Best Free Tools for Creating and Editing Videos

[Armindesk]

Hello everyone,

I’m interested in learning more about video editing and creating high-quality videos. There are many free tools available for trimming clips, adding effects, adjusting audio, and converting video formats. I’d like to know which free video editing tools you recommend for beginners and which ones offer the best features.

[VWestlife]

Which questions have searching for previous threads about this topic left unanswered?

[tigerman8u]

My arsenal I have used for years
clever FFmpeg GUI, avidemux., VidCoder, tsMuxerGUI., BDRebuilder, HandBrake, VirtualDub2. I do at times use commercial software but not often.
Depending on what I want to do I choose which one to use. Some of these will do pretty much the same thing.
I do like VidCoder for encoding because it allows you to input the exported file size.
Now if "ProWo" would add that to "clever FFmpeg"

[Alwyn]

If you want to get into real video editing for free, not just recoding or chopping bits out, try a real NLE (non-linear editor) such as Kdenlive. I've never used it but it's free and gets good reviews, and looks like it has a full feature-set.

[Sharc]

@Armindesk: Once you are talking about "high quality" video processing a recommended workflow is to do some processing (for example deinterlacing, denoising, rescaling ....) in AviSynth or Vapoursynth, using it natively or via a supporting GUI, exporting it in a lossless (or quasi-lossless) format which an NLE can open, and eventually do the final artwork like color grading, cutting an splicing, adding transitions plus any other bells and whistles using the convenience of an NLE. Shotcut (free) is an alternative to Kdenlive mentioned by Alwyn.

[Sharc]

@Armindesk: Now you experience how questionable it usually is to ask for "the best". You get a pletora of responses with personal (subjective) opinions. Try them all, and good luck with your video projects

[VWestlife]

As for free video editing software for beginners, my recommendations are Microsoft Clipchamp

A warning: Clipchamp does not support interlaced video. If you use it to edit interlaced video, you'll get combing artifacts in the output.

And it's terribly slow because everything you do with it gets uploaded to "the cloud". The app for it is really just a glorified web browser interface; it cannot be used offline.

[GAhere]

In all honesty, I gave up on free video editors. Most times every free editor I looked at lacked key features/tools that I needed just to do bare bones editing, In a nutshell, often free means you may run into limitations like ugly unwanted watermarks on your video output, time limits (5 minutes?), low video quality or very little choices in your final rendered output version or the need to have or use multiple different editors to accomplish your project.

You can often find very good deals on new slightly older versions of the paid video editors. Snagged a couple of different versions of Vegas Pro editing suites a few years ago for less than $40 each when the latest versions were running $200+ on Amazon at the time. I will say, Vegas is not for the faint of heart as it does have a large learning curve and like most all software and Apps now days absolutely nothing is obvious so one must just dive in and start playing with the tools. However, when I get stumped, a quick search of Youtube will result in some very good tutorials. With the Holidays coming up you might be able to land a discounted sale price on some of the popular paid editors, just have to make sure it is a perpetual license (buy once and no additional payments to use it) and not a crummy subscription model (continually pay to use).

[krykmoon]

In all honesty, I gave up on free video editors. Most times every free editor I looked at lacked key features/tools that I needed just to do bare bones editing, In a nutshell, often free means you may run into limitations like ugly unwanted watermarks on your video output, time limits (5 minutes?), low video quality or very little choices in your final rendered output version or the need to have or use multiple different editors to accomplish your project.

This is completely FALSE and misleading.

There are a bunch of fully featured (comparable to commercial alternatives) open source and free video editing software that doesn't have watermarks, resolution limitations or any or the crap you said, such as KdenLive (best FREE open source alternative to Premiere, similar workflow and interface) or Shotcut.

Kdenlive has more than 20 years of ACTIVE development.. and is really mature, ShotCut more than 10.. and it's getting better and better with every release..

So.. the information you gave about free video editing software are totally FALSE and misleading.

[fred_abila]

Since you're starting out, I'd split it by job rather than look for one best app:

- Trimming and joining without re-encoding: LosslessCut or Avidemux (set video and audio to Copy). Fast and no quality loss, as long as you cut near keyframes.
- Actual editing (tracks, titles, transitions, effects, audio levels): Shotcut or Kdenlive. Both are free with no watermark or time limit, as krykmoon says. Shotcut is a bit simpler to start in, Kdenlive feels more like a traditional NLE. DaVinci Resolve's free version is more powerful but heavier on the GPU and steeper to learn.
- Audio: both editors have per-clip gain, normalize and fades. For cleaning up noise, Audacity.
- Converting formats: HandBrake with one of its H.264 presets covers most things.

The fastest way to learn is to pick one editor and finish one small real project: cut a 2 minute clip, add a title, put music under speech at a lower level, export an H.264 MP4. That teaches more than comparing feature lists.

Disclosure: I build Vidmoat, a hosted AI video editor where you describe the edit in plain words and it builds a timeline you can still adjust, then renders an MP4. It has a free tier and suits people who mostly want quick edits without learning an editor first. If your goal is to learn editing itself, Shotcut or Kdenlive is the better place to start.

[Alwyn]

Since you're starting out, I'd split it by job rather than look for one best app:

I wouldn't agree with that. You're effectively having to learn two programs. Unless you have a specific need for lossless trimming eg to save space and doing the real editing later on, it would be far simpler to just bring your videos into your "real" editor from the start.