Best free video editing software for desktop
There’s a lot of desktop-based editing software available for businesses looking to create promotional videos. The biggest advantage of free video editing software for desktops is that they tend to have more features than most mobile video editing apps
If you’re looking to edit your promotional videos on a budget, check out our list of free video editing software you can use to edit long-form content for YouTube, your ecommerce site, or a variety of other platforms:
1. OpenShot
Best simple video editor for beginners
OpenShot’s easy-to-use user interface makes it a great video editing program for beginners. While more complex tools may offer more editing components, OpenShot’s intuitive interface and minimal design are perfect for simple editing.
OpenShot is an efficient option for small businesses and is best for clip resizing, scaling, trimming, snapping, and rotation. It also offers credit scrolling, frame stepping, time mapping, audio editing, and real-time preview.
Features include:
- Unlimited layers for watermarks, background videos, and audio tracks
- Customizable title-card templates
- Drag-and-drop functionality for easily adding video, audio, or image files
- Digital video effects, including brightness, gamma, hue, greyscale, and chroma key compositing for green-screen effects
- Powerful key-frame animation capabilities for creating animated videos
Available for: Windows, Mac, and Linux
2. VSDC Free Video Editor
Top free video editing software with full editing suite
VSDC’s desktop video editing software is available as both a free and paid version. Although the free version has reduced features, it still comes with VSDC’s full video editing suite—including a mask tool and chroma key functionality for green-screen video effects.
If you have the funds to spring for the full version, the suite of tools expands to include video stabilization, robust post-production effects, slideshow/presentation capabilities, 3D diagram templates, and direct social media publishing.
Features include:
- Color-correction tools for a more professional look
- A full suite of transitional effects
- Easy-to-use image filters, similar to what you’d find on Instagram
- Mask tools for hiding, blurring, or highlighting specific elements
- Social media link for sharing videos on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Vimeo
- HEVC/H.265 (an advanced video-compression standard), for maintaining the highest quality at the minimum file size—essential for processing 4K and HD files
Available for: Windows
Price: Free; $19.99 for Pro version
3. Movie Maker 10
Good free video editing software for Windows
Movie Maker 10 is a convenient video editing software for Windows for people looking to go back to basics. It’s great for making quick edits to short video clips you need ready right away.
Movie Maker 10 comes with a free version that includes its suite of video and picture editing tools as well as the ability to add captions with customizable fonts and colors.
Features include:
- Auto-preview tool for edits and effects
- Auto-movie options for creating customizable cuts of your video clips
- Animation tab to easily add music, titles, and credits
Available for: Windows
Price: Free
4. Lightworks
Best online video editor for real-time project sharing
Lightworks includes a simple and intuitive interface, so it’s easy to pick up. Lightworks also offers a collection of detailed video tutorials, making it one of the more accessible and easy to learn Linux video editing software options on this list.
Lightworks has a suite of original stock videos and music clips licensed for use in any videos you edit on the program, letting you give a polished look to any marketing video.
Features include:
- High-quality simple trim functions for fast and precise video editing
- Speed optimization, letting you continue to edit while importing new content
- Multicam editing for syncing clips from multiple cameras
- Real-time team project sharing with full control over which user has editing access
- Easy sharing of videos with fast export to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and Instagram
- Supports a wide range of video formats
Available for: Windows, Mac, and Linux
Price: Free $24.99 per month for Pro version
5. Shotcut
Best open source movie maker for audiophiles
Shotcut is an open-source, cross-platform video editor with a vast collection of tutorial videos. It also supports a wide range of formats, including FFmpeg, 4K, ProRes, and DNxHD. A warning, however—Shotcut was originally designed for Linux, so some may find the interface a little quirky. Despite this, it’s still a top-notch editor.
Shotcut also provides extensive audio editing options, making it ideal for audiophiles. Its host of fine-tuning audio tools allows users to make bass and treble adjustments, create bandpass filters, adjust gain, add dynamic compression, and much more.
Features include:
- Support for the latest audio and video formats via FFmpeg, the leading multimedia framework
- Native timeline editing, which allows users to import video files directly into their project file rather than a media library
- Multi-format timeline for mixing and matching resolutions and frame rates within a project
- Advanced audio filters like balance, bass and treble, bandpass filters, compressor and more
Available for: Windows, Mac, and Linux
Price: Free
6. Blender
Best professional video editing software with 3D creation suite
Blender is a free, open-source 3D creation suite. It includes features to help model and render 3D animations. The software is a collaborative creation of hundreds of developers from around the world. The huge community of users gives Blender’s software an extensive group of tools.
Blender is designed as a 3D animation suite but comes with a functional video editor that should be enough for most users’ needs. It can also tackle more complex edits, like video masking, making Blender a flexible video editor for both novice and experienced users, and an excellent option for more advanced projects that may involve 3D animation.
Features include:
- Path-tracer engine for realistic rendering of animated objects
- Advanced rendering processes to speed up the saving and exporting of your project
- Option to code game logic into the software for video game development
- Advanced character animation tools for realistic kinematics
- Extensive library of visual effects and vignettes
Available for: Windows, Mac, and Linux
Price: Free
7. HitFilm Express
Best free video editor with all-in-one editing and professional visual effects and tutorials
If you don't have a lot of experience with video editing, HitFilm Express may feel a little advanced at first—it's used to produce Hollywood-style films—but it’s worth the learning curve, as it’s one of the best all-in-one free video editors available. (HitFilm does ask you to share a social media status update when you download the software, but that’s a small price to pay.)
Hitfilm includes animation tools that let you create and edit audio and video transitions without the need to create composite shots, which is a huge time saver when editing.
Features include:
- Professional grade video editing
- Composite shot enhancements that allow you to animate two separate shots together for surreal video effects
- Unlimited video and audio timeline track creation
- An adaptive trimmer that lets you re-trim your clips after adding them to the timeline
- Ability to copy a group of attributes from one clip and apply them directly to another or to a whole project
- Audio mixer for fine tuning sound for professional quality output
- Various transition options, such as push, zoom, and dissolve
Available for: Mac and Windows
Price: Free; $497 for TK
8. DaVinci Resolve 16
Best free video editing program for professional editors
DaVinci Resolve combines professional 8K editing, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production in a single production tool, which is why it’s the software of choice for many professional editors of films, television shows, and commercials.
DaVinci allows for both offline and online editing, and its high-performance playback engine saves time when editing and trimming—even for processor-intensive file formats like H.264 and RAW. DaVinci Resolve’s complex features may be too extensive for some users, but its free version is perfect for more advanced projects.
Features include:
- Dual timeline for quick navigation, cutting, and trimming
- A dedicated trim interface that gives you the ability to edit in minute detail
- Intelligent auto-editing that syncs audio and visual clips for you
- Built-in tools for picture-in-picture effects, retiming, stabilization, dynamic zoom, text, and audio
- Facial recognition that detects faces in your clips and automatically creates bins based on the people in each shot
- High-quality motion estimation speed changes and frame rate conversions to easily and realistically speed up or slow-down clips
Available for: Windows, Mac, and Linux
Price: Free, $269 for the full Studio version
9. VideoPad
Best free video editing software for sound mixing
VideoPad is a good starting point for those just getting acquainted with video editing software, thanks to its uncomplicated, easy-to-use interface. Despite its deceptively easy controls, VideoPad comes packed with professional features like multiple displays for fast editing and unlimited overlay audio tracks—providing users with the option to have more control over their sound mixing without the added complexity of more professional editing software.
VideoPad doesn’t come with as many advanced features as some of the other free video editing software on this list, but with options to add light effects, fine tune colors, and overlay text and images, there’s enough here to make it worth the free download.
Features include:
- Double built-in screen (one to preview selected clips, one to preview complete sequence) for easy and intuitive editing
- Pre-made, customizable transitions for polished professionalism
- Exporting presets to easily create video files optimized for specific platforms—such as Facebook and YouTube—and post them directly from within the software
Available for: Windows
Price: Free
10. iMovie
Best free YouTube video editor
Popular standby iMovie comes bundled with Mac OS. Like many native Apple apps, iMovie is uncomplicated and uses a simple drag-and-drop interface for moving files from your drive to your workstation. It’s an easy way to build powerful videos to boost your YouTube marketing efforts.
A big advantage to iMovie is that files are saved on Apple’s cloud, meaning you can work on your project interchangeably on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. iMovie is constantly being updated as well, so you can always look forward to new features and improvements.
Features include:
- Support for 4K resolution, allowing users to create cinema-quality films
- Cloud-storage functionality that allows you to work on the same project from your iPad, iPhone, and Mac
- Dozens of studio-quality title animations for professional-looking credits
- Stylish, contemporary video filters built for specific film genres, such as western and sci-fi
- Built-in music, sound effects, and voiceover recording so that your sound and picture editing are always consolidated
- Speed controls that let you make high-octane action scenes faster and sports highlights slower
Available for: Mac
Price: Free
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