Discover the top video editing software perfect for beginners. Compare features, pricing, and ease of use to find your match.
To make great videos, you need more than a good camera; you need great video editing software. PCMag has been reviewing video editing software for more than 20 years, and we put each application through rigorous hands-on testing. We’ve reviewed dozens of applications, updating the reviews annually to keep up with their changes. The best video editing programs work well for both professionals and hobbyists, and they incorporate new technology like generative AI. Based on testing, our Editors’ Choice winners are Adobe Premiere Pro for professionals and CyberLink PowerDirector for enthusiasts. Those aren’t the only options worth considering: There are plenty more great choices in the group below. Check out our comprehensive reviews of each, along with additional advice below the product summaries to help you determine the best video editing software for your needs.
Our Top Tested Picks
CyberLink PowerDirector
Best Overall
CyberLink PowerDirector 365
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Available at CyberLink
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Adobe Premier Pro app icon
Best for Professionals
Adobe Premiere Pro
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Available at Adobe
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iMovie logo
Best for Easy Editing on Macs
Apple iMovie
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$0.00 at Apple App Store
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Apple Final Cut Pro
Best for Professionals on Macs
Apple Final Cut Pro
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$299.99 at Apple App Store
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Corel VideoStudio
Best for Stop Motion and Motion Tracking
Corel VideoStudio Ultimate
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$99.99 at Video Studio Pro
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DaVinci Resolve
Best for Studio Work
DaVinci Resolve
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$0.00 at Blackmagic Design
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Movavi Video Editor
Best for Fast, Fun Video Editing and Sharing
Movavi Video Editor
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$79.95 at Movavi
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Pinnacle Studio
Best for Color Grading and Keyframe Editing
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate
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$79.99 at Amazon
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Wondershare Filmora
Best for Editing on a Budget
Wondershare Filmora
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Available at Filmora
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Adobe Premiere Elements
Best for Digital Scrapbooking
Adobe Premiere Elements
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$99.99 at Adobe
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The Best Video Editing Software Deals This Week*
Adobe — $59.99 Per Month for Adobe Creative Cloud Plan (Annual Plan, Paid Monthly)
Cyberlink PowerDirector 365 12-Months Subscription Plan — $59.99 (List Price $74.99)
Adobe — $22.99 Per Month for Adobe Premiere Pro Plan (Annual Plan, Paid Monthly)
Cyberlink Director Suite 365 12-Months Subscription Plan — $99.99 (List Price $134.99)
*Deals are selected by our commerce team
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
RELATED:
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Best Mac Video Editing Software
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CyberLink PowerDirector
Best Overall
CyberLink PowerDirector 365
5.0 Exemplary
Pros & Cons
Fast project rendering
Clear, usable interface
Loads of effects and AI tools
Multicam and motion tracking support
Screen recording
Number of options can be overwhelming at times
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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CyberLink PowerDirector 365 Review
Adobe Premier Pro app icon
Best for Professionals
Adobe Premiere Pro
4.5 Outstanding
Pros & Cons
Excellent stabilization tool
Responsive speed and fast rendering
Unlimited multicam angles
Many organization and collaboration tools
Clear, flexible interface
Some techniques require additional applications, such as After Effects or Media Encoder
No sound effect samples
Intimidating interface for nonprofessionals
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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Adobe Premiere Pro Review
iMovie logo
Best for Easy Editing on Macs
Apple iMovie
4.0 Excellent
Pros & Cons
Beautifully simple interface
Great chroma-keying tool
Unique support for iPhone video features
Excellent movie templates
Extremely easy to use
Does not support media tagging
Lacks multicam and motion tracking capabilities
Limited to two video tracks
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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$0.00 Apple App Store
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Apple iMovie Review
Apple Final Cut Pro
Best for Professionals on Macs
Apple Final Cut Pro
4.0 Excellent
Pros & Cons
Magnetic, trackless timeline
Superior organization tools, including libraries, ratings, tagging, and auto analysis for faces and scenes
Support for 360-degree footage and wide color spaces
Plug-in support
Multicam editing
Fast performance
Nontraditional timeline editing may turn off longtime video producers
Import and export experiences trail those in Premiere Pro
No automatic speech-to-text captioning
Runs only on Apple hardware
Fewer collaboration features than Premiere Pro
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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$299.99 Apple App Store
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Apple Final Cut Pro Review
Corel VideoStudio
Best for Stop Motion and Motion Tracking
Corel VideoStudio Ultimate
4.0 Excellent
Pros & Cons
Loads of snazzy effects
Extremely fast rendering
Support for 360-degree VR, 4K Ultra HD, and 3D media
Multipoint motion tracking
Color grading
Cool stop-motion tool
Audio editing capabilities are comparatively weaker than video
Lackluster support for high-DPI monitors
Too many easy-edit tools
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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$99.99 Video Studio Pro
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Corel VideoStudio Ultimate Review
DaVinci Resolve
Best for Studio Work
DaVinci Resolve
4.0 Excellent
Pros & Cons
Plenty of editing tools for precise control
Clear, well-designed interface
Includes motion graphics and audio editing
Fast render performance
Requires a lot of system resources
Complex software takes time to learn
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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$0.00 Blackmagic Design
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DaVinci Resolve Review
Movavi Video Editor
Best for Fast, Fun Video Editing and Sharing
Movavi Video Editor
4.0 Excellent
Pros & Cons
Easy-to-understand user interface
Transitions with sound
Motion tracking and picture-in-picture tools
Chroma-key capability
Quick movie creation tool
Lacks advanced trim modes and clip pre-trimming
Not compatible with Apple M1 chip
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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$79.95 Movavi
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Movavi Video Editor Review
Pinnacle Studio
Best for Color Grading and Keyframe Editing
Pinnacle Studio Ultimate
4.0 Excellent
Pros & Cons
Clear interface
Tons of effects
Multicam editing
Powerful title editor
Detailed masking tools
Limited motion tracking
Uneven 360-degree VR implementation
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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$79.99 Amazon
$99.95 Pinnacle Systems
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Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Review
Wondershare Filmora
Best for Editing on a Budget
Wondershare Filmora
4.0 Excellent
Pros & Cons
Blazing-fast render speed
Pleasant interface
Lots of effects and overlays
Inexpensive
No multicam editing or VR capabilities
No DVD menu or chapter authoring
Some AI features are disappointing
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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Wondershare Filmora Review
Adobe Premiere Elements
Best for Digital Scrapbooking
Adobe Premiere Elements
3.5 Good
Pros & Cons
Interface resembles that of Premiere Pro
Ample video effects and control
Cross-platform support
Good rendering speed
Latest update removes many features
Three-year limit on product license
No multicam support
Why We Picked It
Who It’s For
Specs & Configurations
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$99.99 Adobe
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Adobe Premiere Elements Review
Clipchamp
Small business marketers
Microsoft Clipchamp
3.5 Good
Pros & Cons
Included with Windows 11
Slick interface
Generous template selection
Stylish effects and transitions
Good text and soundtrack options
Requires a subscription for some features
Templates tend to be short and don’t specify shot types
Limited control over effects
Slow export rendering
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Starts Free Clipchamp
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Microsoft Clipchamp Review
Buying Guide: The Best Video Editing Software for 2025
How to Edit Video on a PC
No fancy effects matter if an app can’t do the most basic editing tasks. At this point, all the software here does a fine job of letting you join, trim, and split video clips. Most also provide extensive tutorials, help, and guided editing tools. You can make use of special effects such as animated transitions, picture-in-picture (PiP), chroma-key (aka green screen), and filters that enhance colors or apply creative effects and distortions. With most products, you can add a multitude of timeline tracks that accommodate video clips, effects, audio for soundtracks, and text overlays. Some of the more entry-level programs include a storyboard view, which makes joining clips and adding transitions, effects, and background music even simpler.
The Best Video Editing Software for Motion Tracking
Motion tracking is an impressive effect that’s available in most pro-level and some consumer-level video editing software. It lets you attach an object or effect to something moving in your video. For example, you might use this editing tool to place a blur over the face of someone you don’t want revealed in your video or to display a text box next to a moving object. You mark the object you want to track, specify the effect or text, and let the app follow the marked object.
Motion Tracking in CyberLink PowerDirector
(Credit: CyberLink/PCMag)
Motion tracking used to be the sole province of special-effects software tools such as Adobe After Effects or Apple Motion. Corel VideoStudio was the first consumer product to include motion tracking. It still leads the pack in the depth and usability of its motion-tracking tool (even including multipoint tracking), though several others now include this video editing tool. Pro-level software like DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro also do motion tracking, and they support plug-ins and ancillary applications with even more capabilities.
Does Editing Software Support 4K and 8K Video?
Support for 4K video source content has become fairly standard in video editing software, and pro software already supports up to 8K and sometimes even higher. However, this isn’t really practical unless you’re running a full-size movie theater. That said, even smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra can now shoot in 8K.
Video Editing Interface in Corel VideoStudio Ultimate
(Credit: Corel/PCMag)
Support for 4K and higher formats varies among the consumer products. For example, some but not all the applications can import Sony XAVC and XAVC-S formats, which Sony’s popular DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, camcorders, and professional video cameras use. The same is true for the H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. Most of the applications here now can import and export HEVC, but there are still a few holdouts.
If you plan on working with 4K or higher video content, make sure you choose a video editing application that can render output files quickly (see the section on speed testing below).
Support for newer formats, such as the open-source AV1 and the even more efficient H.266 (VVC—Versatile Video Coding), is very limited at this point. Furthermore, none of the apps here supports H.266. Happily, several of them do support importing Google’s WebM format.
The Best Video Editing Software for Multicam
Advanced abilities continue to make their way into accessible, affordable, and consumer-friendly video editing apps as each new generation of software is released. Multicam editing, which lets you switch camera angles for the same scene shot with multiple video cameras, used to be a feature only for professional software. This and many other advanced effects are now available in enthusiast-level programs. CyberLink PowerDirector excels at multicam editing, as do the pro-level applications DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro.
Can You Edit Video on a Smartphone?
You can create and edit videos on mobile devices almost as easily as you can watch them. If you’re making videos for social media, you might even prefer to edit on a phone. Many of the desktop applications on this list of the best video editing apps also have mobile video editing apps.
Adobe has a separate app called Premiere Rush, which you can use to edit video on your phone and then continue editing it on the desktop Premiere app or the Adobe Express app; it comes with a subscription to either. Apple’s iMovie interacts similarly with Final Cut Pro. TikTok itself has the excellent and free CapCut. With more than 100 million downloads on the Google Play store, the powerful CyberLink PowerDirector’s separate mobile app has made a name for itself on mobiles as well as the desktop. Many of these apps let you shoot video with your phone and start editing right away on the same device.
What Is Color Grading and What Can LUTs Do?
Color Wheels in Adobe Premiere Pro
(Credit: Adobe/PCMag)
One capability that has arrived in consumer-level video editing software is color grading. Color wheels, curves, and histograms give editors control over the intensity of every shade. Another important tool you find in some applications is color matching. If you shoot videos with multiple cameras and in different lighting conditions, you should make sure your video editing software has good color-matching capability for a consistent look. You may also want an application that supports producing HDR content, since that’s now available on many TVs.
LUTs (lookup tables), also known as CLUTs (color lookup tables), are powerful color editing tools. This staple of pro-level software lets you quickly change the look of a video to give it a specific mood. For example, think of the dark blue look of thriller movies like The Revenant. You can download LUTs for free from several sites or use those included with video software to give your video a specific look. One well-known LUT type is the kind that can make a daytime scene look like it was shot at night, known in moviemaking as day for night. In fact, pros use LUTs to simply get colors right based on the camera they use for shooting.
What Are the Best Apps for Editing Action Cam Footage?
Many video editing apps now include tools that cater to action camera users. For example, several have automated freeze-frame along with speedup, slowdown, and reverse-time effects. CyberLink PowerDirector’s Action Camera Center pulls together freeze-frame with stabilization, slo-mo, fish-eye correction, and correction for underwater footage. The Platinum version of Magix Movie Studio includes templates and effects specifically for action-cam footage.
Which Video Editors Have the Best Title Effects?
These video editing applications pay a lot of attention to creating title effects. Apple Final Cut Pro has added 3D title creation, which is pretty spiffy, letting you extrude 2D titles and rotate them on three axes. Corel VideoStudio also includes 3D titling, though it’s not as powerful as Apple’s. PowerDirector’s Title Designer has transparency, gradient color, border, blur level, and reflection in titles; Magix has impressive title templates, complete with animations.
Corel VideoStudio and Pinnacle Studio have a nifty title effect in which your video fills the text characters. Look for an application that lets you edit titles in WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) mode so you can type, format, and time it right over the video preview.
Captions for dialogue are another type of text you may want to overlay on your video. Several of the programs now have auto-captioning that takes dialogue from your video clips and produces a caption file. The next step is appearing in the applications, too: letting you edit using the text captions. This capability started in Premiere Pro and most recently has landed in PowerDirector.
What Are the Fastest Video Editors?
Video editing is one of the most computing-intensive activities. It pays to have the best laptop or desktop you can afford if you’re serious about cutting your own movies. Most applications help speed up the editing process by creating a proxy file of lower resolution so that huge, full-resolution files don’t slow down normal editing and previewing.
Particularly intensive is rendering the finished product into a standard video file that is playable on the target device of choice, whether it’s a TV, laptop, or smartphone. Most software can speed up by taking advantage of your computer’s graphics processor. Be sure to check the performance section in each review linked here to see how speedy or slow the application is.
For render speed testing, I have each program join seven clips of various resolutions ranging from 720p all the way up to 8K and then apply cross-dissolve transitions between them. I then note the time it takes to render the project to 1080p30 with H.264 at 16Mbps and 192Kbps audio. The output movie is just over five minutes in length. I tested on a Windows 11 PC sporting a 3.60GHz Intel Core i7-12700K, 16GB RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, and a 512GB Samsung PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. In my render speed test results over the years, CyberLink PowerDirector has been a leader, but in the latest test runs, DaVinci Resolve currently takes the crown, with PowerDirector, Filmora, and Adobe Premiere Pro hot on its heels.
Other measures of performance include startup time and simple stability. Again, video editing is a taxing activity for any computer, involving many components. In the past, video editing programs took longer than most other apps to start up, and unexpected shutdowns were unfortunately common, even in top apps from top developers such as Adobe and Apple. The stability situation has greatly improved, but the complexity of the process only increases as these editors gain more powerful effects. As such, they are likely never fully immune to crashes, which often raise their ugly heads after a feature update.