The Only Professional Options Worth Your Money

There are a lot of options for good video editing software, and everyone has their favorite. I really just want to share my favorite free software, but I almost have to mention there are a lot of paid options out there that are worthless, buggy, or poorly supported. However, if you wanted to shell out money for software I wouldn’t spend a dime on anything outside of Apple’s Final Cut ($299), Adobe’s Premiere Pro ($239.88 yearly), or Davinci Resolve Studio ($295). Those options are a little pricey if you are not planning on creating video content on a regular basis. I’m fully entrenched in the Adobe universe, so for me, Premiere would be the paid option I’d pick every time. 

If you’re going to use professional software you’ll also need a good pc or mac to run it, even better if you’re wanting to edit a 4K video. That isn’t my area of expertise, but if you are unsure if your PC or Mac can handle the software, download the trial versions before you buy.   

Your Standard Operating System Options

Someone will say, ”what about Apple’s iMovie and Windows Movie Maker?” Yes, they still exist and can be downloaded from your app stores, they are hard to recommend because they are so dated. It’s bad when I can spot the same title looks and transitions in a new video that people were using ten years ago. I’m just not a huge fan, especially when there are better free options available on every platform.

Free Video Editing Software

I am not going to waste your time with a bunch of free open source options for you to try. I’m going to only give to the best supported, cleanest, most reliable software you should use,  and that I have tried.

Easy and Lite Software – Adobe Premiere Rush Starter – Download – Beginners Tutorial

The most lite and the cleanest option is Adobe Premiere Rush. This is technically just an app and is so light you can use it on your phone or tablet. You can also download this as software to your PC or Mac and when I tried it out I really liked how it ran. This option is way more user-friendly and ran very very well on a computer. There are not a lot of tutorials for this program, but after watching a 30-minute tutorial I basically had the whole program figured out. I love it for a beginner.   

Professional and Free Software – Davinci Resolve – Download – Beginners Tutorial

It is unreal that this software is still available for free. It is so powerful! The only downside is a longer learning curve, but that is completely expected for how much you can do with Davinci Resolve. Professionals everywhere use this as their preferred post-editing software as their number one color-grading tool. It does so much, and so well that I know video editors who have picked this free option over the most popular paid options. The support and the community for Davinci are second to none with literally thousands of tutorials on youtube. 

I really encourage you to watch the beginner tutorials of both programs and see which would work best for you.