Genmo

Genmo is a small video lab with a research habit, and its signature release is Mochi 1, an open-source video model published under an Apache 2.0 licence with the weights available rather than locked behind an endpoint. The company site describes output of roughly five-second clips at 480p, and sells a hosted playground plus a credit-based API for those who would rather not run anything themselves. For an open model the motion is convincing — weight, contact and follow-through read as intended — and that mix of permissive licence and decent physics is why people who only trust downloadable models took it seriously.

Be precise about which product you are buying: the weights and the hosted service are not interchangeable. The Apache-2.0 checkpoint costs nothing to run or modify but needs substantial VRAM, and the queue-free path is paid credits, so the real cost depends on whether you own hardware. The capability envelope is the harder limit: a 480p ceiling and about five seconds rules out hero footage, and there is no camera-move menu, no lip-sync, no multi-shot consistency, so a finished spot needs another tool. Check credit pricing and rate limits, whether outputs are licensed for commercial use, whether the hosted model runs the checkpoint you can download, and what the licence obliges when you redistribute a fine-tune. Choose Genmo to own and alter the model; choose Veo, Runway, Kling, Hailuo, Pixverse, Vidu or Luma to ship a polished clip this afternoon.