I got tired of manually opening tens or hundreds of ComfyUI video outputs to try and find an old workflow or get a quick overview of the quality of a large batch run. Video Swarm was born because I couldn't find any existing software that does this: tile a large number of videos, all playing at once, with seamless scrolling through subdirectories and quick file operations. I figured I'm not the only one who would find this useful, so I've open-sourced it.

If VideoSwarm has been helpful and you'd like to chip in, you can support development here.

new features overview

• Download latest release
• Open a folder with clips (optionally enable recursive scan by ticking Subdirectories)
• Browse videos in a live-playing masonry grid
• Tag and rate videos to organize your dataset
• Drag and drop videos directly into other apps (eg ComfyUI to re-use a video's workflow, or DaVinci Resolve to add the video to the timeline)
• Double-click → fullscreen, ←/→ to navigate, Space to pause/play
• Right click for context menu: move to trash, open containing folder, etc

Traditional file browsers show static thumbnails and provide limited ways to compare videos at scale. Video Swarm is designed for use cases where motion matters and where collections may contain hundreds or thousands of files, such as:

• Reviewing outputs from AI video generation workflows (e.g. ComfyUI)
• Seeing a clear overview of video training datasets for AI training
• Inspecting stock footage, B-roll, or archival datasets
• Comparing multiple generations or versions of the same source
• Research or analysis of large video corpora

• Configurable concurrent playback (default 50; adjustable up to 500 depending on system resources)
• Lazy loading: videos only play when visible in the viewport
• Automatic cleanup of off-screen elements to reduce memory usage
• Vertical masonry layout: fixed width, variable height; handles portrait, square, and landscape videos without wasted space
• Responsive column count, scroll-position preserved on resize

• Double-click video → full-screen modal
• Keyboard navigation in full-screen (←/→, Space, Esc)
• Context menu for file operations (open in system player, show in folder, copy path, move to trash)
• Multi-select via Ctrl+Click
• Adjustable zoom levels (75%, 100%, 150%, 200%)
• Toggle display of filenames
• Header controls for sorting and filtering by tags or rating

• Collapsible metadata panel for managing the active selection
• Custom tag creation with auto-complete suggestions and bulk apply/remove actions
• Five-star rating system with overlays on video cards
• Popular tag shortcuts and searchable tag catalog for quick tagging
• Persistent metadata storage backed by SQLite, shared across sessions
• Multiple user profiles can be created with independent tag/review collections

• Recursive directory scanning (configurable)
• Real-time folder monitoring with Chokidar; fallback to polling if too many files
• Recent Folders list: automatically tracks and persists recently opened folders
• Rich metadata: size, modification time, creation time
• Native file operations (show, open, delete, copy) - show in folder is particularly useful for ComfyUI users for quickly accessing the video in order to re-use workflows
• Fingerprint-based file tracking keeps tags and ratings attached even if files move

• Captures the current frame of any visible, playing clip and renders a 96×96 PNG with rounded corners and overlay in the renderer.
• Drag and drop clips with full payload data, for dragging into other services (eg ComfyUI workflows, video editor timeline drop-in, copying to filesystem location)

• Persistent settings stored in Electron’s userData directory (JSON)
• Saved window size/position
• Saved playback and zoom preferences
• Automatic zoom adjustment for high-DPI displays

• Frontend: React 18 + hooks, Vite for bundling
• Backend: Electron main process with IPC for filesystem access
• Layout: Custom vertical masonry renderer
• Performance: Intersection Observer for visibility detection; debounced updates; GC enabled via Electron flags
• File formats: Supports any codec/container playable by Chromium (tested with MP4/H.264; partial HEVC support depends on system codecs)
• Rough edges: Early release; expect some quirks and ongoing polish

• Designed primarily for folders of short videoclips (~5 seconds) - loading large directories of long videos may have issues
• Linux: No native support for Nvidia video decoding - app runs generally more sluggish than on Windows due to being CPU bound. Planning a custom render pipeline to resolve this but it's a long way off.
• Desktop-only: no web version (requires unrestricted filesystem access)
• HEVC/H.265: limited browser support; may not decode on all systems
• Very large directories (3000+ files): performance may degrade despite lazy loading, can be some glitchiness during load
• No mobile/touch support

Planned for upcoming versions:

• Better dynamic rendering to improve performance with very large datasets
• Smart collections and saved filter presets
• Enhanced search (text + metadata)
• Further performance improvements

• Node.js 20 LTS or later (Node 22 recommended)

  Note: Some dependencies such as better-sqlite3@12, conf@14, and electron-store@10 require Node 20+.

git clone https://github.com/Cerzi/videoswarm.git
cd videoswarm
npm install

The install step automatically runs electron-builder install-app-deps, ensuring native modules such as better-sqlite3 are rebuilt against the bundled Electron runtime on Windows, macOS, and Linux with no extra setup.

Run Vite + Electron together with hot reload:

npm run electron:dev

npm run electron:build   # packaged app for current platform

• electron:dist – build without publishing
• electron:pack – portable package

src/
  components/          React components (VideoCard, ContextMenu, FullScreenModal, RecentFolders)
  hooks/               React hooks (fullscreen logic, context menu, playback manager)
  App.jsx              Main React entry point
main.js                Electron main process
preload.js             IPC bridge

1. Start the application
2. Select a folder (optionally enable recursive scan to load all videos in subdirs)
3. Videos will be scanned and loaded into the masonry grid
4. Adjust zoom via the top control bar
5. Ctrl+R to clear all videos
6. Access recently opened folders from the Recent Folders menu

Video Swarm is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

This ensures the project remains free and open-source for everyone, and that any improvements or modifications made by others are also shared with the community. You are free to use, modify, and redistribute the software, but if you distribute a modified version you must also make the source code available under the same license.

Contributions are welcome! By submitting a pull request, you agree that your code will be licensed under the same GPLv3 license as the rest of the project.