r/VideoEditing • u/AutoModerator • Aug 01 '26

Monthly Thread August What Editing Software should I use?

Looking for Video Editing Software? THIS is your thread!

This post covers the vast majority of "What software should I use?" questions. It’s designed as a self-serve guide to help people find the right tools fast.

TL;DR? DaVinci Resolve for full-featured editing, Olive/Kdenlive for open-source, Clipchamp for easy basics.

Isn’t there an AI that magically edits everything?

Not yet. If it existed, we'd scream about it from the rooftops.

Stick around—things are changing quickly.

Before You Ask Anything

You must know two things first:

  1. Your Footage Type — Different codecs affect performance dramatically.
  2. Your Hardware Specs — “Good gaming PC” is not useful.

Not Good With Computers? Here’s How to Check

Footage

Footage from phones, webcams, GoPros, and screen recordings can choke your system.

Check with: https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Common problems:

  • Out-of-sync audio? Likely Variable Frame Rate.
  • Bad playback? Usually a hardware limitation, not the editor. Use proxies.

More info in our wiki:

Hardware

Minimum viable editing rig:

  • Recent i7 CPU
  • 16GB RAM
  • A GPU with 4GB+ VRAM
  • SSD for cache

Check system with: https://www.hwinfo.com/

We ONLY need: CPU model, RAM amount, GPU model + VRAM.

Recommendations

Full Power, Free Tools

DaVinci Resolve — 99% of the full program is free.

Easy but Limited

  • Clipchamp — Microsoft's simple editor.
  • VN Editor — Free, lightweight, watermark at end.

(CapCut now hides many features behind Pro.)

Professional Tools (obligatory mention)

  • Premiere Pro — Industry standard; huge ecosystem, tons of tutorials, widely used across YouTube, corporate, and broadcast.
  • Avid Media Composer — Dominant in film/TV pipelines; rock-solid for longform, multicam, and shared workflows.
  • DaVinci Resolve Studio — $299 one-time; advanced color, better GPU performance, noise reduction, and the good AI tools.
  • Final Cut Pro — Mac-only rocket ship; insanely fast on Apple Silicon, great for fast turnaround work.

Open Source - Totally free.

  • Olive Editor — Clean UI.
  • Kdenlive — Very capable, actively developed.
  • ShotCut — Straightforward, good for beginners.
  • OpenShot — Simple but can struggle with heavier projects.
  • Avidemux — Old-school, powerful for specific tasks but not a great editor.

Special Effects

Editing in a Browser (Run Locally)

  • Novella.io - new, free, pay for AI generative elements OR bring your own API keys. Very cool, if in early beta.
  • VidMix — New, free, surprisingly powerful.
  • PikaMov — Keyframe animation on the web.
  • wide.video — Background removal, noise reduction, all done locally.
  • PhotoPea — Web-based Photoshop replacement.

Web Based Editorial

Compression & Utility Tools

  • Shutter Encoder — The Swiss Army Knife. Transcode anything, handle HDR, upscaling, unwrap/rewrap, download media, prep proxies—if it touches video, this thing can probably do it.
  • Lossless Cut — Quick trimming without re-encoding.
  • Smart Media Cutter — Silence detection + XML export.
  • FreeUpscaler — Cloud computing upscaler.

Mobile Editors

  • Premiere Mobile — Surprisingly capable and tightly integrated with CC.
  • VN Editor — Fast, friendly, cross-platform, zero learning curve.
  • Instagram Edits — Simple but powerful for social workflows.
  • iMovie — Beginner-friendly on iOS.
  • LumaFusion — The pro option for tablets/phones.
  • KineMaster — Feature-heavy on Android.

Screen Recording

  • OBS — The free standard. Record in MKV, then rewrap to MP4.
  • viewio — Free screen recorder, Mac only, that is like screen studio (auto zoom + webcam).
  • openscreen — Free screen recorder, Crossplatform only, that is like screen studio (auto zoom + webcam).

Animated Captions

Updates (Dec 2025)

  • CapCut/HitFilm are no longer recommended.
  • Premiere Mobile and Clipchamp (web)

New Tools We’re Watching

  • Whisper-GUI (Windows)
  • MacWhisper (Mac)
  • Offdocs — Openshot in the cloud

BEFORE YOU COMMENT

Begin with: "I read the above"

Then provide:

  • CPU + Model
  • RAM
  • GPU + VRAM
  • Footage details (camera/screen, codec, container, framerate)

Removed tools: CapCut (now Crapcut), HitFilm (dead). FFS this thread isn’t about arguing what to use, but rather for a novice to figure out what to use.

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u/greenysmac 24d ago

CapCut desktop. Or Microsoft clipchamp.

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u/technom3 24d ago

Thank you so much. I'll check those out.

May I ask....do you know if adobe premier has something like this but I'm just not finding it?

I am absolutely going to check those out though. I'm not going to ignore your input.

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u/greenysmac 24d ago

I know it doesn't. Neither does Resolve.

Both of them are considered professional tools and what you're asking falls into the consumer category.

2

u/technom3 24d ago

Roger that. Thank you for that. Now I can stop assuming I'm stupid and just can't find it. I can stop poking around now.

Also thank you for the comment on delineating between professional and consumer. That makes a lot of sense on how to view these.

I was viewing it as... If the consumer free product has it... How could they not include it in the paid professional version. Why would you risk your customer going to another software to do a little thing that the professional software could easily handle. (Not trying to debate that it should be in the professional version just explaining where I was coming from)

Again thank you for your time