Best After Effects MCP servers, ranked
Last checked · 8 tools
Ranked for motion designers who want Claude, Codex or Cursor working in a live After Effects project. We weighed setup difficulty, how recently the repo was updated, how safe changes are to undo, and how much of After Effects it reaches
Quick picks
| # | Tool | Pick it if | Price | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | mcp-aftereffects (Kumo Productions) | you want the safest start. Easy setup, After Effects 2024 to 2026, and each change is one undo step | Free | Easy setup |
| 2 | After Effects MCP (Dakkshin) | you want the most used one. It has the most GitHub stars of any After Effects server, but its last update was April 2026 | Free | Medium setup |
| 3 | After Effects MCP (Engine Room) | you're on After Effects 2026 and want lower thirds, logo reveals and counters from a one line description | Free | Easy setup |
| 4 | AE MCP Bridge | you want the agent to look at rendered frames and fix keyframes and expressions, with each change as one undo step | Free | Medium setup |
| 5 | AE-MCP (70+ tools) | you want the widest reach, with 70 plus tools for comps, layers, effects, animation and expressions | Free | Medium setup |
| 6 | After Effects MCP (HeroicSwan) | you want to run jobs without babysitting the app, with frame checks and render helpers | Free | Medium setup |
| 7 | aftr | you need the same edits across many comps, driven from code | Free | Medium setup |
| 8 | Plainly Videos MCP (official) | you render lots of template versions and want it done in the cloud without opening After Effects. Paid | Paid | Easy setup |
Before you start
Almost all of these run ExtendScript inside your open project, and several can run any script the agent writes. Work on a duplicate project and read the plan before you say go
How we checked
Stars, last update and license come from the GitHub API and each README, checked on 19 Oct 2026. Setup difficulty is our judgment, explained on the about page. See all 14 on the After Effects hub
Questions
Which After Effects MCP is easiest to set up?
Kumo Productions' mcp-aftereffects and Engine Room are rated easy. Most others need an unsigned CEP panel or a script setting turned on
Do these work with Claude Code and Codex?
Yes. They're MCP servers, so any MCP client can use them, including Claude Code, Codex and Cursor
Is any of them official from Adobe?
No. They're all independent projects. Plainly's server is official from Plainly, a paid template rendering service
Sources: Dakkshin/after-effects-mcp, kumoproductions/mcp-aftereffects