We’ve included links to these full reviews below. And to find out more about our reviewing process, read our article on how we test software. Want to learn the ropes and see if video editing is for you?

Then the best way for you to get free video editing software is through a free trial. This will give you access to fully featured software at zero cost, albeit for a limited time. Premiere Pro: the best video editing software overall opens in new tab Adobe’s video editing software works on both Windows and Mac and is the industry-standard, offering professional class features. This free trial offer allows you to try Premiere Pro for free for seven days.

It’s made by Apple, who offer a generous day free trial so you can test it out. Premiere Elements: the best video editing software for beginners opens in new tab If you’re new to video editing, Adobe Premiere Elements is the best video editing software to start with.

A simplified version of Premiere Pro, it’s easy to learn. It’s also cheaper and currently has a day free trial. The best free video editing software for professionals right now is DaVinci Resolve. Note that this is not to be confused with DaVinci Resolve Studio, which is a paid version of the same program. Despite being free, this is a feature-packed powerhouse and really gives paid tools a run for their money in terms of versatility and usefulness.

In our review, we found its colour grading options to be second to none, giving us the ability to fully control the look of our videos. That said, while that interface is quite straightforward to use for anyone with editing experience, it would be quite a challenge for beginners to learn. If that’s you, we’d suggest instead looking at entries on our list. To learn more, see our full DaVinci Resolve review. Another good choice for professional video editors is Hitfilm Express, which we’d describe as the Swiss Army knife of free video editing software.

We’d especially recommend this tool if you’re producing feature films, music videos with 3D effects or YouTube videos it offers direct uploading. That’s because has a lot of features you’d expect to find only in expensive paid-for software such as Premiere Pro, such as degree editing, 3D compositing, and hundreds of special effects.

When we reviewed Hitfilm Express, we found that it replicated the kind of workflows you’d usually only find in paid-for programs.

For instance, if you import files from multiple folders, there are many different ways to group your clips; and we love how you can trim and render clips inside the media panel before dragging them onto the timeline. We also found creating text in Hitfilm Express to be even more straightforward than in most paid editors!

The only potential issue we identified in our review is that Hitfilm Express weighs heavily on system resources, so it won’t work well on a low-powered laptop, for example. Also, like DaVinci Resolve number one on our list , it’s far too complicated for total beginners to pick up easily. If you’re not a newbie, though, the free version of Hitfilm Express has everything you need to make a pro-quality production.

Choosing between Hitfilm Express and DaVinci Resolve is tricky, because they both have a lot to offer professional video editors. Otherwise, Hitfilm Express is a good choice if you’re familiar with Premiere Pro as the interface is pretty similar.

Ultimately, though, they’re both free, so we’d urge pro video editors to try both, and see which one you take to. For more details, see our Hitfilm Express review. Most free video editing software is created, ultimately, to tempt you into buying a paid version. The exception is open-source software. Here, you’re getting the full product for free, and there’s a volunteer army of developers constantly working to improve it, at no cost to you.

One of the best examples is OpenShot. When we reviewed it, we found its minimalist drag-and-drop layer-based interface very easy to use, making it our top choice for beginners overall. We especially loved how you can stack an unlimited number of layers in your video, be they soundtracks, overlapping videos, or custom images.

We appreciated the handy range of customisable title-card templates, too. All the usual options to adjust and enhance your video, including crop, trim, rotate, and resize, worked well for us in practice. We also had success in adjusting elements like brightness, contrast, colour grading, and gamma. And as OpenShot is open-source, there are none of the frustrating ads, watermarks, or promotions for paid upgrades that you find in most free video editing software.

We did run into a few issues during the course of our review, though. Or when they did, they took a long time to apply, making the editing process frustrating. These things are common with open software of all kinds, but they are worth noting.

Ultimately, though, for free video editing software, Openshot is a great choice for beginners wish to avoid watermarks and ads. See our full OpenShot review for more. That’s because it’s specifically designed for people whose computers don’t have all the newest internals and specs, so you won’t find it crashing and freezing all the time. Note, though, there’s no Mac version. When we reviewed VSDC, we appreciated the flexible import and export options and found it particularly good for adding text, lines, charts and other special effects to a presentation.

We were surprised to see that the free version has almost all the features of the Pro version, and there are no watermarks added. VSDC is, in short, a great desktop tool for beginners. OpenShot above is another good choice in this respect, and has more features, but we found VSDC to be less laggy, and it still covers the basics well.

VSDC allows you, for instance, to apply Instagram-style filters, special effects like colour correction and blurring, and a mask tool for applying effects to part of a video. Read our VSDC review to learn more. Working across Mac, Windows and Linux, the open source program Shotcut is another top choice for beginners. It supports a huge range of formats, offers a great array of filters and special effects and can handle up to 4K. It also has support for AV1 decoding and encoding.

When we reviewed Shotcut, we found the interface easy to use and we loved how it can be customised if desired it has dockable and undockable panels. We also found the timeline surprisingly sophisticated for a free tool. It wasn’t all plain sailing, though. We found the process of adding transitions is a little unusual, and it was frustrating that you can only add filters to one clip at a time. However, for free video editing software, it’s impressive, and being open source means there are no ads or watermarks.

For more, see our Shotcut review. It used to be called Windows Movie Maker, but was rebuilt from the ground up for Windows 10, and renamed. And if you’re looking for a quick way to make simple edits, it might be all you need. We’ve used Windows Video Editor for the odd quick job in the past, but to be honest that’s all we’d ever use it for.

That said, in our experience it does a decent job of basic tasks like trimming, cropping, speed adjustments and adding text or audio. It also has a 3D Effects section, which you can use to soup up your video with pre-designed animations. For novices looking who enjoy working in Windows, it’s certainly very easy to use.

And so we’d recommend it most to people looking to put together slideshows of holiday photos, or quick presentations using assets already on the computer. If you’re a novice looking for something easy to get started with, you won’t find anything much easier than iMovie.

And if you have a Mac, you already have iMovie installed on it! You can also download it for free onto iPads and iPhones. If you only have Android, though, skip to number 10 on our list. But that does make the interface clean, uncluttered and simple to get started with, making it a great choice for newbies.

In our review, we found iMovie to be quick, easy and fun to use, making it perfect for simple projects. We particularly admired the shake and noise reduction tools, which do a good job of stabilizing your footage and dampening background noise. We also found it to be more versatile than we’d imagined. For example, you can record footage on one device, edit it on another, and pull in assets from a different one.

That, plus the fact that you can export at 4K at up to 60fps, helps to makes it stand out from other basic video editors. While this tool felt a little abandoned for a time, Apple has been updating iMovie of late, adding support for features found on newer i-devices. For more information, read our full iMovie review. Not to be confused with the Creative Cloud suite which includes Premiere Pro, After Effects and other pro video editing tools , Creative Cloud Express is a free app for people who lack software design skills.

It’s available as a web app, an iOS app and an Android app. Until recently it was known as Adobe Spark, and its main aim is to make it easy to create both static and video content for social media. In that light, it provides you with a simple way to edit videos. As well as simply trimming your clips, you can add music, text and images, and resize everything for different social media destinations.

When we reviewed Creative Cloud Express, we found the interface very simple to use, and we were impressed by the quality of the templates. That said, its video editing capabilities are certainly the most limited on this list; in all honesty, it’s more like a glorified slideshow maker than a ‘proper’ video editing app.

That said, if you want to get a social media video live as quickly as possible, and aren’t too concerned about the overall quality, it does make things nice and quick. For more, see our Creative Cloud Express review. VideoPad is a free video editor with a simple interface suitable for novices, but it also offers plenty of features for advanced users.

It’s essentially a limited version of the paid versions, which offer extra features, and unlimited exports. You can only use it for non-commercial work, and it limits the number of projects you can export.

Most notable of all is the level of control VideoPad gives over audio, which makes it a great choice for movie sequences that rely on audio effects. It supports an unlimited number of audio tracks and provides an entire library of sound effects to play with.

VideoPad also allows 3D video editing, a rare feature among free video editing tools. It also has great options for social sharing, with a library of social media-friendly effects and transitions and the option to post videos to platforms like Facebook or YouTube without leaving the software.

We’ll be honest: there’s not a lot of free video editing software for Chromebooks. But Kinemaster, which is also available on Android and iOS, is a fairly decent exception. As long as you’re fine with watermarked videos, that is.

To remove these, you’ll need to subscribe to the premium version. In our review we found its interface to be very intuitive, and so it should be relatively easy for beginners to use, especially for simple tasks like applying Instagram filters and using sliders to adjust brightness, contrast and saturation.

At the same time, this tool would also be useful for more experienced video editors wishing to make tweaks on the fly on their phones, tablets or Chromebooks. Blender is a free video editing software that specializes in 3D animations and compositing tools. We recommend this free video editing software for professionals. HitFilm Express is our top choice for advanced hobbyists and budding filmmakers who want to experiment with VFX editing.

There are several factors that you should consider before investing your time in learning the ropes of a new video editor. Below are the 8 most important things you should look out for:.

PCMag Rating: 4. PowerDirector ranks as our best free video editing software overall because it is an excellent choice for editors of all skill levels. We found its interface to be intuitive and the design straightforward which will make it easy for beginners to edit videos, while its robust advanced features and hardware acceleration will satisfy even the most experienced video editors. Dive right in with its easy-to-use tools, effects, transitions, and titles without paying for advanced features or needing any prior video editing experience.

The free version of PowerDirector will suit all your everyday video editing needs. It includes professional and AI-powered tools to turn your videos into studio-quality masterpieces.

G2 Rating: 4. Blender is an open-source free video editing software with a plethora of compositing, 3D, and animation tools. It includes wide-ranging effects capabilities like motion tracking, particle simulation, onion skinning, and 3D painting tools.

This broad capability makes Blender a popular tool for intermediate and advanced video editors who may not want to pay for expensive software like After Effects.

Blender has everything you could need to edit videos. Make amazing motion graphics, animations, custom VFX, and so much more. However, the software has a very steep learning curve and is not for beginner video editors. HitFilm Express is not a professional level video editor, so it won’t be used to edit the next Marvel movie, but if you want to create Hollywood-style visual effects, we found it to be one of the best options. The software includes one of the biggest free VFX toolkits on the market.

This free video editing software includes color adjustments, keying effects, lens flares, and light swords. It offers all the basic features that editing enthusiasts will need in free video editing software.

Unfortunately, its difficulty falls somewhere between DaVinci Resolve and Lightworks, so be prepared to invest time learning the software.

For being a non-professional video editing software, HitFilm Express does offer a few surprising features like Unified 3D Space and a puppet tool. DaVinci Resolve is one of the most advanced free video editing software on this list. While it can be overwhelming and intimidating for those without previous editing experience, if you have a deep understanding of editing videos and need a powerful program, Resolve is your best option.

Overall DaVinci Resolve is a clean, intuitive program that you would never guess is free. It offers a wide range of advanced features, including intelligent color-correction tools that let you edit skin tones, eye color, and lip color at the touch of a button.

It also offers the ability to produce high-quality visual effects and audio-editing capabilities. VideoProc Vlogger is free video editing software that we think is a great choice for editing action camera or GoPro footage. It has advanced speed adjustment tools and over 20 speed presets.

It also comes with a video stabilizer, time-lapse tools, and motion simulation for applying tilt, roll, and dolly effects. Even though it has some pretty advanced effects, this free video editing software is beginner-friendly. It also has a learning center with helpful blogs and user guides, and a support center to answer any questions. VideoProc Vlogger is aimed at beginners, hobbyists, and content creators who need advanced motion and speed effect tools.

However, professionals will find it lacking in overall video editing tools which is why it falls to number 5 on our list. You can find it in the Windows photos app, and although it is not very robust, it does have all the tools needed to bring your photos to life with a fun slideshow. You can add motion to photos and sync your show to the beat of your background music. It comes with pre-designed animations, a good collection of filters and themes, and the ability to add music to your projects.

Video Editor comes with all the basic track editing tools, such as splitting, trimming, adding text, and adjusting audio. This free video editing software is a quick and easy way to edit videos and photos, especially for Windows users who regularly use the native photo app. That is the reason we ranked it under some of our top choices on this list, like PowerDirector Essential.

TechRadar Rating: 3. Based on our review, Movie Maker Online is the most accessible tool for free online video editing. No online video editor will be able to compete with the best free video editing software installed on a PC since it can’t be as feature-rich or fast. But if you only need to make minor edits and don’t need any advanced features, an online tool can be the right option.

Movie Maker Online is incredibly useful if you are looking to edit a simple video without having to download software. Upload your videos directly on the site, make all your edits, and download the finished video. Movie Maker is also the best free video editor for low-performance laptops, as it doesn’t have a RAM requirement or a specific operating system to run.

One big downside is that free Movie Maker Online completely lacks advanced editing and so it ranks right in the middle of the pack of our top video editors. We found Lightworks to be the most accessible free video editing software for professionals. While DaVinci can be intimidating for intermediate users, Lightworks is more inviting.

So if you’re looking to take your first step into professional editing, look no further. It has been around for years, and the professional edition was used to edit box office hits like Pulp Fiction , 28 Days Later , and Congo.

If you’re willing to put in the work to learn this free video editing software, it’s a great choice. The workspace is split into four main tabs — log, edit, VFX, and audio. One thing to note is that the free version of Lightworks only allows videos to be exported in up to p, while Pro can export in a broader range of formats and resolutions.

Pro also includes some additional features and plug-ins. PCMag Rating: 3. With a typical drag and drop audio and video file manager , plus the ability to export 4k video, any video editor with some experience should find it easy to use. It is an excellent next step if you have moved on from a basic level free video editing software like Movie Maker Online. It is ideal for intermediate users who are not yet ready to make the jump to professional-level video editing software.

This program is open source, so once you download it, you will have access to all its features and can customize your interface to your liking. Shotcut also offers advanced effects and filters that will help you produce a high-quality video for free.

Image from TechRadar. TomsGuide Rating: 3. Avid Media Composer First is surprisingly robust for free video editing software, containing many of the pro-level tools you find in paid versions. It is the free version of Avid Media Composer, which is a popular editing program for Hollywood professionals. Budding pros would do well to learn the ropes on this free, slimmed-down version before upgrading to professional software.

With this free video editing software, you can edit up to 4 video tracks and 8 audio tracks with 5 bins per project. It has a large amount of color-correcting tools and direct uploads to YouTube and Vimeo. The difficulty with Avid Media Composer First is that professionals will find it too limited, and beginners will find it too challenging. Due to these reasons it ranks bottom 6 on our list.

Adobe Premiere Elements is an easy-to-use, free video editing software. It comes with Organizer, a separate app that automatically uses facial recognition to tag your files. This software also helps you select and organize the clips you want to edit.

It is a beginner-friendly yet scaled-down version of Premiere Pro, which is used to edit Hollywood films. Premiere Elements is great for home movies but lacks the advanced tools needed for any serious projects. If you are looking for a good solution to create business presentations VSDC is a great option. It is a relatively easy-to-use software with all the basic tools you will need to create engaging video content.

Plus it makes it easy to work with charts and create videos for specific multimedia devices. This program offers advanced editing features, such as color blending and masked effects, that you wouldn’t expect from a free video editing software of its kind.

Though VSDC is more suitable for creating presentations, the casual video-editor will find its features sufficient to make fun videos. This includes fun projects like family video greeting cards. If you are just starting your video editing journey and want a very basic free video editing software, VideoPad is a good option. Where PowerDirector is loaded with features, VideoPad is comparatively scaled back.

It is a great place to start but eventually, you may outgrow it and want to upgrade. Beginner video editors will be able to familiarize themselves with its editing tools without spending anything. It features a variety of pre-made transitions and sound effects, along with a few advanced features such as camera shake reduction tools, within a familiar and easy-to-learn platform. The program offers everything you need to create a clean, simple video without much expertise.

Please note that VideoPad as a free video editing software is available for non-commercial use only. TechRadar Rating: 2. Movavi Video Editor is a free video editing software and a great way to edit videos for social media.

 
 

 

Pc video editing software free for windows 10

 
PicPlayPost This is ideal for recording voice-overs or telling lighthearted video stories.