Best video-editing software in 2025

Why I picked it: I love how Movavi Video Editor manages to pack powerful tools in a straightforward, easy-to-use interface, making it a great choice for beginners and experienced editors alike.

Movavi Video Editor is packed with thousands of filters, transitions, titles, stickers, overlays, and other elements you can add to your videos to spice them up in seconds. It also offers several AI-powered tools that can complete complex edits in seconds. Adding subtitles, for example, can be a time-consuming process, but Movavi’s AI subtitling tool can add them for you. That’s particularly helpful, because research suggests 80% of Gen Z use subtitles when they watch videos, and 80% of video viewers are more likely to finish videos when they have subtitles. Other AI tools in Movavi Video Editor include ones for motion tracking, background removal, and much more.

These AI tools aren’t the only thing that makes Movavi Video Editor a top free video-editing software. When testing, I found the user interface intuitive; it’s one of the easiest on this list to learn. The program is lightweight, meaning it can run smoothly even on less powerful computers. You can choose one of several presets to ensure your video is optimized for whatever social media site you want to upload your video to. And there are plenty of tutorials to help you figure things out.

Movavi Video Editor also contains plenty of creative assets, like filters, stickers, titles, and transitions to spice up your videos.

Why I picked it: Adobe^® Premiere^® Pro is one of the most widely used video-editing programs out there, and for good reason. It’s extremely powerful and integrates seamlessly with Adobe’s extensive suite of apps.

You’ve likely seen a movie edited with Premiere^® Pro: Deadpool, the Florida Project, Gone Girl, Terminator: Dark Fate, even the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once. You can see a screenshot of the editor’s timeline for Everything Everywhere All At Once here, if you’re curious what an Oscar-winning editor’s timeline looks like. Now, all these professional movie editors and movie makers aren’t using Premiere^® Pro for laughs. It’s an extremely powerful, capable program with plenty of unique features. Most evident is the app’s integration with Adobe’s^® Creative^® Cloud ecosystem, which includes other apps like After Effects^® and Photoshop^®. However, Premiere^® Pro is still an excellent editor on its own. The timeline supports multiple video and audio tracks, each capable of handling high resolutions for a professional final product. Premiere^® Pro also has several AI-powered tools, including one that helps you search through your library, another that automatically adds (and translates) captions, and even one that can artificially extend the length of video and audio clips. Plus, the entire workspace is customizable; play around with the various panels to optimize your workflow.

When I first installed Premiere^® Pro, I found it a little overwhelming. Beginners might find the learning curve a little steep. However, there are plenty of tutorials out there you can use to get started. And remember, you can customize the user interface, which means you have the option of simplifying it, should you wish.

Why I picked it: Final Cut Pro is perhaps the best option for editors committed to the Apple ecosystem, as it’s optimized for Apple Silicon and integrates with other Apple apps.

Just like Premiere^® Pro, Final Cut Pro has been used by professional editors to compile some of the most famous movies of the modern era. If you’ve watched the Social Network, 500 Days of Summer, No Country for Old Men, or 300, you’ve seen what Final Cut Pro can do. So why did all these video-editing pros choose Final Cut Pro? Well, the timeline is very easy to use. It has a magnetic feature, which automatically snaps clips together to eliminate gaps, reducing the chance you’ll encounter syncing issues while editing. The program can also support dozens of camera angles, advanced color grading, and high-quality video files. Don’t worry, there are AI tools to take even more of the work out of editing, too. One helps motion track objects, while another automatically recognizes faces and objects to help you apply titles and effects. Importantly, Final Cut Pro also integrates seamlessly with other powerful apps, including Motion, Compressor, and Logic Pro.

Why I picked it: Filmora is a straightforward, affordable video editor that’s great for beginners and hobbyist editors who don’t need all the professional features (and price tags) of more powerful programs.

Ah, the simple drag-and-drop. It’s perhaps the most intuitive motion available on computers. So I love the way Filmora’s user interface is structured around dragging and dropping. It makes for a much less steep learning curve than some of the other options on this list, which is great for those of us who just want to get started without having to learn complex workflows. Of course, Filmora’s simplicity doesn’t mean a lack of power. It has an impressive library of creative assets, including transitions, filters, stickers, titles, and even royalty-free music. If you’ve edited videos before, you know the struggle of finding the perfect song to accompany your work. Having a library of pre-cleared audio available within your editor can truly be a lifesaver.

Those of us editing for social media may particularly benefit from Filmora’s multi-platform workflow options. The program is available on macOS, Windows, mobile, and even web browsers. That’s super helpful when you find yourself editing on an unfamiliar machine or on the go. Even more helpful, though, is Filmora’s direct sharing feature. Once you’ve finished editing your video, you don’t have to bother exporting it and then uploading it to your social media platform of choice. Instead, simply export it directly from Filmora! This might sound simple, but for those of us editing and uploading frequently, it’s a helpful time saver.

Why I picked it: iMovie has over one billion users for good reason. It’s one of the best fully free video-editing software options available, and is a great choice for casual creators with Apple hardware.

If you want to start editing videos as soon as possible, you can’t really go wrong with iMovie. If you have an Apple device, iMovie is likely installed on it already! This convenience sets the tone for iMovie, and that convenience is why I’m including it on this list. The user interface is intuitive, especially on mobile devices. And the program is packed with all kinds of templates, themes, effects, transitions, royalty-free soundtracks, sound effects, and much more. If you can think of a creative asset, chances are iMovie has something for you to add to your video project. That said, iMovie also lets you conduct some fairly advanced edits, too. For example, you can make color adjustments, stabilize unsteady footage, and achieve chroma keying for some VFX magic.

One of the best features of iMovie is the way it syncs with iCloud. You can start a project on your computer and continue it on your phone. This is fantastic for anyone who needs to edit on the move. And unlike some video-editing programs, which clearly focus on their desktop version over mobile, iMovie’s mobile app is extremely well-optimized. With a pinch of your fingers, you can zoom in or out; other finger gestures can split, trim, and rearrange the clips on your timeline. I found it extremely easy to use. In some cases, I thought the finger gestures were actually more efficient than their equivalent keyboard commands on the desktop version. Plus, you can film directly from your mobile device. As you can likely guess, that leads to some seriously optimized workflows. If you realize during the editing process you need to film and add another video clip, you can simply switch to the mobile version and record your clip directly into your project.

iMovie similarly makes exporting simple. You can choose between different formats and upload directly to social media accounts like YouTube and TikTok.

Why I picked it: VSDC Free Video Editor is perfect for people who want a capable non-linear video editor without paying the price tag that usually comes with such a program.

Non-linear video editing is the industry standard. It’s what professional programs like Premiere® Pro and DaVinci Resolve offer. But what does it mean? Put simply, it means your edits don’t actually alter your footage. The editing program applies your edits, but the base footage is stored in its unaltered form. That means your edits are non-destructive, allowing you to go back if you feel like you went down the wrong path or made a mistake.

Normally, these powerful programs come with a hefty price tag. Not so for VSDC Free Video Editor. The clue’s in the name, after all. But don’t let the (lack of a) price tag fool you. I found this to be a capable, powerful video editor. Beyond the basic features you’d expect in any editor, VSDC offers a range of advanced features, including chroma keying, motion tracking, color correction, and more. The program can handle high-quality footage, and is even capable of processing 360º video. Some advanced tools, like video stabilization, require paying for the pro version. But even that is cheaper than many other non-linear editors.

Why I picked it: DaVinci Resolve is the perfect option for people wanting to edit at a professional level without paying anything.

Yes, you read that right. DaVinci Resolve is completely free. But you would never guess that by using it. After all, it’s extremely powerful. In the last few years alone, dozens of movies were created using DaVinci Resolve, including several nominated for Oscars. Editors mostly rely on DaVinci Resolve for color work, and that’s still what it’s best at. When testing, I found the color grading tools a little tricky to get the hang of, but that’s less of a reflection of DaVinci Resolve and more related to how difficult color correction can be in itself. DaVinci Resolve gives you access to color wheels, curves, and qualifiers, which you can use to fine-tune your coloring and contrast to perfection. The program also supports HDR grading, Dolby Vision mastering, LUTs, and more. Perhaps most helpful is the ability to create custom color presets. Once you’ve created a preset, you can apply it to your entire project, ensuring a consistent vibe throughout your edited video. On the other end of the spectrum, keying and tracking tools let you adjust the color of specific portions of your frame. In short, DaVinci Resolve gives you an impressive (and potentially intimidating) level of control over your video’s color.

Color correction might be what DaVinci Resolve is best known for, and is what Hollywood editors most often use it for, but the program is also a capable video editor in its own right. In fact, it’s capable of handling most parts of video production. It’s non-linear, meaning your edits aren’t destructive. The program’s organization tools, which include smart bins and metadata tagging, make it easier to manage large projects with lots of different creative assets. Advanced audio editing is possible through Fairlight, which is integrated into the program and comes with a host of built-in features that make DaVinci a capable audio editing software. There are even some advanced VFX tools available, including motion graphics, text animation, and rotoscoping.

DaVinci’s cloud synchronization isn’t as seamless as, say, Apple’s or Adobe’s, but teams can work collaboratively through Blackmagic Cloud.

Why I picked it: unlike most options on this list, VEED.IO is browser-based, which is great for anyone who doesn’t want to (or can’t) download traditional video-editing software.

You might think editing video requires downloading bulky software. Think again. These days, it’s possible to edit videos within your browser. That saves you the hassle of installing software, and is especially useful for people with less powerful hardware that might be unable to handle the demands of video-editing programs. Of course, you’ll need an internet connection. But that’s a small price to pay for a capable, reasonably feature-rich video editor. As an added bonus, browser-based editing gives you great freedom to switch between different machines. You could start a project on one computer and finish it on another in an entirely different part of the world without much issue. Seriously, I’ve tried. Now, most people won’t need to be doing that. But it illustrates the possibilities that browser-based video editors offer.

Among the browser-based video editors, VEED.IO is a great choice. There’s minimal effort required to get started; in fact, all you need to do is create a free account. Once you do, you’ll be greeted with a clean, intuitive interface structured around simple drag-and-drop editing. For a program contained entirely within a web browser, VEED.IO offers a surprisingly extensive selection of editing features. There’s all the basics, of course, including trimming, splitting, merging, cutting, transitions, effects, and so on. But there are also a few interesting options. For example, VEED.IO has an AI-powered caption generator that can automatically detect speech and transcribe it into subtitles. Even better, it can translate those subtitles into over 100 different languages. This is especially useful for people creating videos for multiple markets. 

Speaking of different markets, let’s return again to the collaborative possibilities VEED.IO brings. The program’s entirely cloud-based. Multiple users can collaborate on a single project. For instance, one person might be working on the actual edits, while another reviews and leaves feedback, which is displayed in real-time. You can likely see the possibilities here. Real-time collaboration not only saves time, it saves you the hassle of exporting, downloading, and sending bulky video files, only to have to repeat the process once feedback finally arrives. 

VEED.IO is aimed at all kinds of editors, but it’s clearly optimized for a few use cases. Beyond automatic translated subtitles and real-time collaboration, VEED.IO allows users to create entire brand kits, filled with various assets to ensure easy compliance with brand identity. For personal creators, VEED.IO offers various video templates that have been optimized for different social media platforms.

Why I picked it: an extensive range of templates and AI-powered tools make Invideo an excellent option for anyone looking to edit video as fast and efficiently as possible.

Video editing can be a notoriously involved, time-consuming process. In fact, a general rule of thumb is that each minute of fully edited footage will take about three hours of editing to complete. Multiply that number by how many minutes you expect your final project to be, and you start to realize why blockbusters so often take longer to finish than initially expected. Of course, not all of us have the time (or patience) to go through the typical editing process. And that rule of thumb is based on professional editors, not beginners or even intermediate editors. If efficiency is what you’re after, then Invideo might be a great choice of video making software.

First, and perhaps most impressively, Invideo offers literally thousands of templates. The program’s template library covers all kinds of use cases, from presentations to social media content to advertisements and much, much more. Some of them are really quite impressive, and can help you throw together a professional-looking video far quicker than if you started from scratch. Invideo also offers an extensive library of videos, images, and audio, all of it royalty-free. That can save another chunk of time that might have been spent sourcing creative materials from external sites. Invideo also offers a few AI-powered tools that can save you even more time. The most useful, in our opinion, is the voiceover tool, which can transform written text into speech. You can choose between different languages and even accents, and the result is reasonably natural sounding for how easy it is to use. If you’re really short on time, Invideo offers an AI tool that can turn written text into an entire video, complete with stock footage, transitions, and an AI-generated voiceover. This feature didn’t just impress us. As of writing, it has a composite score of 8.6/10 based on dozens of verified reviews compiled by Info-Tech Research Group. Info-Tech even named this a “Top Rated Feature” for 2025. In part, that’s because Invideo lets you adjust the AI-generated output, which is often necessary to correct mistakes and make the product look more like what you envisioned.

For businesses, Invideo lets you create a brand kit, which can include logos, color palettes, fonts, and other assets to maintain a consistent look across different videos. And because Invideo is a browser-based editor, it has some impressive collaboration features. Teams can share projects and even make edits together. If you realize you’ve set up your project with the wrong aspect ratio, no worry; Invideo lets you instantly resize your videos to optimize them for different social media sites. This feature is also useful for people who’ll be publishing their content to multiple different sites with different aspect ratios. And, like various other options on this list, Invideo lets you publish your finished video directly to several different social media platforms, including YouTube and Instagram.

Why I picked it: Canva might be most famous for editing images and graphics, but it offers a similarly sleek video-editing experience, too.

Since its founding in 2013, and especially since it took off around 2019, Canva has become one of the most popular creative programs in the world. Over 200 million people use it every month, across almost every single country in the world and almost every one of the companies on the Fortune 500 list. Why? Well, Canva is best known for being a straightforward, intuitive, efficient platform for creative static images and graphics. But it actually has the ability to edit video, too.

If you’ve used Canva to design graphics, you’ll likely have an idea of what editing video is like. In short, the focus is on efficiency. The program offers thousands of templates, stock assets, stickers, transitions, and other creative assets to help you get from start to finish as fast as possible. This is a lifesaver for people who want an edited video without having to go through much of the work of actually editing video. Even absolute beginners should be able to figure out Canva’s simple drag-and-drop editor without much issue.

However, that doesn’t mean Canva isn’t suitable for more experienced editors. You won’t be able to create complex visual effects, for example, but the platform offers plenty of ready-made animations that can give your video a professional polish. There are some interesting tools, like a decent background remover and video enhancer. In some cases, Canva actually outperforms more hefty software; for example, you aren’t limited to a specific number of video layers, like in iMovie. And, as you might expect, it’s fully integrated. By that, I mean the video editor is linked to Canva’s other design tools. I found this to be one of the main advantages of editing video with Canva. You can create a graphic, chart, or even an animation, and then immediately drop it into your video project. No external applications needed. In fact, no applications needed at all, as Canva is entirely browser-based. There are mobile apps, and Canva’s cloud should sync projects from desktop browser to mobile app, allowing for seamless cross-platform editing.

For more advanced editing, you’ll need to shell out for one of Canva’s paid subscriptions. Depending what tier you opt for, you’ll get access to up to a couple dozen AI-assisted tools. They can remove, replace, and alter backgrounds, sync background music, reduce background noise, track objects, and more.

Why I picked it: Clipchamp offers you the best of both editing on a browser and desktop program, as long as your machine runs on Windows.

Most of the options I’ve covered here offer either an installable application or a browser-based editor. But what if you want both? That’s Clipchamp’s claim to fame. The browser-based version is accessible from practically any device that can run a modern web browser. But Clipchamp also comes pre-installed on modern Windows computers, making it an excellent free video-editing software for Windows 11 and beyond.

So what about the editing experience itself? It’s fairly beginner-friendly, with a straightforward drag-and-drop interface that’ll be familiar to anyone who’s edited videos before and shouldn’t take too long for absolute beginners to pick up. All the basic editing tools are available. Clipchamp isn’t really intended to do much more than basic editing, though, so users hoping for more creative freedom or power might be out of luck. That said, Clipchamp does have a few interesting tools. You can screen record directly within the app, which is a helpful timesave. AI tools can automatically generate captions for videos, and there’s also a text-to-speech tool with several different voices and accents. Clipchamp also lets you upload brand assets for consistency. And there’s a fair number of templates to help you get started.

Speaking of creative assets, Clipchamp’s stock library is pretty impressive. There’s plenty of high-quality footage, music, sound effects, and other assets for you to browse through and add to your projects. The stock library is searchable, too, which makes locating a specific kind of asset simple.

I think one of Clipchamp’s greatest strengths is its synergy with Windows. It syncs with other Microsoft products, including OneDrive cloud storage, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Teams. That means you can save projects directly to the cloud, for example, for colleagues to review and provide feedback. Syncing with the cloud also means easy sharing to social media.

Why I picked it: CapCut was designed and built specifically to be used on mobile devices, and is perfect for quickly creating short-form videos for social media.

We’re truly in the age of short-form content, whether you like it or not. By some estimates, 34 million videos are uploaded to TikTok every single day. Almost 700,000 Instagram Reels are sent through the app’s DMs every minute. If you’ve watched some of this content, you know most of it wasn’t edited, or was only edited at a basic level. For that kind of video creation, a bulky program packed with advanced editing features is likely unnecessary. Navigating a complex user interface for simple edits might not be the most efficient use of your time, especially if you’re a beginner at the bottom of the learning curve. Enter CapCut. This mobile app was specifically designed for people who want to quickly create eye-catching videos on their phone (or tablet). In fact, it’s owned by the same company that runs TikTok. It’s a straightforward but capable free video software that has some surprisingly powerful features.

For example, it supports high-resolution, 4K video exports. Plus, you’ll have access to AI-powered tools. These powerful tools can remove and replace the background of a video clip, automatically add text subtitles, track the motion of objects, stabilize shaky footage, correct colors, and add special effects to your videos. During testing, I particularly liked one tool called AutoCut, which can create an entire video from a collection of video clips. Another generates images based on text. You can remove objects, swap out backgrounds, and more, all with little more than a few taps. Not bad for a mobile app, right?

Other features focus on helping you get from idea to final product as fast and efficiently as possible. There are hundreds of templates available, including lots that sync certain audio with special effects to help you jump on viral trends. Various assets are also available, including transitions, effects, filters, and animated overlays to help you spice up your videos. CapCut not only gives users access to its own library of royalty free music; it can directly integrate with TikTok to help you access and use trending audio.

Some of these features are behind a paywall, but the free version of CapCut is still pretty impressive. If you’re someone who’s going to be doing a lot of editing on your phone, especially editing content aimed at social media, CapCut might just be the tool for you. Plus, if you end up wanting to make some edits on your desktop, CapCut also offers a desktop version, too.

Why I picked it: Perhaps the most powerful VFX tool available, Adobe^® After Effects^® is widely used by professionals around the world to add advanced effects, graphics, and more to video projects.

When you think of video editing, what comes to mind? For some people, video editing means the basics: cutting, arranging, and so on. Almost like video mixing. But for others, video editing means more than that: adding special effects, motion graphics, and other advanced visuals to a video project. If you lean more toward the second camp, then Adobe^® After Effects^® should be right up your street.

With After Effects^®, your imagination is really the limit. The program has powerful motion graphics tools, which can be used to create complicated text animations. Think, for example, of movies that have interesting-looking title sequences; those might have been created in After Effects^®. The program also has plenty of tools to help you add seamless visual effects. With advanced rotoscoping and chroma key tools, you can remove the background from clips and composite them into your project. Think layering an explosion onto a video clip, or placing your actor in the middle of a visually generated background scene. After Effects^® also allows you to create certain visual effects from scratch. It offers powerful support for 3D design and camera tracking. And if all that isn’t enough, there’s a massive ecosystem of third-party plugins available. Most of these cost money, but that’s because they’ve been developed by seasoned professionals and offer some truly astounding options for budding special effects artists.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of what After Effects^® is capable of. Its depth might seem exciting or intimidating; there’s no getting around the fact that it has a steep learning curve, but there’s no shortage of tutorials out there to help you figure your way around.

It’s this focus on visual effects that separates After Effects^® from Adobe^® Premiere^® Pro. While the latter is more often used to compile video clips together (the first kind of video editing I mentioned), After Effects^® is widely used for its special effects tools. If you’ve seen a film with special effects, you’ve likely seen the handiwork of an editor (or team of editors) using After Effects^®. Actually, even if you haven’t watched a film with special effects, you might have seen the impact of After Effects^®, because it’s often used to hide special effects that creators don’t want the audience to notice. Things like removing or adding objects to a scene, adjusting backgrounds, and so on. Avatar, Deadpool, Star Trek, Gravity… the list of blockbuster films that have involved After Effects^® at some point in production is long.

So what’s better, After Effects^® or Premiere^® Pro? Well, the reason Adobe still maintains both is because they aren’t really competing. In fact, the entire point is that they complement each other. That’s because they’re integrated through Adobe^® Creative Cloud^®, along with several other powerful programs. For example, you could use Premiere^® Pro to create the overall cut of your film, then add special effects to specific clips in After Effects^®. Instead of manually exporting each clip between each program, Creative Cloud^® lets you dynamically link the two programs together. When you make a change in After Effects^®, the result will automatically be updated in Premiere^® Pro.