OpenCue Project Review 2025
OpenCue Virtual Town Hall Series
August 10, 2025
Thanks to everyone who joined us for the OpenCue Virtual Town Hall 2025!
The Technical Steering Committee presented a comprehensive overview of OpenCue’s progress, community growth, and exciting roadmap ahead. The presentation showcased major achievements, new features, and strategic initiatives for the coming year.
About OpenCue
OpenCue is an open-source render farm management system that distributes workloads from artists across a cluster of computers. It has been used at Sony Pictures Imageworks, rendering all movies and animations since 2019.
Community Overview
- Active community with 30-40+ contributors from various industries
- Currently searching for new TSC members
- Average pull request merge time reduced from 3 months to 8 days
- 80% contributor retention rate
- 485% increase in pull requests contributions
Major Announcements
CueWeb Release
Official announcement and release of CueWeb, our new browser-based visual interface featuring:
- Modern login integration
- Comprehensive job monitoring
- Advanced filtering capabilities
- Intuitive user experience
Rust RQD Release
The render node monitoring agent has been completely rewritten in Rust, delivering:
- 5x smaller memory footprint
- 50% reduction in CPU usage
- Zero memory leaks
- Enhanced performance and reliability
Latest Features
Containerized Jobs (Docker Support)
- Run frames in Docker environments
- Simplified dependency management
- Execute legacy jobs on modern operating systems
- Improved job isolation and security
Grafana Loki Integration
- Log aggregation and analysis
- Advanced querying capabilities
- Real-time charting and visualization
- Intelligent alerting system
OpenCue Pip Packages Released
Installation simplified with official pip packages:
pip install opencue-proto opencue-pycue opencue-pyoutline opencue-rqd opencue-cueadmin opencue-cueman opencue-cuesubmit opencue-cuegui
- opencue-proto
pip install opencue-proto
- opencue-pycue
pip install opencue-pycue
- opencue-pyoutline
pip install opencue-pyoutline
- opencue-rqd
pip install opencue-rqd
- opencue-cueadmin
pip install opencue-cueadmin
- opencue-cueman
pip install opencue-cueman
- opencue-cuesubmit
pip install opencue-cuesubmit
- opencue-cuegui
pip install opencue-cuegui
Note: Cuebot, Opencue REST Gateway, and CueWeb are deployed using Docker. For more information, see the Opencue’s docker compose file (PostgreSQL, Cuebot, Flyway, RQD, OpenCue REST Gateway, and CueWeb): docker-compose.yml.
Getting Started
New Documentation Website
Comprehensive documentation now available at https://docs.opencue.io/ featuring:
- Video tutorials
- User guides
- API documentation
- Best practices
Upcoming Features
Distributed Booking
- Addresses database bottlenecks for large-scale render farms
- Enhanced scalability for enterprise deployments
- Improved job distribution efficiency
Farm Auto-scaling
- Native autoscaling capabilities
- Automatic resource management based on queue pressure
- Cloud infrastructure optimization
- Cost-effective resource utilization
Rust RQD Migration Timeline: 2025-2026
The complete migration to Rust RQD is planned for completion by 2026, ensuring a smooth transition for all users while maintaining backward compatibility.
Get Involved
The OpenCue TSC is actively seeking new members! Join our vibrant community to:
- Contribute to cutting-edge render farm technology
- Collaborate with industry professionals
- Shape the future of OpenCue
- Share your expertise and learn from others
Stay connected with the OpenCue community for more updates as we continue to innovate and evolve the platform with your support!
Our slides from the presentation are now available online