OpenShot

 Good video editor for free

OpenShot is a free and open-source video editing software that is heavily designed for newbies in the editing environment. With a simple drag-and-drop function, it provides an easy-to-use and quick-to-learn user interface. This powerful video editor serves tons of efficient ways to cut and trim down your videos. You can freely utilize the unlimited tracks, video effects engine, title editor, 3D animations, slow motion, and time effects offered within the app. You can also visualize your audio files as waveforms, and make it part of your video. OpenShot is available in more than 70 languages across the world.   

Download apps

How do you use OpenShot?

Basic editing or creation of video using this program can be done in five simple steps. First, the importing of the contents you'll use. Before you begin making a video, you must import files into the app's 'Project Files' library section, just drag and drop all the files from your desktop that are necessary for you to make an edit. The second step is arranging the contents on your 'Timeline' by simply dragging a certain content and organizing it into a sequence you planned. The editor automatically creates a smooth fade transition between each media file.

To make the project even more entertaining, you can add music. Bear in mind that the timeline for music and video files are separated to one another—the upper part is for videos while the lower part is for music. That's the third step. Afterward, you can proceed to preview what your video looks and sounds like, just click the 'Play' button under the preview window.

Once you are satisfied with the preview result of your output, you can immediately export it by pressing on the red circle icon at the top of the screen. It presents you with many preset export options to choose from, once decided, you can press 'Export Video' button to start the exporting process.  

OpenShot vs. Shotcut

Shotcut is another free alternative video editor program that you can consider to download. It works the same as OpenShot. However, it serves more detail when it comes to color correction and audio editing. But, in terms of providing a sleek and intuitive user interface, the latter does it best.

On top of that, Shotcut lacks animation features while you can easily use a lot of it in OpenShot. It can provide the most basic animation frameworks that can enable any text or object in your video fade, slide, bounce, and animate to elegantly-rendered 3D animated titles and effects, such as snow, lens flares, or flying text. An animation program called Blender can also be integrated with this app to give you more animated titles.

Recommended for beginner editors

OpenShot is an efficient video editing program that is highly recommended to use by beginner editors. It will effectively introduce you to the editing world and provide you professional results that can be done in the easiest way possible. Although it can't possibly give you a high level of details Shotcut serves regarding color correction and audio editing, it is still the better app to choose if you aim to grab the attention of your viewers through animations.