5 Best Free Video Editors

Ready to start editing your own videos? Awesome. There’s a lot of video editing programs out there, and a lot of opinions. Not every ‘free’ editor is created equally, some are incredibly advanced, some are so locked down they’re barely usable. I went ahead and tested 5 different free video editing programs, across various devices and platforms, that you can start using to edit your videos.  

Blackmagic Da Vinci Resolve

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/au/products/davinciresolve

This is my pick of the bunch and I find the features helpful, even with paid alternatives in my arsenal.

Resolve was Initially designed as a colour correcting suite, but Da Vinci, the company, has been creating high-end video production software since the 80’s. They’ve got some real experience. So, Resolve gives us a lot of powerful colour correction tools as well as an extremely capable editing solution built-in for free.

So it’s a professional solution, at a free price-point and compared to some other professional video editors, like Avid or Lightworks, Da Vinci Resolve is considerably user-friendly and all the necessary editing and export options are available for you to start using your video.

The biggest issue is that this isn’t specifically designed as an editor and doesn’t support the same amount of file formats, effects or features out of the box compared to some alternatives.

Pros
Very advanced features
Amazingly complete feature-set
Free, professional software
 
Cons
Not incredibly user-friendly
Still struggles importing some formats
More of a learning curve than Premiere Elements (but less than Lightworks)
Not designed as an editor first
Requires a lot of plug-ins to get the same functionality as a traditional editor

 

Hit 4 Film Express

https://hitfilm.com/express

Here’s an interesting one, Hitfilm is a young company, dedicated to video and editing software and plug-ins. Their Pro version is only US$350 but both (free and pro) include a built-in video compositor (for more advanced digital video effects).

They also offer Express, a free version of their software that includes all the basic editing functionality you need, but with the option to purchase smaller add-on modules to flesh out the feature set.

If you liked the look of DaVinci’s Resolve, but wanted more dedicated video editing features, this one may be worth checking out.

Pros
Professional features including compositing and colour
Free, professional software
Easy to upgrade individual components / upgrade-packs to pad out features

 

Cons
Requires a powerful computer
Certain file formats are locked to the Pro version

 

Lightworks

https://www.lwks.com/

Another incredibly 'high-end' solution, not for beginners, but the Lightworks Application has been built as a video editor first and has plenty of industry experience in Television and Film.

The free version is powerful but requires you to create an account and to renew the free licence occasionally. On the free version, Lightworks only exports online to YouTube or Vimeo, so before investing the time to learn the software, definitely check out their pricing options first because I believe most people will outgrow the free limitations quickly.

Pros
Strong feature set for video editing
Professional solution
great looking UI
 
Cons
Learning curve
File compatibility
Free version only outputs to YouTube

NCH Videopad (Free for personal use)

http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/

What strikes me as amazing with NCH’s Videopad is how many platforms it’s available on; Android, PC, Mac and iOS. It’s not a very ‘pretty’ system, the user interface is outdated and on touchscreen devices, the small buttons and text can be a massive hinderance, but all the features you need are here to get started and it’s incredibly competent.

Videopad is consumer level, not too complex and free-for-personal use. For anyone getting started, it’s a reasonably fleshed-out editor. I’d recommend moving on and up when you can, but there’s enough power here to keep you working.

Pros
Free
It works
Multiple Platforms (including PC, Mac, iOS & Android)
 
Cons
Outdated UI

YouTube Video Editor

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/183851?hl=en

It’s about as simple as you can get, but there’s some real benefits going simple; especially with the largest video platform to ever exist. The audio library is built right in, you can import clips from your YouTube uploads and export directly on the platform.

Because this is a web based service, so you’ve always got the latest version, your computer doesn’t need to handle the CPU-intensive editing or deal with the video storage requirements. I’d consider this as a possible replacement for the old Windows Movie Maker. It’s incredibly simple to use, there’s not much power to make complex edits but it’s accessible and for some requirements, it’ll be good enough.

Pros
Web-based
Built-in Audio Library
 
Cons
Platform Specific
Very simple timeline features

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