Natron’s development is slowing down, only 2 people are actively developing it. The last update was in February, and Natron 2.0 was supposed to come in May. It’s August, and still no 2.0. Keeping in mind that Nuke NC came out recently, did that kill Natron off? If so, then it’s the sad story again of FOSS being killed off when the industry makes moves to squeeze it. Natron was promising, but with Fusion, Hitfilm, Nuke being free, is it still alive?
It’s possible that recent moves by The Foundry is squeezing the ability for Natron to continue as a project, as one of the reasons for its existence was to be a ‘free Nuke’ for those who didn’t want to pay a hefty license fee (noting the major similarities in both workflow and functionality).
A very different scenario compared to Blender because Blender did not set out with a goal to look, feel, and work like a free edition of Maya or Max.
Natron’s snapshots are still active. There is still development in Natron. Here’s the snapshot to the Linux version.
Comparing Nuke NC and Natron, Natron is just a harder to use, less featured version of Nuke NC. Given that Nuke and Fusion are free, Natron is in trouble.
Natron’s snapshots are still active. There is still development in Natron. Here’s the snapshot to the Linux version.
Natron is still going. Good for them!
Nuke non-commercial version is just for… non-commercial use. This is nonsense to compare that version to Natron that gives the possibility to work with for any purpose.
Natron 2.0 seems to be on its way: Python scripting is implemented, expression node is working and PySide (Python Qt framework) for custom UI panel is added!
Yep, Natron is still going strong. They’ve not released officially since 1.2, but yes, there are daily builds with bug fixes and new features. It’s going great! Now it even has painting tools!
And there has ALWAYS only been 2 people developing on it. That has never changed. There is a 3rd guy named Ole making a lot of nodes and tools for it, though. Kind of an unofficial 3rd developer.
Just like Blender, they’re always looking for developers to help out.
They do a fine programming over there at Natron. I did try one of the first releases - that was a bit of a failed compile attempt, no input was functional; Natron2 however has a windows style installer (linux box here) and it took 2 minutes to get from click ‘download’ to fully functional install. Kudos, really.
They need one more developer. Somebody, who can use OpenCL 
Natron is CPU-only now, can’t use GPU acceleration for rendering and filters. Nuke’s acceleration is CUDA-only, so Nvidia-only. AMD cards suported only for some new Mac pro. So OpenCL-based, cross-platform and vendor-independent rendering acceleration can be real advantage for Natron.
But no one of developers, working for Natron, can use OpenCL. So, prepare to buy more Xeon’s and server motherboards :yes:
Natron is one of the best. I love nuke but I’m in love with natron.
I love open source projects and I support them by using their products. Open source projects made with love. they still going.
long live open source
long live linux
Someone already mentioned that Nuke NC can’t be used in a commercial release, so that does rule it out of use for at least a subset of artists. For those artists, Natron might just provide what they need. Plus Nuke NC is restricted to 1080p output. With 4k cameras only being a few thousand $ these days and storage getting pretty cheap, 1080p is a bit of an artificial restriction.
Now Fusion, on the other hand, is a legitimate threat to Natron. While it too has restrictions in it’s free version (no 3D processing) it can go all the way up to UHD and can be used commerically.