Updated: January 1, 2021 Home » Freeware and Software Reviews » Video, Animation And YouTube
Your first video editor software is probably Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker or Apple's iMovie, and also YouTube Video Editor (Online). These are basic video editing software, it is simple and easy to use and gets the job done. However, if you are searching for alternatives, something much more powerful because you've decided to go pro on YouTube, these two basic video editor just doesn't fulfill all of your needs.
Related Article ➤ 11 Free Software for Video Capturing, Game Broadcasting and Online Streaming
If both Apple's Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Elements video movie making software are too expensive, below are some alternatives that is as good as these professional software. I am against software piracy, if you cannot afford these commercial software, please do not crack them via torrent. Please respect other people's intellectual copyrights, you won't want others to steal your stuff too, right? Without further ado, here are 8 of the best and highly recommended video editing programs for YouTube movies.
HitFilm Express: A Free Video Editor That You Can Upgrade. Uncluttered user interface.
- OpenShot's simple, user-friendly interface shows some extra polish you don't always see in a free open-source video editor. Combined with the built-in tutorial when you first launch the software and the full user guide available on the website, OpenShot makes video editing easy for beginners and experts alike.
- Whichever video editing software you use, try looking up keyboard shortcuts for your most repeated tasks. Also, you can find a ton of videos on YouTube (and other sites) showing you how to do cool editing tricks. To learn a particular app, consider attending an in-person workshop or online course. Edit for pacing.
↓ 01 – HitFilm Express | Windows | Mac
Video editing, VFX, and all the power you need to make something cool. Take your first step towards pro-filmmaking with our free starter software: HitFilm Express. Perfect for students, YouTubers, and beginner filmmakers. HitFilm Express takes your workflow to the next level. Seamlessly combining a huge array of features providing amateurs and professionals everything they need to see a project through to the end.
↓ 02 – Avidemux | Windows | Mac | Linux
Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.
Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license. The program was written from scratch by Mean, but code from other people and projects has been used as well. Patches, translations and even bug reports are always welcome.
↓ 03 – VSDC Free Video Editor | Windows
Free video software that allows you to edit video files and create videos of all types. It supports the most popular video/audio formats and codecs, including DVD, HD and GoPro videos. Preconfigured profiles make the creation of videos for various multimedia and mobile devices a snap. The video editor offers a number of versatile features both for home and business use: text and audio overlay, an array of charts and diagrams as well as a slideshow maker.
Support of virtually all popular codecs and video formats, such as AVI, MP4, MKV, MPG, WMV, 3GP, FLV and others; audio files: MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, PCM, OGG, AAC, M4A, AMR and others; as well as image files: BMP, JPG, PNG, PSD, ICO, TIFF, etc.
↓ 04 – GoPro Quik | Windows | Mac
Quik makes it easy to access, edit and enjoy your GoPro photos and videos. Automatically import1 your footage and create awesome videos synced to music in just a few clicks. And with an optional GoPro Plus subscription, it's even easier to create and share epic videos with Quik. You'll have a huge variety of soundtracks to choose from, and you can auto upload your photos and videos to the cloud to edit and enjoy on your phone—anytime, anywhere.
- Add photos and time lapse sequences to your videos, and see them come to life with panning effects
- Create awesome videos synced to music with just a few clicks
- Auto upload to the cloud and unlock additional soundtracks when you subscribe to GoPro Plus2
- Add gauges and graphs to your videos that show how fast, far and high you went3
- Automatically import1 and organize your photos and videos
- Create and share short video clips
- Easily view and edit burst and time lapse photos
- Update your GoPro products with the latest features for optimal performance
↓ 05 – VideoLAN Movie Creator ( Alpha ) | Windows | Mac | Linux
VideoLAN Movie Creator is a non-linear editing software for video creation based on libVLC and running on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X! It is free software distributed under the terms of the GPLv2. Note that VLMC is still under development and therefore not ready for beta testing or production yet. It will be completely Free – no spyware, no ads and no user tracking.
↓ 06 – Pitivi | Linux
Built upon the GStreamer multimedia framework, Pitivi aims to be an intuitive and flexible video editor that integrates well with GNOME and can appeal to newbies and professionals alike. Pitivi pronounciation is a Free video editor with a beautiful and intuitive user interface, a clean codebase and a fantastic community.
↓ 07 – Shotcut | Windows | Mac | Linux
Shotcut is a free, open source, cross-platform, non-linear video editor.
- Support for the latest audio and video formats thanks to FFMPEG
- Support for 4K resolutions
- Audio scopes: loudness, peak meter, waveform, spectrum analyzer
- HTML5 (sans audio and video) as video source and filters
- Capture (record) SDI, HDMI, webcam (V4L2), JACK audio, PulseAudio, IP stream, X11 screen, and Windows DirectShow devices
- Multi-core parallel image processing (when not using GPU and frame-dropping is disabled)
- DeckLink SDI keyer output
- OpenGL GPU-based image processing with 16-bit floating point linear per color component
↓ 08 – Lightworks Free | Windows | Mac | Linux
Ps3 emulator for laptop.
Image Source: mariojrmatos.com
There are two licenses available for Lightworks: a Free seven-day renewable license that all users can activate immediately after installation, and a Pro license which can be purchased as a Month, Year or Outright from the Lightworks Shop. Lightworks is EditShare's Academy and Emmy award-winning, professional Non-Linear Editing (NLE) software supporting resolutions up to 4K as well as video in SD and HD formats. Xamarin studio community edition. In the last 25 years Lightworks has been used to edit some of the finest films in cinema history: The Wolf of Wall Street, LA Confidential, Pulp Fiction, Heat, Road to Perdition, Hugo, The King's Speech and many more! We're proud of its heritage and we want to share it with you. Discover the incredible features of this application and why Oscar nominated editors around the world use Lightwork Pro every day.
- Realtime effects, including over 100 presets
- Advanced multicam editing
- Second monitor output
- Vimeo (H.264 / MPEG-4) 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p and 1080p (HD)
- YouTube (H.264 / MPEG-4) 240p, 360p, 480p and 720p
↓ 09 – Kdenlive | Linux
Kdenlive is a free and open-source video editor for GNU/Linux. It is an intuitive and powerful multi-track video editor, including most recent video technologies, released as a free software (GPL). Using Kdenlive is investing in a community driven project, which aims to establish relationships between people in order to built the best video tools.
Support for a wide range of codecs and formats, among which:
↓ 06 – Pitivi | Linux
Built upon the GStreamer multimedia framework, Pitivi aims to be an intuitive and flexible video editor that integrates well with GNOME and can appeal to newbies and professionals alike. Pitivi pronounciation is a Free video editor with a beautiful and intuitive user interface, a clean codebase and a fantastic community.
↓ 07 – Shotcut | Windows | Mac | Linux
Shotcut is a free, open source, cross-platform, non-linear video editor.
- Support for the latest audio and video formats thanks to FFMPEG
- Support for 4K resolutions
- Audio scopes: loudness, peak meter, waveform, spectrum analyzer
- HTML5 (sans audio and video) as video source and filters
- Capture (record) SDI, HDMI, webcam (V4L2), JACK audio, PulseAudio, IP stream, X11 screen, and Windows DirectShow devices
- Multi-core parallel image processing (when not using GPU and frame-dropping is disabled)
- DeckLink SDI keyer output
- OpenGL GPU-based image processing with 16-bit floating point linear per color component
↓ 08 – Lightworks Free | Windows | Mac | Linux
Ps3 emulator for laptop.
Image Source: mariojrmatos.com
There are two licenses available for Lightworks: a Free seven-day renewable license that all users can activate immediately after installation, and a Pro license which can be purchased as a Month, Year or Outright from the Lightworks Shop. Lightworks is EditShare's Academy and Emmy award-winning, professional Non-Linear Editing (NLE) software supporting resolutions up to 4K as well as video in SD and HD formats. Xamarin studio community edition. In the last 25 years Lightworks has been used to edit some of the finest films in cinema history: The Wolf of Wall Street, LA Confidential, Pulp Fiction, Heat, Road to Perdition, Hugo, The King's Speech and many more! We're proud of its heritage and we want to share it with you. Discover the incredible features of this application and why Oscar nominated editors around the world use Lightwork Pro every day.
- Realtime effects, including over 100 presets
- Advanced multicam editing
- Second monitor output
- Vimeo (H.264 / MPEG-4) 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p and 1080p (HD)
- YouTube (H.264 / MPEG-4) 240p, 360p, 480p and 720p
↓ 09 – Kdenlive | Linux
Kdenlive is a free and open-source video editor for GNU/Linux. It is an intuitive and powerful multi-track video editor, including most recent video technologies, released as a free software (GPL). Using Kdenlive is investing in a community driven project, which aims to establish relationships between people in order to built the best video tools.
Support for a wide range of codecs and formats, among which:
- Free formats (Matroska/Ogg container, VP9/Theora video, Vorbis/Opus audio…).
- MPEG formats (MOV/TS container, H265/H264/MPEG2 video, MP3/AC3/AAC audio…).
- Lossless formats (Snow/FFV1 video, FLAC/Wav audio…).
Support for a wide range of camcorders and cameras, including:
- Low resolution camcorder (Raw and AVI DV editing).
- Mpeg2, mpeg4 and h264 AVCHD (small cameras and camcorders).
- High resolution camcorder files, including HDV and AVCHD camcorders.
- Professional camcorders, including XDCAM-HD™ streams, IMX™ (D10) streams, DVCAM (D10) , DVCAM, DVCPRO™, DVCPRO50™ streams and DNxHD™ streams (decoding only, encoding untested). Please note that Kdenlive does not offer the original codecs, but only that we use FFmpeg free software codecs, which can read original streams and sometimes export as well. When you own a camcorder, there is no reason why you should not be able to read your own films.
↓ 10 – OpenShot | Windows | Mac | Linux
OpenShot Video Editor is a free, open-source video editor for Linux licensed under the GPL version 3.0. OpenShot can take your videos, photos, and music files and help you create the film you have always dreamed of. Easily add sub-titles, transitions, and effects, and then export your film to DVD, YouTube, Vimeo, Xbox 360, and many other common formats.
- Powerful curve-based Key Frame animations
- Desktop integration (drag and drop support)
- Clip resizing, scaling, trimming, snapping, rotation, and cutting
- Video transitions with real-time previews
- Compositing, image overlays, watermarks
- SVG friendly, to create and include vector titles and credits
- Support for Rotoscoping / Image sequences
- Video encoding (based on FFmpeg)
- Ken Burns effect (artistic panning over an image)
- Digital video effects, including brightness, gamma, hue, greyscale, chroma key (bluescreen / greenscreen) , and many more!
- OpenShot provides extensive editing and compositing features, and has been designed as a practical tool for working with high-definition video including HDV and AVCHD .
↓ 11 – Cinelerra | Linux Ubuntu
Cinelerra.Org has released the fastest and highest quality free media production software anywhere, now with FFMPEG and 4K support. Cinelerra has been freely download over 1 Million times since 2002 and is used daily by thousands of artists everyday in over 50 countries. We are representing the media generation who believes they should always have access to capable and effective free media production software in order to pursue their artistic and technological interests. Cinelerra is designed by an artists for artists and it not a science project nor a museum piece, it is a active growing software application that has been freely downloaded for over ten years by artists all over the world.
Open Source Youtube Video Editors
↓ 12 – VideoPad Video Editor [ Home Edition ] | Windows | Mac
Windows Video Editor Open Source
This full-featured video editor lets you easily create your very own professional looking videos, complete with transitions, music and narration. Make the most of your captured memories with VideoPad Video Editor. Easily cut, paste and piece together your footage and create an enjoyable movie for friends and family to see.