If you are new to the video editing world, a free video editing software can be the best choice for you. Although most free video editors are feature limited, they are easy to use and can meet almost all of your basic video demands like cutting, trimming, cropping, or rotating. Our top 10 list focuses on the best free video editing software for Windows we could find, and it will give you an overview of what you can expect from each video editor.
Are you also looking for video editors for Mac, Linux, mobile phone, or online? Check our latest post 36 Best Video Editors for All the Platforms.
As we mentioned before, there are so many video editing software [free & paid] available on the market, but how to choose the right video editing software especially when you are a newbie and want a free video editing software before you dig deeper?
You might find that the video editing software below are either too simple to meet your demends like audio editing and color correction, or too difficult to understand the workflow, then you should look at Wondershare Filmora9, which has significant improvement in overall performance, making the product faster, more powerful, and taking the user editing experience to a new level. It is perfect for helping beginners and intermediate users create stylish videos by providing an intuitive user interface and built-in effects.
Import media files from your computer or cameras and smart phones, and directly drag-n-drop to the program.
How to write in bengali. Size: 4.9 MB License: Shareware Price: $29.97 Keywords: - - - - - - - Data Added 1: June 21, 2007 ezKEYS greatly facilitates the entering of capitals and other shifted characters by adding an automatic shift key function to the spacebar- great for one-handed typists. Allows to spell-check e-mail, forum, chat, and almost everywhere text is typed in Windows. Includes 16 free professional dictionaries including English, British, Canadian English, Medical, Legal, Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese (Iberian), Spanish And Swedish. Adds Spell Checking To All Programs Such As: Notepad, WordPad, Write, Word, Outlook, AOL Email/Forums, Outlook Express.
Easily crop, rotate, split or cut videos on the timeline. Then add effects and filters to enrich your video.
Save your video to different formats, or upload to YouTube, Vimeo, burn to DVD and more.
Level | Products | Input formats | Output formats | Pros | Cons |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
For beginners | Windows Movie Maker | ASF, AVI, DVR-MS, M1V, MP2, MP2V, MPE, MPEG, MPG, MPV2, WM, WMV | Windows Media Video (WMV) or DV AVI | Free, meets your basic editing demands | Service discontinued; No support for modern file formats |
VideoPad Video Editor | avi, wmv, mpv, divx and many more | WMV, AVI | Intuitive interface | Certain features become unavailable when using the free version of the software over a longer period of time. | |
Avidemux | AVI, MPEG, MOV, MP4, etc | AVI, MPEG, DIVX, XVID, MP4, etc | Has solid encoding options and its interface is user-friendly. | There are no video effects or transitions. | |
OpenShot | QuickTime, AVI, WMV, MPEG, etc | mpeg, avi, mp4, mov, etc | Free as well as powerful | Need to install add-ons if the OS you are using doesn't meet the software's system requirements. | |
VSDC Video Editor | AVI, QuickTime (MP4/M4V, 3GP/2G2, MOV, QT), HDVideo/AVCHD (MTS, M2TS, TS, MOD, TOD), WindowsMedia (WMV, ASF, DVR-MS), DVD/VOB, VCD/SVCD, etc | AVI, DVD, VCD/SVCD, MPEG, MP4, M4V, MOV, 3GP/3G2, WMV, MKV, RM/RMVB, FLV, SWF, AMV, MTV | Intuitive interface, friendly to beginners. | Technical support is not free. | |
For amateurs and pros | Kdenlive | QuickTime, AVI, WMV, MPEG, etc | mpeg, avi, mp4, mov, etc | Allows you to extend your capability with free add-ons. | No technical support. |
Blender | latest audio and video formats | .MOV, .MPEG4, .MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, WebM. | A lot of advanced features, perfect for advanced users | Learning curve is steeper for beginners; Very limited learning resources. | |
DaVinci Resolve | ARI, MTS, MXF, AVI, CIN, DNG, DPX, CDX, MP4, MXF, EXR, MOV | ARI, MTS, MXF, AVI, CIN, DNG, DPX, CDX, MP4, MXF, EXR, MOV | Stunning image quality. Color correction and audio editing are also excellent in Davinci Resolve. | Learning curve is steeper for beginners. | |
HitFilm Express | AVCHD, AVI, DV, MP4, MPEG, MOV, MMV | AVI, MP4 | Offers a wide spectrum of transitions and video effects | Feature limited while exporting video files, not friendly to beginners. | |
Lightworks | latest audio and video formats | mp4, MXF, Quicktime, AVI, mts, mpg, m2t | Has a free version | Not for beginners |
Ranked by skill level
Windows Movie Maker was once the world's most popular free video editing tool for Windows and users can make home movies by simple drag-and-drop. It contains features such as video effects, video transitions, adding titles/credits, audio track, timeline narration, and Auto Movie. Although Windows Movie Maker is built for Windows 7, and if you are looking for some free video editing software for Windows 8 or Windows 10, then you should skip Windows Movie Maker to use Microsoft Windows 10 Photos app. However, Windows Movie Maker has been discontinued by Microsoft, you can still find installation packages on some third-party authoritative download sites:
You can download Windows Live Movie Maker from Microsoft in File Hippohere.
Or download Windows Movie Maker 6 .
After you finish video editing, you can share video directly to social media platform including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. If you don't know your computer's system requirement, you can try this one. However, you must know it won't upgrade anymore, so you are not able to enjoy some innovative and high video editing technology.
The Windows Movie Maker includes some features listed below:
VideoPad is a cross-platform software for beginners. Although the free version limits the video exporting options to just two file formats. The VideoPad's interface doesn't take much time to get used to, and it perfectly adjusted to the needs of inexperienced video editors.
This is an intuitive, feature rich and easy to use video editing platform. Beginners can enjoy easy editing with its drag and drop type timeline and the loads of transitions, effects and speed adjustment features make customization easier.
If you like to use transitions and have various video clips, VideoPad includes more than 50 transition effects. After applying transitions, you can also adjust video speed to make slow motion or fast speed video effect. For audio, you can also record narations to make your video more detailed, which is a bonus for game lovers. However, this free video editor can't be used to make slideshow, so just pass it if you really care this function.
Features of this free video editor you should know:
Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports various file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs.
You can use it on Windows 10/7/8. As its interface is so clear, it lacks timeline, so you can't add filters and transitions. The whole design of Avidemux is that many functions are for practical use, not stylish purpose. If your needs is very basic, this free video editing software is a choice. For advanced video editing, it can't let you have more controls. The good thing is you can use it smoothly and learn it quicly if you are a new users in video editing industry.
Avidemux includes some features below:
Another open-source video editor which offers basic video editing features like trimming and slicing. It also provide lots of transitions and audio effects to help you make simple videos.
This free video editor can offer you unlimited video tracks in timeline. You can add many videos and audio clips. It also includes tile templates and video effects, so if you want to have more touches on your video, this free video program can also help you.
For audio editing, you can use waveforms to visualize your audio. It includes more than 70 languages. This free video editor is updated regularly, so you can always use the lasted video editing technology. However, you need to fix bugs or problems on your own as it is an open source editor, and the video effects are also limited.
It has tones of features and you can start for free. There is wide range of filters, overlays, transition effects and color correction abilities. This platform is designed to serve users with smooth editing experience so that even beginners can enjoy creative media projects. Thanks to its wide format support that helps to handle all popular media files with ease.
You can also use the build-in video converter tools to freely convert video/audio format to another format. It is a non-linear tool, which means you can place video clips in the timeline freely. You can also export your video to IG, FB and YouTube, which is powerful as a free video editor. You can also edit 4K and HD videos. For this point, not every free video editor can do.
Kdenlive is an open-source video editing software which is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux. This video editing software combines the simplicity of entry-level video editors with advanced video editing tools frequently used by experienced professionals.
As a free video editor, it is popular at first on Linux, but now you can also use it on Windows. It includes multi-track timeline to use, so you can import various video and audio clips onto timeline. For some special situation, say crash, Kdenlive can back up your file automatically, so no worries about file missing. From online forum and community, you can ask them questions if you have any questions, but sometimes you won't get answered as there is no support team.
Blender is the free open source 3D content creation which supports all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. Blender has many advanced features, such as modifier-based modeling tools, powerful character animation tools, a node-based material, etc. and is one of the best video editors for both Windows and Mac.
As a beginner users, it is difficult to use as it is designe for pros. It is totally free to use and distribute. The interface is customizable and flexible color settings. On the other hand, if you a semi-pros or want to improve your video edting to a higher level, this free video editor is best for you. The thing is you need to spend many time and energy to learn it. You can have a try to see if you like it or not.
Learn more about Blender >>
If you had access to the video editing pro level, then you must try DaVinci Resolve 14. Except for multi-camera editing, 3D editing, motion blur effects, and spatial noise reduction which are only available on the paid version DaVinci Resolve Studio, you can almost do any professional video/audio editing and color correction with DaVinci Resolve 14.
HitFilm Express is a good alternative to Adobe After Effects, it offers users with many visual effect compositing options, and it lets you use semi-professional video editing tools for free. But beginners may find the software's interface difficult to navigate.
Lightworks is a great free video editor featured with many video effects. It can edit up to 256 video, audio, and still image clips. But the user interface is very technical so many people find it hard to use. The pro version costs $25 a month.
Lately, it comes a new version 14.5. For more than 25 years, many movie makers use it as a professional tools to edit videos. You can use it to edit YouTube video and 4K films. Speaking of 4K, you can use proxy for smooth 4K video editing experience. If you want to edit 4K videos, this one is best for you.
Check this video to see more best video editing software in the market!
This is the article about free video editing software for Windows, please check some free video editing for mac here. We do love to hear from you in the comment below if there are some other awesome free video editing software for Windows which are worth mention.
Our editors independently research, test, and recommend the best products; you can learn more about our review process here. We may receive commissions on purchases made from our chosen links.
The granddaddy of video editing, Adobe Premiere Pro is the cross-platform, uber-popular timeline based video editor that’s long set the standard for video editing software. Capable of tackling nearly any type of video format, Adobe’s software is ready to produce video for any type of professional production, including film, television and the Web. Premiere Pro offers enough horsepower to handle 360-degree virtual reality video to 8K footage all in native format. It can even import and export footage from competitive software such as Final Cut Pro.
While most professional-grade software can handle multi-cam editing, Premiere Pro goes one step beyond, handling as many sources as necessary with as many angles as required. The inclusion of the bundled Lumetri Color Panel allows advanced color adjustments to be handled with ease. Additionally, Adobe’s integration with After Effects and Photoshop adds even more reason for professional grade editors to choose Premiere Pro.
Even if you’re an amateur you can feel like a professional filmmaker with Nero Platinum 2018 video editing software. If you're looking for a program that goes beyond just video, Nero Platinum 2018 could be the multi-tasking master in your arsenal. This multi-faceted program allows you to create, edit, burn, convert, organize, stream and play back all kinds of media, including videos, photos and music. This version includes 18 new movie design templates, 18 new disc menu templates and 12 design templates that are made to complement vertically-formatted video from your smartphone. In addition to its great editing features and 4K quality, Nero Platinum 18 also centralizes your media, so you can organize, manage and play all your files in one place.
Corel’s Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate gives you everything you’ll get with the standard copy of Pinnacle Studio 21, plus a host of upgraded features. It does everything the lower version will do: giving you seamless editing interface, the ability to work in full HD, as well as a great set of features for laying out a perfect story with video. But, it will also offer you a host of post effects that put this thing way out of its price class.
For starters, they’ve added in some crazy seamless morph transitions to help you blend together all the parts of your visual story. They’ve thrown in a pretty unique paintbrush filter effect that will work in tandem with already-shot video, letting you transform raw, live footage into living animations. Not only does Studio 21 Ultimate offer support for uploading 360-degree video but they’ve included a surprisingly intuitive set of trim, edit and control features for 360 video that will let you ensure your viewer gets the exact immersive experience you want.
Finally, rounding out their set of flagship additions, they give you the ability to include a motion-tracked image-blurring filter over the top of any element on the screen, meaning you can protect the identity of someone’s face, their license plate or anything else you’d prefer not to be in your final product.
Apple’s Final Cut Pro X software falls into what we call the “prosumer” category because it treads the line between a product for consumers who want to up their video-editing game and one for professionals who need powerful editing tools. It lacks a traditional timeline-track interface, which is enough to scare some users off, but the software is intuitive and powerful nonetheless. It has great organizational tools like libraries, ratings, tagging, auto analysis for faces and scenes, and automatic color coding for track-specific clips, useful keyboard short-cuts and drag-and-drop media importing give Adobe’s Premiere Elements a run for its money. Unfortunately, you can't directly open projects from Final Cut Pro 7 or earlier, but there are many third-party plug-ins that will help you out there.
With Movavi Video Editor, it’s fun and easy to create wonderful videos even for beginners. Simply drop your media files onto the timeline and use the Windows-friendly editing tools to customize. Like most video editors, the Movavi Video Editor allows you to make basic changes to your clips by trimming, cutting and rotating them to any angle. With this software, however, you can also become your own movie producer by using multiple filters, transitions, titles, stickers and special effects. Show multiple videos on one screen with the picture-in-picture tool or freeze the video at any frame for added emphasis. Make video cards to send to family and friends or preserve vacation memories in a format people will actually want to watch. Automatically improve video quality with Magic Enhance, or manually adjust color parameters like brightness, contrast and saturation for better viewability. Movavi Video Editor even helps you minimize annoying motion distortion with the stabilization tool.
When it comes to video editing for YouTube, almost every app does it well, but Corel VideoStudio Pro X10 does it better. With nearly every feature and tool that you need at your disposal (including transitions, effects, titles, templates and more), Pro X10 offers an outstanding array of production level value.
Support for 360-degree VR, 4K, Ultra HD and 3D media help round out the export opportunities available with Pro X10 and, while they may not all be supported by YouTube now, it’s good to know you have the capability for when they are. The user interface isn’t for beginners, but within a short amount of time, you’ll be a master at capturing, editing and sharing.
Added features such as time remapping for including slow motion, high-speed effects or freeze action are complemented by easily grouping or ungrouping clips on a timeline to edit in bulk or one at a time. With over 1,500 customizable effects, transitions and titles, there’s something for everyone. Even as the video itself is the focus, custom fitting your project with a soundtrack is handled well with custom-fit audio allowing your movies to both look and sound good.
Sony Movie Studio 13 was made with the digital filmmaker in mind – once you’ve edited your video to your satisfaction, you can directly upload it to Facebook or other social media for fast sharing. Create video in beautiful 4K (ultra HD) XAVCS, or AVCHD to give your vlogs a high-production, professional feel. Movie Studio 13 Platinum is touch-enabled, too, so you can create and edit movies even faster using your PC’s touchscreen. With large, easy-to-use buttons, fewer menus and the popular Simple Edit Mode, Sony Movie Studio 13 makes video editing fast and easy, so you can keep up with the Internet’s viral pace. The software also comes with ACID Music Studio 10 and Sound Forge Audio Studio 10 to take your online media up a notch.
Premiere Clip is your iOS/Android connection to Adobe’s most powerful editing programs: Premiere Pro and Premiere Elements. It’s part of the Creative Cloud ecosystem, which means you’ll need an Adobe ID to access it, but both the app and an account are free for all.
Premiere Clip is perfect for creatives whose videos are bound for social media channels like YouTube and Instagram. You can easily import video clips from places like your phone, Lightroom, Creative Cloud and Dropbox, and then use the app’s Freeform editor to trim or split clips, adjust exposure and highlights, add audio and more. And, of course, you can add filters, which is a given in today’s social media sphere.
Corel’s Windows-only VideoStudio offers an equally robust set of features comparative to Adobe or CyberLink’s product line. Right off the bat, it’s easy to see why VideoStudio is a great option: It offers support for 4K, 360-degree VR, multi-cam editing, as well as a large library of royalty-free music. Beginners will quickly learn to appreciate features such as 'checkmarks,' which can either let you know which clips you’ve already used or can apply effects to all the clips currently in your timeline at once. Additionally, voice detection helps you match subtitles to speech in your video clips.
Purchasing the full version of VideoStudio Ultimate X10 adds a whole extra set of options that beginners will quickly love, including multi-monitor support, easier title creation, and even stop-motion animation. Corel supports almost every output format imaginable, so it's ideal for sharing socially or for hosting online for the world to see. Another highlight for beginners is the inclusion of storyboard mode, which will help draft the exact vision they have in mind for a finished product without wasting hours and days on edits that may never see the light of day.
Magix is a bit of a sleeper as far as movie editors go, and honestly it does fall short in some of the higher level features that you’ll find in the big dogs like Final Cut and Adobe Premiere. But let’s start with the basics of what makes it great for a beginner, and that’s the fact that, well, it handles the basics really well. First off, it’ll run on most modern Windows machines, up through Windows 10, which is great for beginners because those people most likely won’t have the budget or desire to shell out for a Mac. So it’s software that will work out of the box for your affordable Windows machine. According to their website, the software has been going strong for 15 years, delivering upwards of 93 percent customer satisfaction on its iterations.
It starts with its simplest feature: a storyboard mode that allows you to lay out your narrative on a simpler, at-a-glance screen. That way if you don’t want to drill down to the details, you don’t have to get bogged down with all kinds of extra proprietary controls. But if you do want to drill down to a more detailed approach, you can do so with its Details mode that allows you to mix in 200 multimedia tracks, giving you seemingly endless possibilities for your project.
There are tons of in-program effects such as transitions, titles, credits, captions and even included audio scores, meaning you won’t get held up at any step of your editing process. There are panning and shift capabilities, high-quality post-processing zoom, as well as a plethora of color filtering plugins to give you the look you’ll need, even if the raw footage isn’t quite there. You’ll have the ability to export your movies in up to 4K resolution, and the software even supports 360-degree video projects. It’s a great powerhouse for beginners.
If you want something that is aimed more at the professional from a marketing standpoint, it couldn’t hurt to look into the Vegas Pro line. On its 15th iteration, Vegas has introduced a ton of new features, from hardware acceleration harnessing Intel QSV to a picture-in-picture OFX plug-in, all the way to a super intuitive new instant freeze frame option for referencing shots without stopping workflow. If you opt for the premium, upgraded package (which won’t run cheap), you’ll even get an exhaustive package of NewBlueFX fIlters to color your projects like a true Hollywood flick. What’s interesting about Vegas, and what we think gets overlooked, is they’ve attempted to give you an intuitive set of controls that takes the best of Final Cut, Premiere and others and merges them into one. Sure, it might not have the streamlined, Adobe CS-friendliness of Premiere, nor is it even compatible with Macs, but that’s OK. The workflow in this might just give certain users who can’t quite jive with the other guys a place to truly shine.
Platform - If you’re looking for a new video editing software package, you’ll want to look into whether if it is available for your platform before continuing to dig into it any further. If you have a Windows PC or a Mac, check the software manufacturer's website to see if a version is available for your device.
Experience - Are you brand new to video editing or a seasoned professional? Some video editing software packages can feel extremely intimidating with an endless number of settings and dials. If you are new to the game, consider picking out a started solution from companies like Corel and Nero.
Price - Professional video editing software packages and cause hundreds if not thousands of dollars. If you are looking to edit videos of your family events, you most likely won’t need the features in the professional suites. If you’re keeping it simple, don’t spend over $100 on your software of choice.
Intuitive, Fast EditingFastest video stream processor
Visual Effects & TransitionsIncludes over 50 effects & transitions
Supported Video FormatsSupports all popular video formats
Export to File or DiscBurn, upload, save and share
Pure Digital Audio ToolsEdit and apply effects to audio tracks
3D and 360 Video EditingEdit and export 3D and 360 video files
Designed to be intuitive, VideoPad is a fully featured video editor for creating professional quality videos in minutes.
|
|
Get it Free. A free video editor version is available for non-commercial use only. If you will be using it at home you can download the free version here. |
Using free video editing software is a convenient way to edit your videos. Plus, most of them are so easy to use that they're great for beginning editors.
You might want a video editing program if you need to extract audio from a video or add different audio, cut out parts of the video, add subtitles, build a DVD menu, merge video files, or fade a video in or out. Most vloggers need a video editor of some kind.
Because most free video editors limit their features to advertise their professional versions, you may find roadblocks that stop you from making advanced edits. For editors with more-advanced features but that aren't free, check out mid-level digital video software or these top professional video editing programs.
If you need to convert your video files to different file formats such as MP4, MKV, and MOV, this list of free video converters has some great options.
The easy-to-use interface.
It's open source.
Great user forum.
The application has multiple layers of setup.
Occasional lag.
Editing videos with OpenShot is extraordinary when you see everything you can do with it. You can download it free for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.
The supported features in this free editor include desktop integration for drag-and-drop, image and audio support, curve-based key frame animations, unlimited tracks and layers, and 3D animated tiles and effects.
OpenShot is also good for clip resizing, scaling, trimming, snapping, and rotation, plus motion picture credit scrolling, frame-stepping, time-mapping, audio mixing, and real-time previews.
The fact that you get all of this for free is reason enough to download it yourself and try it out before you purchase a video editor.
Minecraft 1.8.8 free download full version windows 10. Supports a wide range of video formats.
Easy to install and use.
Another video editing software program for both Windows and Mac is VideoPad, from NCH Software. It's free for non-commercial use.
It supports drag-and-drop, effects, transitions, 3D video editing, text and caption overlay, video stabilization, easy narration, free built-in sound effects, and color control.
VideoPad can also change the video speed, reverse the video, burn DVDs, import music, and export movies to YouTube and other similar sites and a variety of resolutions including 2K and 4K.
Supports many input formats.
Burn files directly to a disc.
Easy-to-use editing features.
May require purchase of needed features.
Can be slow to make conversions.
Limited number of output formats.
Freemake Video Converter is a free video converter with simple and easy-to-use editing features that set it apart from some of the more complex and confusing editors.
Being able to do light editing to your videos with the same tool you use to convert the file to a variety of other formats, or even burn the files directly to a disc, is convenient.
Some of the video editing features of this program include adding subtitles, clipping out sections you don't want in the video, removing or adding audio, and merging or joining videos.
Features you won't find elsewhere.
Schedule 1 drugs list. Exports to a variety of file formats.
Includes optional screen recorder.
Not super user-friendly.
Some video lag with free version.
VSDC is a full-featured free video editing tool that you can install on Windows. A fair warning though: This program might be a little hard to use for beginners because of the sheer number of features and menus.
However, if you poke around for while and play with your videos within the editor, you'll find that it's not quite as daunting as it seemed when you first opened it.
There's even a wizard you can run to make things easier. Use it to do add lines, text, and shapes, as well as charts, animations, images, audio, and subtitles. Plus, as any good video editor should, VSDC can export videos to a variety of file formats.
The VSDC Video Editor setup lets you easily install the company's video capture program and screen recorder. These are optional, but they may come in handy in certain projects.
Easy-to-use interface.
Plenty of tools to improve video and audio quality.
Supports 4K.
Limited features available.
Output controls not robust.
IMovie is free for macOS users. It offers many options for editing video and audio plus adding photos, music, and narration to your videos.
One of the best features of iMovie is its ability to make 4K-resolution movies. You can even start doing so from your iPhone or iPad and then finish on your Mac. That's pretty cool!
User-friendly with a classic Microsoft feel.
Great for beginning video editors.
Movie Maker was Windows' pre-installed free video editing software. While it is no longer pre-installed, you can still download this application from some third-parties and use it to create and share high-quality movies.
It's included in this list because it's already on lots of Windows computers, which means you might not even need to download anything in order to start using it.
If you've tried out these video editing programs but prefer some other options or you're more interested in editing videos online for free than downloading software, there are several online editors that function in the same way as these downloadable tools:
These services are great for re-editing and remixing web videos, and some even let you produce DVDs of your videos.