OpenShot is a 100% free and open-source video editor available for Mac, Windows or Linux. My first impression of OpenShot reminded me of iMovie. It has a sleek looking interface and a somewhat unique timeline interface. Tracks aren’t divided into video and audio. They are simply elements that can be “stacked” on top of each other.

My initial fear is that an interface such as this could get very confusing with larger projects, with many clips all over the timeline. My initial assembly process was fairly smooth. Things started to get a little hairy when I discovered that my clip preview and the timeline sequence preview share the same window. I prefer them to be in separate, visible windows. Having two different windows to view clips and the timeline simultaneously doesn’t seem to be available, although I could be wrong. I couldn’t figure out a way to make it work. Using it further, it looks like OpenShot is geared towards super simple workflows. The interface rewards a very “loosey-goosey” way of editing, where accuracy isn’t the focus. Auto snapping features didn’t seem to be on by default. Frame accurate editing is available, but requires an intermediate dialogue pop up to dial in numbers. Text editing is always the hardest part to implement cleanly in any editor. OpenShot has a somewhat constrained text editing process, where text is created in a separate window and a. svg file is generated which you can then overlay on your video. Extra steps like these only increase the amount of time it takes to make complex text overlays. To do any animated text you’ll need to know how to use Blender, as OpenShot supports animations created in it. With my machine (a Mac with an AMD Radeon VII and 32GB RAM) I could not get smooth playback.

The video and audio stuttered on the timeline.Ĭoming from a Premiere Pro background, I found OpenShot very difficult to adjust to. Certain features require looking at the tutorial to master. But if you are new to editing, OpenShot may be easier to digest. Still, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

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