16 Best Video Editing Software for Beginners

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Video is an important part of any marketing strategy. If you’re not using video already, you’re missing out. About 80% of marketers say that video helps them increase sales and 81% of marketers have gone so far as to use paid media to promote videos on Facebook. And users love video, too, with 54% of people wanting marketers to produce more video content and social media video generating as much as 1200% more shares than text and image content combined.

As some marketers say, “if content is king, video is the crown.”

But what are you supposed to do if you don’t have a video studio or an in-house staff of video specialists to record and edit your videos? Never fear! These days, it’s easier than ever to create high-quality videos on your own, without an in-house staff or outsourcing your video marketing efforts. In this article, we’re going to share the 16 best video editing software for beginners that you can use to create professional-grade video content to take your content marketing strategy to the next level.


Best Video Editing Software for Beginners:


Best Video Editing Software for Beginners

Nearly anyone can create high-quality, professional-level videos with little more than a smartphone and the right video editing tools. But there are tons of tools on the market. If you’re a beginner, how do you find the best video editing software for you? We’ve got you covered with this list! No matter what you’re looking to edit—ads, social media videos, short films, or even a full-length movie—finding video editing software that has all of the features you need and is still beginner-friendly can be a daunting task. Stick to the video editing software options on this list and you’ll find a great tool that’s easy to use, is compatible with your existing hardware and software, and offers the features and support you need at a price that you can afford.

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video editing software beginners
2024

1. Movavi

Movavi

Platforms: Windows, Mac

Movavi is a great video editing software for beginners. It includes drag-and-drop controls, audio editing, transitions, filters, and you can export to popular video formats or share directly from the software. Movavi also gives users the ability to cut and splice videos, create customized titles, and sync sound to images.

Key Features:

  • Drag-and-drop functionality
  • Built-in intros, videos, backgrounds, music, sounds
  • Filters, transitions, and titles
  • Keyframe animation of titles, overlay video, stickers, and more
4.6 out of 5 stars
Ratings
Features & Pricing
Pros and Cons
Ratings
Features
4.4
Ease of Use
5.0
Support
4.3
Overall Score
4.6
Features & Pricing
3D Video Editing
Audio Tools
Brand Overlay
Collaboration
Media Library
Social Sharing
Speed Adjustment
Split / Merge
Supports HD Resolution
Text Overlay
Video Capture
Video Stabilization
Collaborative editing
Unlimited video exports
Royalty-free music
1 million images
Custom uploads
Custom watermarks
Video resizer
Convert image to video
Automated Voice Overs
Content Library
Customizable Branding
Customizable Templates
Intelligent Frames
Meme Creator
Multiple Layers
Power Transitions
Preview Functionality
Crop & Trim
Text-to-Speech
Video Editing
Video Library
Templates
3000+ Licensed Music Tracks
40+ Professional Fonts
1 million+ Images
Desktop and iOS app
Animated GIFs
Font Imports
2D Character Creators
Team Account Management Console
Price on request
Pros and Cons
Intuitive user interface for effortless navigation
Comprehensive features: PiP, chroma-key, titles, keyframing, and motion tracking
Audible transitions for seamless content flow
Rapid movie generation with AI-assisted motion tracking and Montage Wizard
Limited trimming capabilities and absence of clip pre-trimming
Slower rendering speeds compared to rivals
Incompatible with Apple Silicon M1 chips
Restricted keyframe editing and less effective chroma-key tool
Best for:
4.6 out of 5 stars

2. OpenShot

OpenShot

Platforms: Windows, Mac, and Linux

OpenShot has an easy-to-use interface that’s great for beginners. It doesn’t have a huge array of editing features, but it’s a solid option for beginners to use for basic editing. OpenShot is useful for resizing, trimming, scaling, snapping, and rotation. In addition, you’ll find features like scrolling credits, time mapping, audio editing, frame stepping, and real-time preview.

Key Features:

  • Drag-and-drop functionality
  • Video effects like brightness, gamma, greyscale, hue, and greenscreen
  • Unlimited layers for audio tracks, background videos, and watermarks
  • Customizable title cards
  • Keyframe animation capabilities

3. VSDC

VSDC

Platforms: Windows

VSDC is a video editing software that can be used to create a movie of any length and complexity. You can use VSDC to process image and video transformations with subpixel resolution and use 10+ mask types to hide, blur, or highlight elements in your video.

Key Features:

  • 4K and HD export
  • Video stabilization tool
  • YouTube uploader
  • 3D templates
  • Blending modes and Instagram-like filters
  • Color-correction tools

4. Lightworks

Lightworks

Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

Lightworks is one of the best YouTube video editing software for beginners. Even the free version includes everything you need to create professional-grade videos in HD and SD formats. It has a simple, intuitive, and easy-to-use interface and includes a collection of video tutorials to help beginners create amazing videos right from the start.

Key Features:

  • Supports a wide range of video formats
  • Speed optimization
  • High-quality trim functions
  • Multicam editing
  • Real-time team project sharing with full control over editing access for each user
  • Easy sharing of videos to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and Instagram
4.2 out of 5 stars
Ratings
Features & Pricing
Pros and Cons
Ratings
G2
3.5
Capterra
4.4
Trustpilot
4.6
Overall Score
4.2
Features & Pricing
3D Video Editing
Media Library
Video Capture
Video Stabilization
Price on request
Pros and Cons
Best for: Social media creators, corporate presenters and educators.
4.2 out of 5 stars

5. Adobe Premiere

Adobe Premiere

Platforms: Windows, Mac

Adobe Premiere Pro is the choice for most video professionals but it also has a user-friendly interface making it the perfect choice for beginners. You can edit videos for color grade, adjust video sound, and import graphics and special effects from other Adobe apps.

Key Features:

  • Import footage from any file format
  • Trim footage with precision
  • Add animation and video effects
  • Manage your audio editing and sound effects
  • Adjust colors and white balance

6. Levuro

Levuro

Platforms: Web-based 

Levuro is a robust web-based video and image editor, geared towards optimizing content for social media channels. Its intuitive interface and array of versatile tools make it an excellent choice for beginners looking to create visually stunning content. Apart from basic editing functions, such as formatting, cropping, and rotation, it offers a variety of ways to express creativity, including applying filters, transforming or enlarging images, and adding text or stickers. 

Key Features: 

  • Multiplatform image and video optimization 
  • Powerful editing suite 
  • Branding consistency 
  • In-browser access and sharing 
  • Preview functionality 
  • Live stream editing 
  • AI-powered key scene detection 
      Levuro
      4.5 out of 5 stars
      Levuro provides an easy way to publish and schedule your posts and Stories across a range of social media platforms. It places much emphasis on ease of use, making it particularly easy to create posts, customized for each of your social platforms.
      Ratings
      Features & Pricing
      Pros and Cons
      Ratings
      Features
      4.0
      Ease of Use
      4.9
      Reporting
      4.4
      Overall Score
      4.5
      Features & Pricing
      Automated Publishing
      Content Management
      Post Scheduling
      Reporting/Analytics
      Team Workflow & Collaboration
      Content Calendar
      Live Streaming Support
      Price starting at:$15
      Pros and Cons
      Makes scheduling and publishing posts very easy
      Offers a genuinely useful Free plan
      Easy to learn
      No clear way to return from Settings to your Home Page (you get there by clicking on Publish, which I only found by trial and error)
      Restricts many of its most innovative features to enterprise users, along with some (like a usable graphics editor) that competitors offer on much cheaper plans.
      Not as many features as some of the competition
      Best for: Small to medium-sized businesses
      Levuro
      4.5 out of 5 stars
      Levuro provides an easy way to publish and schedule your posts and Stories across a range of social media platforms. It places much emphasis on ease of use, making it particularly easy to create posts, customized for each of your social platforms.

      7. Movie Maker

      Movie Maker

      Platforms: Windows

      Movie Maker is a great video editing software for beginners or those who need a simple tool to make quick edits to short videos. It offers basic functions like video joining, adding background music, and text caption as well as more advanced features like image filter, transition effects, pan-tilt-zoom effects.

      Key Features:

      • Make movies from video clips and photos
      • Trim, rotate, join video clips
      • Add and edit background music
      • Support most popular media formats
      • Overlay text captions, emoticon, still PIP, sound clips on video clips

      8. Lumen5

      Lumen5

      Platforms: Online

      Lumen5 is a nice option for beginners looking for an easy-to-use video editing software. Using artificial intelligence, Lumen5 can even turn text into a video. You simply copy and paste your text into Lumen5 and let the software build your video! Lumen5 includes branding features like watermarks and logos, free audio, and font sizing choices.

      Key Features:

      • Artificial intelligence to create videos quickly and easily
      • Searchable library with millions of free media files
      • Customize your videos to match the look and feel of your brand
      • Optimize every video to improve performance and conversion rates

      9. Blender

      Blender

      Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

      Blender is a free, open-source 3D animation suite that includes a functional video editor that will meet the needs of most users. In addition to features that help model and render 3D animations, Blender also offers features like video masking, cuts and splicing, color grading, and more.

      Key Features:

      • Live preview, luma waveform, chroma vectorscope, and histogram displays
      • Audio mixing, syncing, scrubbing, and waveform visualization
      • Up to 32 slots for adding video, images, audio, scenes, masks, and effects
      • Speed control, adjustment layers, transitions, keyframes, filters, and more
      4.5 out of 5 stars
      Ratings
      Features & Pricing
      Pros and Cons
      Ratings
      G2
      4.5
      Capterra
      4.6
      Overall Score
      4.5
      Features & Pricing
      3D Video Editing
      Media Library
      Video Capture
      Video Stabilization
      Price on request
      Pros and Cons
      Best for: Modeling, video editor, sculpting, simulations
      4.5 out of 5 stars

      10. Shotcut

      Shotcut

      Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

      Shotcut is another open-source video editing software for beginners that includes a ton of tutorials to help you get started. Shotcut supports a broad range of formats with extensive audio editing options, tons of video effects, a vast array of video editing features, and more.

      Key Features:

      • Support for the latest audio and video formats
      • Native timeline editing (no import needed)
      • Multi-format timeline so you can mix and match resolutions and frame-rates within a project
      • Advanced audio filters

      11. iMovie

      iMovie

      Platforms: Mac

      If you’re a Mac user, you’ve probably heard of iMovie. This app offers a simple, drag-and-drop interface as well as powerful video editing tools that make it a breeze to add titles, music, and effects. iMovie lets you choose from dozens of styles to add animated titles and credits to your movie, as well as an array of special effects, filters, and sounds.

      Key Features:

      • Support for 4K resolution
      • Cloud-storage functionality
      • Dozens of studio-quality title animations
      • Stylish, contemporary video filters
      • Built-in music, sound effects, and voiceover recording
      • Speed controls

      12. HitFilm Express

      HitFilm Express

      Platforms: Windows, Mac

      HitFilm Express is more of an advanced-beginner video editing software but it’s worth the time it takes to learn the software. This tool is used to produce Hollywood-level films, after all. And, even the free version is more than enough for most video editing beginners. With HitFilm, you’ll get access to an enormous array of video editing tools like composite shot enhancement, picture-in-picture, behavior effects, and a lot more.

      Key Features:

      • Professional-grade video editing
      • Composite shot enhancements (animate two separate shots together for unreal video effects)
      • Unlimited video and audio timeline-track creation
      • An adaptive trimmer
      • Audio mixer
      • Transition options like push, zoom, and dissolve

      13. Vimeo

      Vimeo

      Platforms: Android, iOS

      Vimeo is a video editing software for beginners using mobile devices to edit video. It uses artificial intelligence to create video content fast. You simply choose your editing style, add your footage, and pick the music you want. Vimeo will then edit and create your video as well as make music suggestions to match. It’s an incredible software that’s useful for streamlining to the creation process. Plus, the app lets you know how many people have watched your video from the built-in insights dashboard.

      Key Features:

      • Wide range of themes
      • iStock integration for high-quality stock images
      • Facial recognition, filters, effects, and auto-cropping
      • Professional auto-editing ability
      • Share videos across marketing channels
      • Unlimited HD movie downloads

      14. DaVinci Resolve

      DaVinci Resolve

      Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux

      DaVinci Resolve is a video editing software for beginners that uses 8K editing, visual effects, color correction, and audio, making it the choice for many professional users. You can use DaVinci both offline and online and the free version of the software is probably all you’ll need if you’re just getting started. DaVinci Resolve offers custom timeline settings, adjustment clips, facial recognition, speed warp retiming, image stabilization, audio scrubbing, and a lot more.

      Key Features:

      • High-quality motion estimation speed changes and frame rate conversions to easily and realistically speed up or slow-down clips
      • Dual timeline for quick navigation, cutting, and trimming
      • Facial recognition that detects faces in your clips and automatically creates bins based on the people in each shot
      • Dedicated trim interface that gives you the ability to edit in minute detail
      • Built-in tools for picture-in-picture effects, retiming, stabilization, dynamic zoom, text, and audio
      • Intelligent auto-editing that syncs audio and visual clips for you

      15. KineMaster

      KineMaster

      Platforms: Android, iOS

      KineMaster is a full-featured video editor for Android and iOS with easy-to-use tools like voiceovers, blending modes, speed control, video reverse, green screen (chroma key), and more. With KineMaster, you can even do frame-by-frame editing to fine-tune your video. It’s a free video editing software for beginners that will lend an air of professionalism to your video projects.

      Key Features:

      • Multiple layers of video, images, stickers, special effects, text, and handwriting
      • Add voice-overs, background music, voice changers, and sound effects
      • Edit and export 4K 60 FPS video
      • Keyframe animation tool for adding motion to layers
      • Instant preview

      16. Pinnacle

      Pinnacle

      Platforms: Windows

      Pinnacle Studio video editor is great for beginners and professionals. It offers advanced keyframing so you can fine-tune every second of your clips, transitions, and effects. Pinnacle includes creative effects and professional-level tools that you can use to build creative videos. With Pinnacle, you can also edit both small and large video projects quickly and easily using customizable shortcuts and workflows.

      Key Features:

      • Trim, split, crop, and rotate videos
      • Wide range of templates, filters, and effects
      • Add titles, graphics, and overlays
      • Explore Seamless Transitions, Paint Effects, Video Masking, Color Grading, and more (Pinnacle Studio Ultimate)


      Choose the Best Video Editing Software for Beginners

      There you have it! The 16 best video edit software for beginners that we’re loving right now. Many of these tools offer free trials, so you can test them out and find the tool that works best for you. Each video editing software we’ve listed here has its own pros and cons, but you’re the best judge of what features you absolutely need and which ones you can live without. When choosing the best video editing software, though, there are a few things to consider.

      Budget

      For beginners to video editing, you’ll definitely want to find a software that is either free or offers a free trial so you can take the time to get to know the software and use it to edit a video or two before you commit.

      Integrations and Platforms

      The platform you’re going to use to edit videos will dictate the video editing software you can use, to a degree. Some of the tools on this list are available across platforms but a few of them are available only for specific platforms (such as iMovie for Mac) or devices.

      User Interface

      When looking for the best video editing software for beginners, you’ll want to choose a software that has a user-friendly interface with little-to-no learning curve.

      Features

      Think about the features that you need for your video editing projects. It helps to make a list of the features you absolutely need, features that would be nice to have, and features you don’t really need. Armed with this information, you will be less tempted to go all-in on that professional video editing software that comes with bells and whistles you’ll never use.

      About the Author
      Jacinda Santora is a copywriter, marketing consultant, and owner of JMS Copy. She enjoys using her SEO expertise combined with experience in and a deep love for all things marketing to create high-quality marketing-related content