Too many paid version of CorridorKey floating around.
I understand Niko has approved some people to start selling plugins and addons for CorridorKey, for integration into other software. I think it's getting out of hand.
There is no value added when it's just the source of CorridorKey further vibe coded to integrate directly with another software. You could just as easily do the same thing yourself if you need a direct integration: take the source of CorridorKey and ask whatever AI model you use to provide it.
This one specifically claims it's "more stable" because it's completely C++ based, and claims 2x-4x faster rendering times. Neither of those are true. C++ doesn't bring any more inherent stability over Python, Rust, or any other programming language. It's the quality of your code that determines stability, and frankly, poorly managed C++ memory in a video host is notorious for crashing software down to the desktop.
The "2x-4x faster rendering times" claim is complete nonsense. The actual heavy lifting in CorridorKey is neural network inference, which happens entirely on your GPU tensors, not in CPU instructions. Whether you call that inference loop through Python, C++, or anything else, the tensor pass hands off to the exact same hardware runtimes like TensorRT, ONNX Runtime, or DirectML. If you want a speed bump on the open source version, all you have to do is export the weights to an FP16 ONNX or TensorRT model using your own AI agent. Once the frame buffer is sitting in VRAM, a compiled C++ wrapper has to wait on the exact same GPU kernels as an optimized Python script. Most of the speed differences people see in these paid, commercial wrappers basically come down to basic multi-core batching, quantization, or quietly dropping resolution, not proprietary engineering breakthroughs or any significant work or effort on their part. CorridorKey already has multiple open PRs addressing multi-threading and pipeline efficiency that just haven't been merged into the main repo yet.
The same goes for features like despill or running alternate models like BiRefNet. A despill pass is just standard color math that can be handled with a basic expression or an existing native filter, and swapping backbones takes a couple of prompts to an AI coding assistant, or like 2 additional lines of code for a hot swappable option.
Niko is not a software developer by trade, and unfortunately, it seems he's been bamboozled to believe that any of these additions actually add value to CorridorKey. Most of the features of this and many of the other paid versions are already available completely for free in PRs and forks of CorridorKey, including most, if not all, of the direct integrations that people are charging for.
Please don't pay for any form of CorridorKey. They are all money grabs, taking advantage of free, open-source software, adding 30 minutes of vibe coding and calling it a product worth $100, or worse, a subscription.
I urge Niko to rethink allowing these people to charge for plugin integration or additional features. This is a community effort, and should be able to be used by anyone in the community, free of charge, regardless of what software or platform you want to use it on.
CorridorKey After Effects plugin:
iamjoshuadavies/corridorkey-ae
Native OFX plugin for Resolve, Fusion, Nuke, and a pre-release version for After Effects:
alexandremendoncaalvaro/CorridorKey-Runtime
PR's for performance optimizations:
CorridorKey#54
CorridorKey#124
along with many, many others.
60 points · 5 comments
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You would think so considering the creator constantly calls it that, but it is merely source-available. This has been repeatedly brought up along with other very questionable license decisions [0]. The charitable interpretation is that the creator is very confused about what open source is and isn't. Here's a summary: - The project is licensed under the "Corridor Key License" [1], which is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 with extra clauses that permit commercial use of you have their blessing (That's right, CC BY-NC with commercial use allowed). - CC licenses should not be used for software, and the non-commercial restrictions make this project not open source. - This project is based on Hiera, which licenses its weights under CC BY-NC 4.0 [2]. Again, non-commercial. He is selling this. - The license was changed a few times after the community rewrote large parts of this project. The contributors should've retained their copyright to their contributed code as there was no CLA or similar, but to my knowledge their code was relicensed without their consent. [0] github.com/nikopueringer/CorridorKey/issues [1] github.com/nikopueringer/CorridorKey/blob/main/LI… [2] CorridorKey#152
@thekitze If you need chroma keys but for video, check the work from the Corridor Cew It's ridiculous nikopueringer/CorridorKey
Too many paid version of CorridorKey floating around. I understand Niko has approved some people to start selling plugins and addons for CorridorKey, for integration into other software. I think it's getting out of hand. There is no value added when it's just the source of CorridorKey further vibe coded to integrate directly with another software. You could just as easily do the same thing yourself if you need a direct integration: take the source of CorridorKey and ask whatever AI model you use to provide it. This one specifically claims it's "more stable" because it's completely C++ based, and claims 2x-4x faster rendering times. Neither of those are true. C++ doesn't bring any more inherent stability over Python, Rust, or any other programming language. It's the quality of your code that determines stability, and frankly, poorly managed C++ memory in a video host is notorious for crashing software down to the desktop. The "2x-4x faster rendering times" claim is complete nonsense. The actual heavy lifting in CorridorKey is neural network inference, which happens entirely on your GPU tensors, not in CPU instructions. Whether you call that inference loop through Python, C++, or anything else, the tensor pass hands off to the exact same hardware runtimes like TensorRT, ONNX Runtime, or DirectML. If you want a speed bump on the open source version, all you have to do is export the weights to an FP16 ONNX or TensorRT model using your own AI agent. Once the frame buffer is sitting in VRAM, a compiled C++ wrapper has to wait on the exact same GPU kernels as an optimized Python script. Most of the speed differences people see in these paid, commercial wrappers basically come down to basic multi-core batching, quantization, or quietly dropping resolution, not proprietary engineering breakthroughs or any significant work or effort on their part. CorridorKey already has multiple open PRs addressing multi-threading and pipeline efficiency that just haven't been merged into the main repo yet. The same goes for features like despill or running alternate models like BiRefNet. A despill pass is just standard color math that can be handled with a basic expression or an existing native filter, and swapping backbones takes a couple of prompts to an AI coding assistant, or like 2 additional lines of code for a hot swappable option. Niko is not a software developer by trade, and unfortunately, it seems he's been bamboozled to believe that any of these additions actually add value to CorridorKey. Most of the features of this and many of the other paid versions are already available completely for free in PRs and forks of CorridorKey, including most, if not all, of the direct integrations that people are charging for. Please don't pay for any form of CorridorKey. They are all money grabs, taking advantage of free, open-source software, adding 30 minutes of vibe coding and calling it a product worth $100, or worse, a subscription. I urge Niko to rethink allowing these people to charge for plugin integration or additional features. This is a community effort, and should be able to be used by anyone in the community, free of charge, regardless of what software or platform you want to use it on. CorridorKey After Effects plugin: iamjoshuadavies/corridorkey-ae Native OFX plugin for Resolve, Fusion, Nuke, and a pre-release version for After Effects: alexandremendoncaalvaro/CorridorKey-Runtime PR's for performance optimizations: CorridorKey#54 CorridorKey#124 along with many, many others.