OpenShot Video Editor

The videos can be edited in a very simple way by just drag and drop and you can add animations, watermark, sound effects and many other exciting things in your videos. I am using this software for last 3 years and always found it very helpful and full of exciting features. In Openshot video editor you can also trim your videos and add flying text and 3D animations. You can also speed up and slow down your videos according to your need. The interface is so simple and understandable one can easily use this software without any problem.

As of my experience i have never face any difficulty in Openshot video editor. The software always provide me all the necessary tools and features which i need and to make my videos beautiful and colorful.

The first feature that has to be mentioned is that this is free software, and that it offers being able to work in 4K. I am impressed that the media library has so many options, that include built in effects, transitions, ability to use titles for vectors and fonts. It's collaboration with Blender means it has those sleek looking 3D effects and titles built in as well, a nice quick way to add something extra to your project to make it stand out.
The interface is clean, simple and easy to get used to and adjust to for seamless editing, as well it being free to edit as many clips as you need to, no limits there. I like that it doesn't have a steep learning curve that most video editors do, but it still allows you to do professional editing as you would on a premium software, and advanced edits. I'm transitioning into teaching online, and I've used it to make my own promotional videos for various companies. It's always a pleasure to use as I can make changes fast, add an effect, sometimes play around with what would look good, and not have to dedicate hours to editing anything. When I'm done it looks polished and professional, as if I had used a high-end editor, which I appreciate as building a small business means you don't want to go spending extensively on software.

I think that if you need to edit a whole movie, it may give you issues with loading, with lag. I noticed that if I tried to import large files, a few hours of a holiday video, that there was an issue with it freezing. However, for most of my work I don't need to edit hours of footage, so I didn't really have an issue with this. I think for most people who are making social media videos, promotional material for their business like I do, even longer advertisment-type edits, OpenShot is perfect for our business or personal editing needs.

It's free, and if I was starting from scratch and using this and learning along the way, I would probably love it ... because I wouldn't know any better. I got it because right now my budget doesn't allow for anything better, and it's the closest to what I use at work, PowerDirector, which I love.

It's very frustrating to use when you're used to using a platform that is easy to learn and relatively intuitive.

For instance, while you can see how far into a video you are (e.g., 01:06:25). It's on the lefthand side of the timeline. But if you click on that (say to jump forward or backward), it takes you all the way back to the beginning. Now there is a place in the lefthand column (that pops up with some digging around), but it renders the time in *seconds*. So, for instance, right now I'm working on a 1 hour, 10 minute project, so if I want to jump forward or backward, I have to calculate the time in seconds (e.g., going from 1,284 seconds to 1,173 seconds) by translating that from minutes. Whereas in PowerDirector, I just click on the time stamp in the right, type in the place to which I want to jump and, voila, I'm there once I hit enter.

Another frustration I'm dealing with at this moment is how difficult the minimize functions are. I want to be able to see all the images I plan to insert in one window, but the video playback screen goes over that. So I minimize the video window. It virtually disappears, and it takes a stroke of luck to get the window containing my images and other videos and titles to appear as I want it. Once I do that, I try to get the video back. I have to shut it down, hoping the project doesn't save as it's currently configured because that does me no good. This is too much wasted time when you're editing a 1 hour, 10 minute video!

It has all the basics you need to edit and produce great videos.
Most importantly, it's FREE, SIMPLE, easy to use, and makes editing faster.

Some elements and features need improvement.