Best Top 6 Video Editing Software 2023 (Reviewed and Ranked)

Features of video editing software

Videos can be produced using any smartphone or current camera.

To turn your film material into interesting video content, you’ll need to employ video editing programs.

I frequently edit films for YouTube and have tried every top tool available—and let me tell you, there are a lot of them!

It might be challenging to find the correct software, so I’ve created this guide to assist you to save some time and money.

You’ll learn about both premium and free video editing programs, as well as their advantages and disadvantages.

I’ll also discuss the fundamental video editing tools you require as well as the sophisticated features necessary for producing videos professionally.

Similar to photo editing software, there is a wonderful video editor available for you whether you’re making movies for YouTube or simply watching at home.

So let’s examine the suggestions.

What to Take Into Account When Choosing Video Editing Software

You should think about whether the program provides the features and capabilities you require, such as those listed below, before choosing which video editing software to employ. You don’t want to overpay for a video editing program that performs more than you require, nor do you want your app to fall short in terms of the features you do require.

Motion tracking, many cameras, and even more motion

With every new generation of software that is developed, more sophisticated features become available in easily accessible, reasonably priced, and user-friendly video editing programs. Previously, pro-level software was the only place you could find Multicam editing, which allows you to change between camera viewpoints of the same scene captured with various video cameras. Now, enthusiast-level programs offer this and a number of other complex effects.

How to Purchase the Top Video Editing Program

Motion tracking, which enables you to associate an item or effect with movement in your film, is another outstanding feature that has found its way into consumer-level video editing software. You might use it to blur someone’s face whose face you don’t want to be seen in your movie or to show a text bubble next to something that is moving. The software takes care of the rest, pursuing the designated object when you mark it and define the effect or text.

Motion Tracking

Prior to recently, only special-effects programs like Adobe After Effects were capable of motion tracking. Although several consumer programs now have the capacity, Corel VideoStudio was the first to feature motion tracking. It continues to lead the pack in terms of the breadth and usefulness of its motion-tracking tool (even adding multipoint tracking).

Are 4K videos supported by the software? Why not 8K?

Video editing programs now generally handle 4K video source content, and professional programs even support up to 8K, which isn’t really useful unless you’re running a full-size movie theater. The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, which I recently upgraded to, is one smartphone that can now shoot in 8K, despite this.

Editing interface for video

Consumer items differ in their support for 4K and higher formats. Sony’s popular DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, camcorders, and professional video cameras employ the XAVC and XAVC-S formats, which certain apps can import but not all. The H.265 High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard is no different. There are still a few applications that can’t import or export HEVC, despite the fact that the majority can today.

Make sure you select a video editing program that renders output files quickly if you intend to work with 4K or higher resolution video content (see the Gathering Speed section below).

Support for more recent formats is very strong, including the free and open-source AV1 and the even more effective H.266 (VVC—Versatile Video Coding) is currently fairly constrained; only DaVinci Resolve supports AV1 and none of the programs listed here supports H.266. Thankfully, a few of the programs allow for the import of Google’s relatively recent WebM format.

Video Editing on a PC

If a program can’t perform even the most fundamental editing functions, all the frills are useless. All of the tools presented here now perform a good job of enabling you to join, trim, and divide video clips. Most also offer in-depth guides, support, and assisted editing tools. You can employ filters that enhance colors or add artistic effects and distortions, as well as special effects like animation transitions, picture-in-picture (PiP), chroma-key (also known as a green screen), and PiP. The majority of packages allow you to create a large number of timeline tracks for video clips, effects, audio, and text overlays.

Tools for seamless transitions are included in certain video editing programs. Imagine seeing an image of people on a beach when all of a sudden the sky zooms in and  You could be in Rome or Paris, but it feels like you’re in the same location since the sky was used to connect the two images. There are many more instances of seamless transitions; this excellent video, which helped establish the trend, showcases a good number of them.

Can a Smartphone Edit Videos?

On mobile devices, making and editing movies is virtually as simple as watching them. Many of the desktop programs in this compilation also have mobile video editing apps. You may edit video on your phone using Premiere Rush, a distinct program from Adobe, and then continue editing it on the desktop Premiere client. Final Cut Pro and Apple’s iMovie operate similarly. TikTok itself provides the fantastic, cost-free CapCut. And the robust CyberLink PowerDirector mobile app has established itself on mobile devices as well as the PC, with more than 100 million downloads on the Google Play app store. Several of these apps enable you to record video using the immediately begin editing on the same device as your phone.

What Are LUTs and Color Grading?

Color grading is one feature that has made it into consumer-level video editing software. The strength of any shade can be adjusted by editors using color wheels, curves, and histograms. Support for LUTs (lookup tables), sometimes known as CLUTs, is connected to this (color lookup tables). This essential piece of professional-grade software enables you to swiftly alter a video’s appearance to create a particular mood. Consider the deep blue aesthetic of suspenseful films like The Revenant as an illustration. To give your video a certain style, you can utilize LUTs that come with video software or download them for free from a variety of websites. One well-known LUT type can make a daytime scene appear to have been taken at night.

What is going on?

Tools for action camera users, including those who use the GoPro Hero9 Black, are now present in several video editing software. For instance, several provide automated freeze-frame in addition to temporal effects that speed up, slow down, and reverse. The Action Camera Center in CyberLink PowerDirector combines stabilized freeze-frame, slo-mo, fish-eye correction, and color correction for film shots underwater. The NewBlue ActionCam Package of effects from a third party is included with Magix Movie Edit Pro Premium.

List of Titles

In these video editing programs, I’ve seen that producing title effects is given a lot of attention. With the addition of 3D title creation in Apple Final Cut Pro, you can now rotate and extrude 2D titles along three axes. The 3D Titling feature in Corel VideoStudio is there, but it is not as robust as Apple’s. While Magix features outstanding title templates with animations, PowerDirector’s Title Designer includes transparency, gradient color, border, blur level, and reflection in titles.

An innovative title effect that lets your video fill the text characters is available in Premiere Elements, and Corel followed suit with a tool identical to it in VideoStudio. Find a program that allows you to alter titles in WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) mode so that you can Type, format, and time them to appear over the beginning of the video.

Another form of text you might want to add to your video is dialogue captions. Recently, tools that automatically generate captions from spoken dialog in the timeline were added to Corel VideoStudio and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Video editing requires quickness.

If you’re serious about making your own movies, you’ll need the greatest laptop or desktop you can purchase because video editing is one of the most computationally intensive tasks. The majority of apps create a proxy file with a lower resolution to speed up editing so that normal editing and previewing aren’t bogged down by enormous full-resolution files.

Rendering the completed work into a common video file that can be played on the desired target device, be it an HDTV, laptop, or smartphone, is a particularly time-consuming procedure. The majority of apps can accelerate your computer by making use of the graphics processor. To find out how quickly or slowly the application is, be sure to read the performance part in each of the reviews mentioned above. CyberLink PowerDirector and Pinnacle Studio have consistently won BLOGFORALL rendering performance tests, but Corel VideoStudio won the most recent tests.

Startup speed and straightforward stability are some additional performance indicators. Again, video editing is a resource-intensive task that uses several computer components. Video editing software used to start up more slowly than most other apps, and sudden shutdowns were unfortunately prevalent, even in the best apps from renowned makers like Adobe and Apple. Although the stability situation has significantly improved, crashes are still a common occurrence following a feature update due to the complexity of the process, which grows as more potent effects are added.

Is There Free Software for Editing Videos?

There are several free choices available if you don’t want to put a lot of time or money into your video editing endeavors. DaVinci Resolve is our #1 selection for free video editing (listed above). YouTubers and gamers like the free download since it offers them access to a significant portion of the program’s features without the pro-level features they don’t need. It’s actually the most capable free video editing tool you can find. A surprising amount of functionality is included in the free edition, including normal editing and cutting, effects, motion graphics, color correction, and audio editing.

There are more free apps that are quite nice but didn’t make our list of the top 10. The superb iMovie program is included with Macs. Users on PCs can join, trim, and even add background music, 3D animated effects, and titles to videos using the Windows Photos software. (Windows 10 and Windows 11 users can use the same app.) Microsoft has included a brand-new software called Clipchamp to the list of pre-installed programs for Windows 11. The Progressive Web App is best suited for social media marketing and has a multitrack timetable.

The Microsoft Market, the app store for Windows, also offers some free video apps. These include Video Editor Studio, Movie Maker, and Animotica. Although most of them have a fairly touch-friendly interface, most of them also have clip joining, transitions, and effects. Some of them are quite simple. Recently, I learned about a free movie editing program that isn’t available through the app store: MiniTool MovieMaker. Although I haven’t tested it yet, it seems promising. Since I know they have been tested for security and functionality, run in sandboxes where they can’t interfere with your system software, and are simple to install and update, I prefer programs that come from the Microsoft Store.

However, free video editing software frequently has both technical and legal restrictions. Software developers are unable to provide free software that can handle certain common file formats because several frequently used codecs need licensing payments from the user. However, the outstanding open-source Shortcut performs many of the same tasks as the purchased programs in this comparison, such as chroma-keying and picture-in-picture. Both Kdenlive and Shotcut are totally open-source and cost nothing. Even though Lightworks is free, it offers expensive upgrades that let you bypass the 720p output resolution restriction. Aside from running on Windows and Mac, Shotcut, Lightworks, and Kdenlive can all be used on Linux.

Do You Need Support for 360-Degree VR?

If 3D video editing is your thing, a few of the devices here still support it (Adobe Premiere Elements being a notable exception), but this has been overtaken by 360-degree VR film like that captured by the GoPro Max as a home-theater trend. Aside from some stuff, you’ll find on Facebook, 360-degree video is, to be honest, losing its appeal. As is frequently the case, CyberLink PowerDirector, our Editors’ Choice, was the first item in this lineup to provide compatibility for this type of videFFo material.

Other applications including Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro, and Magix Movie Edit Pro have jumped on board with 360 VR compatibility. Support varies; some apps offer stabilization, motion tracking, and 360-compatible games. Those final two are important inclusions in PowerDirector. With 360-degree film, it might be problematic to have the camera and tripod in the shot. Final Cut provides a helpful tool that eliminates these elements.

Sound editing

You should be able to adjust the audio in your digital motion pictures in addition to the photos because we still live in the talkie era. The majority of the items listed here have pre-recorded background music, and many—including Pinnacle Studio—can even customize the soundtrack to match the precise runtime of your film.

Most of these apps have the ability to split audio and video tracks, remove background noise, and add ambient audio effects like concert hall reverb. A few of the products offer an auto-ducking feature, which automatically turns the background music down when there is talking.

Apple, what about it?

Although there aren’t as many software options available for macOS users as there are for PCs, Apple customers who want to edit videos are well-catered for. At the lowest level, every Mac sold since at least 2011 has the surprisingly capable and pleasurable to use iMovie for free. Although iMovie only has two video tracks available, it excels at chroma-keying, and its Trailers function makes creating polished, Hollywood-style films a breeze.

Final Cut Pro for Apple

Adobe Premiere Elements, which is cross-platform for both Macs and PCs and gives a ton more capabilities and loads of assistance with effect creation, is in the middle of the spectrum. A macOS version of CyberLink PowerDirector, my Editors’ Choice enthusiast-level video editing program, has recently joined that in the Apple universe. Although it doesn’t provide quite as many tools as its Windows counterpart, what it does give is outstanding, and in my render-speed testing, it outperformed every other Mac program described here.

Davinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, and Premiere Pro are powerful but expensive solutions for professionals and prosumers. Although it appears to be a very straightforward program with an interface and usability similar to iMovie, Final Cut has a surprisingly rich set of features, and many third-party apps interact with it to give it even more capability. On some MacBook Pro models, Final Cut also makes excellent use of the Touch Bar. Premiere Pro has a larger ecosystem of add-on plug-ins and partner tools, and it employs a more conventional timeline. Additionally, it excels at collaboration tools and integrates effectively with complementary Adobe products like After Effects and Photoshop.

Read more about these apps in our roundup of the best video editing software for Macs.

What’s Missing

There are more video editing software programs than we can include in this list of the top choices, which only feature programs with a rating of 3.5 stars and higher. Nero Video, Vegas Movie Studio, or VSDC Video Editor Pro won’t be available. These products aren’t horrible; we just didn’t think they belonged on the list of the top video editing programs. Some have even improved the formerly poor performance and confusing interfaces.

Long-time professional video editors will notice the absence of Avid Media Composer and other high-end video programs since they are simply too cumbersome for PCMag’s target audience of large consumers. We simply haven’t explored a few more intriguing programs yet, including several fully web-based editors such as ACDSee Luxea, AVS Video Editor, and NCH VideoPad.