CogVideoX support vertical 9:16?

CogVideoX isn't vertical-first; check its site to confirm 9:16 support.

What are the alternatives to CogVideoX?

Alternatives include MoneyPrinterTurbo, ComfyUI, ShortGPT, AI Shorts Generator.

Alternatives to CogVideoX

11 more open source tools

MoneyPrinterTurbo Topic to a finished vertical short: script, TTS, subtitles and stock footage. ComfyUI Node-based pipeline backbone for running open video models in custom workflows. ShortGPT Framework automating shorts end-to-end with 30+ language voiceover and captions. AI Shorts Generator Long to 9:16 shorts via LLM highlight detection, Whisper and auto vertical crop. Wan 2.1 Alibaba's open-weights text/image-to-video; runs the 1.3B model on ~8GB VRAM. HunyuanVideo Tencent's 13B+ open text-to-video with explicit 9:16 support.

Visiting opens the tool's official site (with a referral tag).

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