FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play. All builds require at least Windows 7 or Mac OS X 10.10.
Release builds are published approximately every six months, while Git builds are compiled multiple times a week. Git builds should be preferred unless a specific release version needs to be targeted.
Builds are provided for Windows and macOS, with very few configuration differences between the two. 32-bit Windows builds are provided for historical purposes, but will be removed in the future.
Static builds include all components linked into the executable, while shared builds rely on libraries (.dll or .dylib) to operate. Dev builds provide header files, and will be used in development with a shared build. Most users should use the static build, while developers need to use both the shared and dev builds.
All nightly builds are licensed as GPL 3.0, while GPL 3.0 and LGPL 3.0 builds are provided for releases. GPL 3.0 builds are more complete than LGPL 3.0 builds as they can include x264 and x265.