What is the best video editing software for YouTube? It’s a question that any potential video star has asked at one point or another and a question that seems to have no definitive answer.
So, to be truthful with you, there’s no such thing as the absolute best YouTube editing software, only the best software to match your individual needs.
Yet how are you supposed to find that one software solution when there’s a whole host of different editing tools out there that promise to be the absolute best of the best?
The simple answer is that you start with this guide.
Throughout my career, I’ve tried out dozens of different video editors to help me and my clients create stunning YouTube videos that stop scrollers in their tracks and boost subscriber numbers.
Below, I’ll share my honest take on the top ten very best video creation tools to help you finally find the one that’s right for you.
What to Look for When Choosing the Best Video Editing Software for YouTube?
The following are the key factors I looked for when choosing my top 10. I recommend that you keep these criteria in mind when reading my YouTube video editor reviews to help you determine which tool best meets your needs.
Ease of Use
Regular readers of my blog will know that I always prioritize ease of use no matter whether I’m picking out a video editor, a podcast hosting service, a top blogging platform, or just about anything else.
There’s a good reason for this:
The more time I have to spend figuring out how a piece of software works, the less time I get to spend creating my content.
If you’re as passionate as me about your content, then you’ll agree that this is the last thing either of us needs.
So, unless you’re already an experienced video editor, it often pays to pick an editing tool that is as easy as possible to get grips with. That way, you can spend more time doing what you love; creating top-notch videos.
Editing Features
The kind of features you need will all depend on what kind of videos you want to create.
If you’re starting a gaming channel, for example, then you’ll probably be looking for screen casting features or live streaming quality, but if all you’re doing is putting out a standard vlog, you may only be concerned with how easy it is to edit clips together and add transitions and title cards.
Export Quality
Make no mistake about it; your video’s quality will significantly impact your success as a YouTuber.
Given the platform’s undying popularity, many top video editors come with pre-set video resolution options that automatically export your content in the best quality for sharing on YouTube.
If they don’t, look for a video editor that exports in at least 1080p with a 16:9 ratio.
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Finally, choosing a video editor is no different from choosing a web hosting provider or the best email marketing tool to grow your audience in that budget will always be a deciding factor.
While some of the tools I’m about to share with you do offer free plans, most of them do so with restrictions. Usually, this means limiting the length of video you can create and adding an ugly watermark to your branding.
That may be OK for giving your preferred tool a quick test run, but if you want to create first-class YouTube videos, you’ll need to pay for first-class software.
Top 10 Best Video Editing Software Tools For YouTube
To help you out with this, I’ve reviewed a variety of differently-priced YouTube video editors so that you can find the one that best suits your budget.
1. Adobe Premiere Pro
If you know anything at all about video editing, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise to find Adobe Premiere Pro at the very top of this list.
Much as Adobe Photoshop enjoys a reputation as one of the best graphic design tools in the world, Premiere Pro has firmly established itself as an industry leader in the world of video editing: thanks to its combination of advanced features and beginner-friendly ease of use.
The platform uses a very intuitive drag-and-drop builder that makes it a breeze to add video, audio, title tracks, and effects to multiple tracks before trimming and fine-tuning each one to create your video.
Packed full of dazzling transitions, beautifully-designed custom captions, and the ability to add a host of impressive visual effects, there is nothing you could possibly want to do with your YouTube video that you can’t do with the world’s best video editor.
Key Features:
- Drag-and-drop video editor
- Use multiple tracks
- Animated custom templates
- Custom typography tools for titles and captions
- H264/HEVC encoding
- Audio editing
- Color correction
- Collaboration tools.
Pricing:
Adobe Premiere Pro is available as stand-alone software costing $20.99 per month.
- This includes Complete access to all Premiere Pro features
- Access to the Be hance creators’ community
- Adobe Fonts
- Creative Cloud libraries.
Alternatively, if you’re planning on using multiple tools as part of your content creation strategy, you may want to pay for the Creative Cloud package, which costs $50.99 per month and includes access to all of the following tools:
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Lightroom
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe InDesign
- Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Plus more.
Pros and Cons of Adobe Premiere Pro
[elementor-template id=”16342″]How to Get Started With Adobe Premiere Pro?
1. Visit the Adobe Premiere Pro website and select ‘Buy Now’
2. Choose either the Premiere Pro plan or the Creative Cloud package and click ‘Continue’
3. Choose your billing cycle
4. Create an account and enter your payment details
5. Download, install, and launch Adobe Premiere Pro to start editing your videos.
2. Filmora
Formerly known as Wondershare Video Editor, Filmora proves that you don’t need a wealth of experience or technical expertise to start creating amazing YouTube videos right from Day 1.
Designed with creators in mind, this powerful tool packs in all the essential features such as split screen capability, motion tracking, video transitions, and more. Yet it does so with a level of simplicity and user-friendliness that ensures any first-time YouTuber will be able to create great content no matter what their niche may be.
The attractive pricing should also appeal to beginners who may be dipping their toe in the YouTube waters and aren’t yet ready to invest in a higher-priced package, while the ability to edit on your desktop, iPad, or even a smartphone means you can keep creating no matter where you are nor what device you use to record.
Key Features:
- Split screen
- Keyframing
- Motion tracking
- Auto reframe
- Video effects
- Green screen recording
- Mask & Blend
- Audio editing
- Color matching.
Pricing:
Unlike most tools, Filmora comes with an annual subscription rather than a monthly one. This costs just $49.99 per year, which if my calculations are correct, works out at a wallet-friendly $4.16 per month.
This package includes all video, audio, and color editing capabilities plus:
- Access To stock media
- NewBlue FX and Boris FX plugins
- AI Portrait plugin
- 1 GB cloud storage
- 30 minutes of text-to-speech recording.
Alternatively, you can pay a one-off fee of $89.99 for lifetime access, though buying this package means you won’t receive any more updates once a new version of Filmora is released.
Pros and Cons of Filmora
[elementor-template id=”16347″]How to Get Started With Filmora?
- Point your browser to filmora.wondershare.com and select ‘Pricing’ from the menu
- Choose either the yearly or lifetime plan and click ‘Buy Now’
- Enter your payment details to buy the software
- Download and install the software, then launch it to start editing your first project.
3. Movavi
At first glance, Movavi looks just like any other video editing software.
The drag-and-drop interface looks very similar to Adobe Premiere Pro, with multiple visual-based editing tracks for your clips, audio, and effects, a generously-sized media player to preview your work, and some seriously attractive title cards.
Look a little closer, however, and you’ll discover that what really sets this one apart is the excellent screen recording capabilities.
Whether you’re a gamer looking to show off your latest boss battle or a tech-tuber recording a tutorial for a new piece of software, Movavi lets you configure the most appropriate capture settings, record video and audio from multiple sources, and export it in a YouTube friendly manner.
Key Features:
- Timeline-based video and audio editing
- Image quality improvement tools
- Visual effects
- High-quality titles and transitions
- Supports all popular formats
- 1-click screen capturing
- Media converter
- Photo editor.
Pricing:
The only real downside to Movavi is that to get the best value; you need to pay for the $94.95 Video Editor Plus lifetime package. While this does work out cheaper than some monthly subscription models, it’s still a pretty hefty price to pay out of the box.
For this price, you get access to all of the software’s key features for use on a single PC.
Pros and Cons of Movavi
[elementor-template id=”16351″]How to Get Started With Movavi?
- Head to Movavi.com and click ‘Buy Now’
- Choose your payment plan and enter your payment details
- Login and download the software to your desktop
- Install and launch the software, then click ‘New Project’ to start using Movavi.
4. Final Cut Pro X
Some make YouTube videos as a hobby. Some create videos as part of a wider blog monetization strategy, and then there are those seriously passionate filmmakers who strive to create cinema-quality content because it’s what they were born to do.
If you’re in the latter camp, Final Cut Pro will certainly appeal.
This popular alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro is the go-to choice for millions of professional editors and filmmakers thanks to its advanced tools, crystal-clear quality, and unbeatable performance.
It’s this performance that helps Final Cut Pro stand head and shoulders above many other editing tools.
You can take advantage of the unrivaled array of features to tweak and fine-tune every aspect of your production, add Hollywood-grade special effects, and process the whole thing with the kind of quality that’s fit for the big screen, and Final Cut Pro will render the entire project without lagging your computer.
Though it may not be the cheapest YouTube video editor, if you’re serious about a career as a video maker, this one will certainly prove to be one of the best investments you could make.
Key Features:
- Object tracker
- Cinematic mode
- Motion graphics
- Clip editing
- Audio editing
- Color grading
- Click-to-track
- Magnetic timeline
- Duplicate clip detection
- Multicam editing.
Pricing:
Final Cut Pro X is by far one of the most expensive video editing tools around. The package costs a single flat fee of $299 from the Mac App Store.
Pros and Cons of Final Cut Pro X
[elementor-template id=”16355″]How to Get Started With Final Cut Pro?
- Visit the Final Cut Pro website and click the ‘Buy’ button
- Open up the app in the Mac App Store and download it to your computer to start using Final Cut Pro X.
5. Adobe After Effects
While Adobe Premiere Pro may be the best choice for editing your clips together, if you really want to make a big impression, you could do far worse than combining that tool with Adobe After Effects as part of the Creative Cloud suite.
Though not a video editor in the traditional sense, the world-class motion graphics editor comes with tools to animate characters and graphics, create attention-grabbing video intros, and add the kind of special effects that will leave your subscribers hungry for more.
Whether you’re adding weather effects such as storms, rain clouds, and even torrential fires, making static objects bounce and move around, or using one of the countless presets to completely transform the look of your video, the possibilities are truly endless with Adobe After Effects.
Key Features:
- Motion graphics
- Motion tracking
- Text animations
- Rotoscoping
- Collaboration tools
- Presets
- Add and remove moving objects
- Add notes and annotations to clips.
Pricing:
Adobe After Effects comes with the standard Adobe pricing of $20.99 per month. However, if you’re buying this along with a standard video editor, I recommend picking up the Adobe Creative Cloud suite for $50.99, which includes Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and other top tools.
Pros and Cons of Adobe After Effects
[elementor-template id=”16358″]How to Get Started With Adobe After Effects?
- Head to the Adobe After Effects website and click ‘Buy Now’
- Choose your package (single app or Creative Cloud) and billing cycle
- Register for an account
- Download and install the software
- Launch After Effects and open your pre-edited video to add effects.
6. Corel VideoStudio Pro
If you’ve looked at some of the other editors on this list and loved everything about them apart from the cost, Corel VideoStudio Pro is the budget-friendly alternative for you.
Available for an affordable one-off fee rather than a monthly subscription, VideoStudio Pro may be low in cost, but it’s certainly not low on features.
Although it lacks the effortless simplicity of other platforms, it more than makes up for it with an abundance of visual effects, screen capturing tools, split screen, Multicam editing, and more.
A real highlight is the excellent speech-to-text feature which is great for not only creating subtitles and captions but also exporting video transcripts that you can then use when writing a compelling blog post to accompany your video.
Combine this with top-level processing performance and a pre-set export option designed just for YouTube, and there’s no denying that VideoStudio Pro packs an awful lot into one small-cost package.
Key Features:
- Non-linear keyframing
- Audio waveform editing
- Enhanced media library
- Crop, trim, rotate, and resize clips
- Lens corrections
- Color correction
- Pre-set templates and transitions.
Pricing:
What makes Corel VideoStudio Pro the best budget-friendly video editing software for YouTube is that it’s available for a one-off payment of $54.99. Even if you only used it for a year, that works out at around $4.50 per month after which you’ll have access to one of the best editing tools on the market without paying a penny.
Pros and Cons of Corel VideoStudio Pro
[elementor-template id=”16363″]How to Get Started With Corel VideoStudio Pro?
- Visit VideoStudioPro.com and choose ‘Buy Now’
- Enter your payment details to purchase the software
- Download, install, and launch Video StudioPro, then open a new project to start editing.
7. InVideo
It would be wrong of me to call InVideo the most powerful video editor on the market.
It’s small, lightweight, and misses out on some of the more advanced features you get with other editors, but that’s all part of its appeal.
If you’re less interested in creating cinematic masterpieces and more concerned with making fun, entertaining videos with lots of colorful effects and graphics, you’ll love what InVideo has to offer.
All of the basic tools are there to help you clip, transform, rotate and resize your clips, add titles and captions, and fine-tune your audio.
Yet where this one really excels is that you can browse through over 8 million stock video clips, photographs, audio files, and more, saving you the chore of having to source them separately.
Beyond basic media files, the huge assets library provides thousands of pre-designed video templates, filters, and transitions, all of which help to ensure that you keep your audience hooked from start to finish.
Key Features:
- Online video editor
- Intro and outro makers
- Slideshow creator
- YouTube intro maker
- Instagram video editor
- Background remover
- AI-based text-to-speech creator
- 8+ million media and effects assets.
Pricing:
InVideo comes with a free plan, but if you use it, you’ll be limited to creating videos of no more than 40 minutes and be forced to keep the InVideo watermark on each video.
To avoid those restrictions, you can upgrade to one of the following two plans:
| PLAN NAME | PLAN DESCRIPTION | PLAN PRICE |
| Business | Remove the InVideo watermark Access the entire media assets library Export 60 HD videos per month Remove 20 backgrounds per month. | $15 p/m |
| Unlimited | Includes everything in the Business plan but offers unlimited video exports and 40 background removals per month. | – $30 p/m |
Pros and Cons of InVideo
[elementor-template id=”16366″]How to Get Started With InVideo?
- Go to InVideo.Io and select ‘Get Started, It’s Free’
- Signup with your email, Google, or Facebook account
- Complete the onboarding process to tailor InVideo to your needs
- Choose a template to start editing your video.
8. Veed.Io
Veed.Io offers all of the standard features you’d look for in a top-quality YouTube video editor.
Clips can be dragged into place from your desktop, then trimmed and fine-tuned using a substantial number of editing tools.
However, where Veed.Io really comes into its own is its world-class collaboration tools.
Now, offering the ability to create and manage workflows, users can be assigned tasks, leave notes for one another, and submit projects for review before they get uploaded to YouTube.
Also working in Veed.Io’s favor as a top choice for marketing professionals is the ability to create brand kits where your logos, colors, fonts, and other brand assets can all be stored in one place for ease of use.
Key Features:
- Intro and outro maker
- Add music, images, and text to videos
- Video filters
- Music visualizer
- Remove background noise
- Add subtitles and transcriptions
- Cut, crop, and resize clips
- Screen Recorder
- Gif editor.
Pricing:
Like InVideo, Veed.Io offers a free version that is limited to creating videos under 10 minutes with a watermark.
Beyond that, the following plans are available:
| PLAN NAME | PLAN DESCRIPTION | PLAN PRICE |
| Basic | Remove the Veed.Io watermark Export videos up to 25 minutes long Unlimited projects Unlimited exports 1080p export quality 20 GB cloud storage. | $18 p/m |
| Pro | Includes everything in the Basic Plan plus: Export videos up to 2 hours long 100 GB cloud storage 4K export quality. | $30 p/m |
| Business | Includes everything in the Pro plan plus 200 GB of cloud storage. | $59 p/m |
Pros and Cons of Veed.Io
[elementor-template id=”16370″]How to Get Started With Veed.Io?
- Visit Veed.Io and select ‘Sign Up’
- Create an account using your email address or Google account
- Complete the basic onboarding process to tailor Veed.Io to your needs
- Choose your plan (I recommend either Basic or Pro)
- Enter your payment details
- Log in to the dashboard and click ‘Create New’ to start making videos.
9. Pinnacle Studio
Only Final Cut Pro X comes close to rivaling Pinnacle Studio in terms of world-class performance.
The creators of this value-for-money editing software are constantly working to produce the most consistently reliable platform, with regular updates for bugs and crash-inducing problems.
Under the hood, the next-generation processing technology ensures that even if you’re working on a lengthy 4K video, you’ll experience minimum lag and super-quick rendering as long as you have the computer power to handle it.
Combine this with all the essential video editing tools and a user-friendly interface, and Pinnacle Studio more than earns its reputation as another leading Adobe Premiere alternative.
Key Features:
- Drag-and-drop video editor
- Color correction and selective color tools
- Effects and filters
- Themed templates
- Time remapping
- Pan and zoom options
- Motion blur
- Multicam capture and editing
- Screen capture tools
- Split screen video.
Pricing:
Pinnacle Studio is available for a one-time fee of $59.99.
Pro and Cons of Pinnacle Studio
[elementor-template id=”16375″]How to Get Started With Pinnacle Studio?
- Point your browser to the Pinnacle Studio website and click buy Now’
- Enter your account and payment details to purchase the software
- Download and install Pinnacle Studio
- Launch the software and click ‘New Project’ to make your next YouTube video.
10. Vegas Pro 365
If you’re more interested in joining the ranks of top YouTube live streamers than uploading pre-recorded content, you could do far worse than checking out Vegas Pro 365.
Though the tool contains all the features you’d need to edit regular videos, it’s the platform’s live streaming capabilities that make it stand out from the crowd.
Vegas Pro makes it possible to stream content from 10 different sources and simultaneously broadcast from those sources using the intuitive picture-in-picture feature. This means that you could, for example, broadcast your screen as you work your way through a video game walk-through while streaming background music from another source and including your webcam footage in the corner.
The best part is that you can do all of this while broadcasting to multiple video and social platforms at the same time to reach a broader audience.
When you’re done, you can save your stream, export it to the editor, and use that editor to break the longer video into shorter, sharable clips that are perfect for platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
Key Features:
- Capture 10 live video and audio sources
- Video and image file support
- Picture-in-picture
- Title designer
- Graphic templates
- Social media integrations
- Export finished streams to Vegas Pro for editing
- Stream directly to YouTube
- Support for RTMP.
Pricing:
Vegas Pro 365 comes with a limited free trial that restricts your streaming length and adds a watermark.
For unrestricted use, upgrade to the Vegas Pro 365 package which costs $19.99 a month and includes unlimited access to all of its features.
Pros and Cons of Vegas Pro 365
[elementor-template id=”16379″]How to Get Started With Vegas Pro 365?
- Go to Vegascreativesoftware.com and click on the ‘purchase here’ icon
- Select Vegas Pro 365 and pay for your subscription
- Register a new account
- Download and install the software
- Launch Vegas Pro 365 and configure your live stream settings.
Frequently Asked Questions About Video Editing Software
What do YouTubers use to edit their videos?
Professional YouTubers use a variety of video editing tools, though Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut FX are the most popular software choices.
What’s the easiest way to edit YouTube videos?
Filmora is the easiest YouTube video editor out there, with beginner-friendly features and a clean, easy-to-navigate interface.
Does YouTube have a free video editor?
Yes, YouTube does have its own video editor, though it’s very limited in features and challenging to use.
What is the Best Video Editing Software for YouTube Videos? My Final Verdict
Remember way back at the start of this guide when I said that the best video editing software for YouTube videos is always going to be the one that best meets your needs?
Well, if you read through my top 10 reviews, I hope you’ve found the one tool that does just that.
If not, allow me to make some final recommendations.
If you’re launching your YouTube career on a shoe-string budget, Corel VideoStudio Pro is the best value-for-money package you can get right now, through tools like Filmora and Pinnacle Studio, which avoid the monthly-subscription model in favor of a one-time payment, are also a good deal.
If you’re looking forward to becoming a popular live streamer, you’ll find that very little beats Vegas Pro 365, while Movavi is a better choice for pre-recorded screen captures.
However, if you really want to invest in your success, I recommend spending the $50.99 per month fee for the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, which gives you comprehensive access to some of the best professional video editing tools in the world, including the industry-leading Adobe Premiere Pro and the exceptional post-production tool, Adobe After Effects.