Verdict
Ship a 'social clip captioner + trimmer,' not CapCut. For real editing depth, point people at dedicated tools and keep scope ruthless.
What you can rebuild
A limited web editor: upload clip, trim, timeline with 1-2 tracks, auto captions via speech-to-text, export. Template presets for talking-head social clips.
What stays hard
Native performance, effects marketplace, mobile offline editing, and CapCut's template ecosystem. Full NLE parity is not a vibe-code weekend.
Starter prompt
Build a CapCut-inspired web MVP called Clipdraft for short social videos. Upload a video, trim start/end, add text overlays, generate captions from audio (Whisper or browser STT), burn captions onto a preview, and export. Simple timeline with one video track and one caption track. Stack: Next.js, Tailwind, ffmpeg.wasm or server ffmpeg. Focus on Reels/TikTok vertical canvas.
Follow-up prompt
Add: 5 caption style presets, stock music bed, aspect ratio switch (9:16 / 1:1 / 16:9), and project save/reload. Do not attempt multi-cam or advanced color grading.
Build it with these tools
Browse more in AI app builders.
Reference product: www.capcut.com. We are not affiliated. Prompts build inspired MVPs, not trademarked clones for commercial misuse.