Every few months someone asks how to decode video or pull audio samples in Rust, and the thread converges on the same advice: just run the ffmpeg binary. This post is a map of why — six paths through the ecosystem as of July 2026, what each one actually covers, how it is maintained, and where each one honestly wins. All numbers are monthly downloads or GitHub stars as verified in July 2026; where I could not verify a number, the table shows a dash instead of a guess.
A note on method: all six paths get the same treatment — where it wins, the honest limitation, a one-line verdict — and the limitation column does not soften for whichever path is newest. One disambiguation up front: the Rust crate ez-ffmpeg discussed below is unrelated to the JavaScript "Ez FFmpeg" that once made the HN front page; same name, different thing.
One more ground rule: there are no benchmarks in this piece — runnable benchmarks later beat adjectives now.
The landscape at a glance
Path
