Free Video Editing Software: Choose The Best One Tailored For Your Needs

It is 2020, and video content is everywhere. It does not matter if you are a digital marketer, an entrepreneur, a product manager, we all need to produce video content. Well, you can be a video editor too and might be looking out for a platform to create several videos, both faster and better. The positive side to that today is, there are several different video editing software that solves specific use cases exceptionally well.

For that reason, we have put together a guide that will help you to choose the right video editor that can be tailor-made for your use case.

1. Four best video editing software to create Video ads, promo videos, and social media videos
2. Three best youtube video editing software
3. Three best free video editing software
4. Three best video editing software to create explainer videos
5. Three best video editing software to convert articles to video

Wow!! That’s covering more than 15 top video editors from different categories that should help you to make the right choice.

Four Best Video Editing Software to Create Video Ads, Promo Videos, and Social Media Videos

If you own a Shopify store, run a digital marketing agency, or if you are a digital marketer, it might be essential for you to create different video ads for Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and more.

1. InVideo – Best for Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced Video Editors

InVideo is one of the best-rated video editing software, according to G2 Crowd and Capterra, with a rating of 4.8/5 on both platforms. It also used by large companies like ATT, Aspen, Microsoft, and Reuters.

If you are creating video ads for Facebook, Youtube, or Instagram, InVideo has to offer 1000’s of templates.

They have templates for restaurant ads, real-estate ads, and more. Here are a few examples of these templates.

InVideo provides templates in all dimensions so you can pick and choose the right size, depending on the platform that you are using.

InVideo offers some of the most comprehensive editing features for basic and advanced video editors, with controls that can let you change colors, animations, fonts, and more.

Here are the Pros and Cons of InVideo:

Pros of InVideo:

1. 1000’s of templates to choose from
2. Supports multiple languages
3. Inbuilt Shutterstock and Storyblocks library to get premium stock video content
4. Text, effects, uploads are all in-built into the platform
5. One of the most comprehensive video editing software with great support

Cons of InVideo:

1. InVideo still does not have a video timeline

Price of InVideo: InVideo can be purchased for $120/year or $20/mo

2. Adobe After Effects – Best for Advanced Video Editors

If you are a pro video editor and you have enough time to create a great video, no platform can beat Adobe After Effects. Adobe After Effects is the best video editing platform if you are creating a high production value video. Here is a snapshot of Adobe After Effects:

The other good part about Adobe After Effects is that there are literally 100’s of 1000’s of templates available on Envato that you can easily purchase and start using it in After Effects.

Pros of Adobe After Effects:

1. Advanced controls to create great designs
2. 1000’s of templates available on the Envato library
3. Great video quality

Cons of Adobe After Effects:

1. It takes time to create great videos
2. Needs video editing expertise and it’s a long learning curve to create a great video
3. Requires a great editing system to get Adobe After Effects up and running

Pricing: Adobe creative cloud can be purchased online for around $600/year. However, do not try your hand at it if you are not an advanced video creator.

3. Animoto – Best for Basic Video Editors

Animoto is a video editing software that can be useful for you to create great-looking video ads.

With Animoto, you can create some great-looking ads easily. Animoto provides minimum controls to the user, which makes it easy to create great easy videos. Animoto is rated 4.4/5 on G2 Crowd

Pros of Animoto:

1. Animoto is easy to use to create videos
2. Animoto also comes combined with premium stock footage from iStock
3. A very stable video creation platform

Cons of Animoto:

1. The output of the video is not of the highest quality
2. Premium stock videos are not included in their basic plan

Pricing: Animoto is competitively priced with the best plan at $34/mo

4. PlaceIt.net – A Good Video Editor for very Basic Users

If you are a basic user trying to create social media videos or video ads very quickly and do not want to edit too much, PlaceIt might be a good bet. PlaceIt runs after Effects on the cloud and simply replaces the content from that particular template. So do not expect too much flexibility. However, you will be able to create videos very quickly.

PlaceIt is owned by Envato, which gives it access to 1000’s of templates. Placeit is rated 3.9/5 on G2 Crowd.

Here is how the editor of PlaceIt looks, it’s minimal, but it lets you create videos very quickly without too much editing.

Pros of PlaceIt:

1. Allows you to create videos very quickly
2. Simple to use and does not require any learning curve
3. A great number of templates available

Cons of Placeit:

1. It is best for basic use only
2. Very minimal editing features and does not provide a what you see is what you get to experience

Pricing: PlaceIt is priced at $15/mo

If your use case is social media videos, video ads, promo videos, we have covered all the best video editors depending on whether you are an advanced, basic, or an intermediate user. You will not need to look beyond this to choose the perfect video editor for your needs.

Four Best YouTube Video Editors

YouTube is best known for creating long-form content. In fact, the videos that perform best on YouTube are high production value videos that are carefully crafted by creating a great script, shooting or editing using the right equipment, and then actually uploading it. It is recommended that you hire a video editor for such long-form videos unless you are a video editor yourself.

Here are the three best video editors if you are creating content for YouTube.

1. Camtasia – Best for Intermediate to Advanced Video Editors

Camtasia is a professional-level video editing software. It is designed for both Windows PC and Mac OS, offering screen and video recording, along with its video editing features. Camtasia allows features such as annotations, add callouts, and drawing animations. The software helps professionals handle their routine video recording and editing. While it provides advanced controls, it does not offer templates. Camtasia is rated 4.5 on G2 Crowd.

Pros of Camtasia:

1. Importing different file formats is easy
2. Allows users to share files on various websites or social media platforms directly
3. Supports all major video formats like .avi, .camrec, .camproj etc.

Cons of Camtasia:

1. The system requirement for Camtasia is much higher; it demands a high-performance PC so you cannot run it over old systems.

Pricing: Camtasia is priced at a one-time fee of $300.

2. FlexClip – Intuitive Online Video Editor for Everyone

FlexClip does everything you need to edit videos, images, and music in professional studio quality. The library of templates, effects, and transitions is particularly suitable for the creation of high-quality videos.

Pros of FlexClip video editor:

1. FlexClip works in the Chrome browser, without the need to download and install any software.

2. Over one million of royalty-free video footage and music tracks for choice.

3. Templates cover various themes and occasions.

4. Fast processing speed and output performance.

Cons of FlexClip video editor:

1. Only download videos in the MP4 file.

2. It does not have many advanced editing features.

Pricing: FlexClip has a free version as well as three other premium packages. The price starts from $4.99/mo if billed annually, so much affordable.

3. Filmora – Best for Intermediate to Advanced Users

Filmora is another great video editing software that is available for both Windows and Mac. It is primarily used for creating video presentations, editing webinars, or editing video footage.

Filmora Effects store allows you to purchase add-ons as effects, overlays, and more.

Pros of Filmora:

1. Does not require a high configurated system to run Filmora smoothly
2. Effects store is a huge plus point where you can just pay a small amount and use the add-ons
3. Simple and intuitive interface for video editing

Cons of Filmora:

1. Lack of keyboard shortcuts
2. Minimal collection of copyright-free music
3. Does not have in-depth editing features

Pricing of Filmora: Filmora is priced at $7.99/mo along with a few lifetime plans

3. Adobe Premiere Pro – Best for Advanced Users

One of the top legacy tools of all time can be leveraged here to create great videos. The problem with the Adobe Premiere Pro is that it requires a high learning curve and takes a ton of time to create a great video. However, Adobe Premiere Pro is one of the most preferred tools by video editors.

Adobe Premiere Pro is rated 4.5/5 on G2 Crowd and is priced at around $300/year.

Bonus: If you are creating a YouTube video, it is highly recommended that you create an intro or outro to your video. Feel free to refer to our Intro-Outro Maker Guide to know more about this; InVideo also allows you to create great intro and outro videos in just a couple of minutes.

Three Best Free Video Editors

1. Shotcut – Best for Intermediate Video Editors

Shotcut is a free video editing software for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Shotcut is an entirely open-source program, which means that after downloading, you do not have to pay anything to upgrade. It offers a native timeline editing as well as a 4K support with a slightly quirky interface. Shotcut is rated 4/5 on G2 Crowd.

Pros of Shotcut:

1. Shotcut is completely free
2. Supports 4K resolution

Cons of Shotcut:

1. Long processing/video rendering time
2. It does not have a very intuitive user interface, and you will have to rely on documentation

2. Openshot – Best for Intermediate Video Editors

Openshot like Shotcut is entirely open-source. It packs more features than iMovie, including unlimited layers and audio mixing, which makes it one of the best video editing software. It’s a free video editor that is intuitive to use for an intermediate video editor.

Openshot has a rating of 4.4/5 on G2 Crowd.

Pros of Openshot:

1. Openshot is totally free
2. Features like snapping, trimming, and adding watermark are available
3. Full-blown video editor with unlimited layers
4. Userfriendly interface

Cons of Openshot:

1. Long Processing time

3. InVideo – Best for Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced Video Editors

InVideo is a freemium video editing platform, which means that InVideo is not entirely free. In the free plan, inVideo appends a small InVideo logo which can be removed by sharing about InVideo on Facebook or Linkedin. So basically, you can keep creating videos without ever paying them.

Unlike Shotcut or Openshot, InVideo is for-profit, and it has some advantages too. InVideo is one of the best video editing software with an integrated Shutterstock library, titles, stickers, effects, transition, voiceover, and more.

Pros of InVideo:

1. Comes with an integrated Shutterstock library
2. Features such as stickers, voiceover, advanced animation control
3. InVideo is an online video editing software and allows collaboration
4. Pushes out constant feature updates and has 2000+ templates
5. Provides 24*7 priority online support

Cons of InVideo:

1. Does not have a timeline

Three Best Video Editors to create Explainer Videos

1. Powtoons

Powtoons is one of the best animated/explainer video creation platforms. One does not require a technical skillset to create an explainer video with Powtoons. Powtoon has a rating of 4.3/5 on G2 Crowd.

Pros of Powtoons:

1. Does not require technical skills
2. Powtoons is a comprehensive animated video editing software
3. Comes pre-loaded with different scenes and characters

Cons of Powtoons:

1. User cannot create a very high-quality video output

Pricing: Powtoon offers different pricing plans starting at $89/mo.

2. Animaker

Animaker allows users to create animated videos using pre-built characters and templates. Animaker is best for creating whiteboard animations, infographics, and cartoon-style videos. Animaker is rated 4.3/5 on G2 Crowd.

Pros of Animaker:

1. You can create good tutorials/cartoonish videos very quickly
2. Animoto offers a freemium pricing model
3. Plenty of design options to choose from

Cons of Animaker:

1. User-interface can be complicated
2. The pre-programmed layouts are not always the most desirable
3. Does get slow to use, occasionally

Pricing: Animaker’s pricing starts at $12/month. However, they do offer other pricing plans as well

3. Vyond

Vyond is a cloud-based animated video creation platform. The popular website Go Animate was rebranded as Vyond a few years ago. Vyond offers customizable templates, custom character creation, and lip-sync, which are a few of the salient features that most other tools do not provide. Vyond also makes it easier to create training videos and e-learning videos. Vyond is rated 4.5/5 on G2 Crowd

Pros of Vyond:

1. A useful tool for promoting marketing services
2. A lot of inbuilt characters for cartoon-style videos

Cons of Vyond:

1. It does not have a freemium model. Offers only a free trial
2. Does require time and bandwidth
3. Good internet speed is essential
4. Timeline is poorly designed

Pricing: Vyond is an expensive software with several plans for businesses and personal use; pricing starts at $49/mo.

Best Video Editors to convert Articles to Video

1. InVideo 

InVideo’s article to video converter is one of the easiest to use and the most feature-rich as compared to everything else available. Here is how you can convert your articles to video in 5 easy steps:

Step 1:

Choose ‘article to video’ workflow:

Step 2:

Choose the template of your choice from the vast template library, then pick from the dimension you need – 16:9, 1:1 or 9:16. Dimensions can be selected depending on your use case and the platform where you are planning to post the video.

Step 3:

Enter the text from your blog. It is suggested that you enter the vital parts of your blogs into a video and keep the video to under 90 seconds due to the reduced attention spans of the user

If you want InVideo to auto-suggest the images/videos from its library of over 1 million images and videos, keep the ‘auto-suggest option checked

Step 4:

Now, choose the relevant media from InVideo’s library, re-arrange text, convert your content into quotes using InVideo’s simple interface on the storyboard.

You can also choose from a wide variety of music available on InVideo or edit the video on the advanced editor.

As we said, InVideo is the most comprehensive of the lot with features like voiceover, effects, scene suggestions, and much more. But with features comes complexities.

Step 5:

Once you are satisfied with your video, preview, and export it.

InVideo is one of the easiest ways to convert your text to video.

Pros of InVideo:

1. One of the most comprehensive platforms to convert your text into a video.
2. It has a simple as well as an advanced workflow that works well for any kind of user
3. It comes with templates, stock media, audio tracks, etc. built-in.
4. InVideo is one of the highest-rated video creation platforms on G2 Crowd.

Cons of InVideo:

1. InVideo still does not have a video timeline

Pricing: Here is InVideo pricing:

2. Lumen5

Lumen5 is a very well-known tool in the ‘text to video’ category. It’s easy to use and comes with a variety of templates and designs. It has music, stock media, and some basic control inbuilt, which is a good thing. Think about Lumen5 as an animated PowerPoint slideshow maker.

Lumen 5 is rated 4.5/5 on the G2 crowd.

Pricing: Lumen5 is more expensive than most other tools in this category

3. Wochit

Wochit is a Tel-Aviv headquartered company that has been around for many years. It’s mainly focussed on serving large media companies with their text-to-video capabilities.

Pricing: Wochit charges close to $20/video, and so it’s not an ideal video platform for small and medium businesses. The only “Pro” of Wochit is that they provide news-related footage.

We have tried to bring around one of the most comprehensive guides to choosing the right video editor to meet your needs. Again, as the world has moved forward, a lot of high-quality video editors have popped up for specific niches. We hope that this guide helped you to choose the right best free video editing software.