What are the best video editors for Linux?

Question

15

Options
Considered

454

User
Recs.

Sep 4, 2023

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 15 OptionsWhy?

Best video editors for Linux	Price	Platforms	Technology
94 KDENlive	-	Windows, Linux, Mac	-
84 Blender	-	Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD	C, Python
70 Flowblade	-	Linux	-
-- Olive Video Editor	-	-	-
-- Davinci Resolve	-	Windows, Linux, Mac	-

See Full List

14 Other Options Considered

Blender

Top Pro

Integrated compositor and renderer

Although this feature makes it more difficult to make simple edits, it comes in great handy when doing vfx and cgi. A set of tools including a node based compositor, a 3d raytracer, and a motion tracker makes blender a force to reckon with. See More

Top Con

Hard to learn

Although blender can do video editing, its interface is not solely designed for that, which means if you never touched it before, you will be hard pressed in understanding what in the world you are doing. See More

ExceptionalErimon's Experience

Blender 2.8 makes video editing a LOT easier (start UI, easy to drag file, left click select...). It's still a bit harder to learn than other tools but for power users each shortcut you'll learn can be applied almost everywhere (e.g. pressing "i" on a numeric field to keyframe the value, or "g" to grab and move and element...). It's very powerful especially if you want to also include 3D in your videos. However many standard tasks will take more time in Blender: The preview is slow, to do a high quality zoom in animation you may need to use a Compositor or instead crop, rendering in 10 bits requires a lot of temporary disk storage, video stabilization is also a pain... Overall I'd suggest it more for someone interested in 3D doing also video editing. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, FreeBSD

Top Pro

Fast

Blender launches fast and remains responsive. See More

Top Con

Common video editing operations are complex

Preview very slow (need to create a proxy 25% the scale and also resize the render output and even then it's often still slow) Doing a zoom (pan/scan) requires hacks https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/42094 Transitions are fully manual Playback speed adjustments are very manual especially if you want to keep them in sync with the audio. See More

CourageousEingana's Experience

I usually edit short videos from my life like play with kids, travel and bike rides, and sometimes do software project demos and tutorials. I tried all major tools in linux for video editing. Blender seems to be the most feature rich and consistent. It allows me to handle 4k video on my oldish laptop. It always feels so good that I buy its future for 20-50 bucks time to time. See More

Top Pro

Supports addons

Addons can be installed to change the workflow of video editing. See More

Top Con

Does not handle NURBs

Is not capable of real hard surface for industrial design because is not able to reproduce surface continuity degree as a NURBs does and average vertex normal destroy surface radius. See More

ReasonableEnnugi's Experience

Very powerful and free to do any video editing See More

Top Pro

Includes video editing & compositing tools

Blender's node-based compositor has comprehensive video sequencing and post-processing features. See More

Top Con

Too many possibilities, no unified workflow

The operations are not optimized enough for specific tasks. See More

Wernight's Experience

Right-click-select is the nickname of this editor due to it's unusual behavior. However it's very powerful and I'm glad I learned to use it because not only is it good and has tons of features even just as a non-linear video editor but it's getting better and I can leverage these skills to add 3D in my videos (very simple 3D for me). See More

Top Pro

Python extensibility

Blender embeds Python 3, which can be used to write add-ons, tools, extend the interface, rig characters and automate tasks. See More

Top Pro

Very versatile

You don't have to switch between software when you want to do different things. Because modeling, sculpting, composting, video editing etc can all be done in blender. See More

Top Pro

Has a powerful rendering engine

Blender runs the Cycles path tracing engine under the hood. Cycles is a very powerful rendering engine capable of full path tracing (light fall off, caustics, volumetrics). It is mostly compatible with OpenCL and CUDA rendering, and is implementing mycropolygon displacement features. The upcoming release has a viewport engine called EEVEE whereby you can see and interact with your work in render mode in real time! See More

Top Pro

Wide import and export format support

Support lots of modern 3D formats including DAE and FBX - ideal for game developers. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

You don't need to buy it. Blender is licensed under GNU General Public License v2 or later. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard shortcuts

Good keyboard shortcuts for everything. Keep your left hand on the keyboard and your right hand on the mouse. See More

Top Pro

Coherent and streamlined workflow / internal use logic

The trick with Blender is to get used to its usage philosophy, as it keeps consistent through all the application. Once you get it, every feature or addition is learnt naturally, almost effortlessly. See More

Top Pro

Has proxies to speed up work with higher resolution videos

Video editor can work with proxies that have several times lower resolution and compression quality to speed up things. It makes work with 4k videos possible (i daresay even comfortable) even on lower end hardware. See More

Top Pro

Powerful animation suite

Blender provides a full rigging system, and automates animation by interpolating between keyframe positions. See More

Top Pro

Has good community support and many tutorials

I can always find answers to my questions just by asking google. The community is very active, and there are many tutorials for any job, from simply change speed, pan and zoom in your videos to color correction and compositing. With different workflows described, told by different people, in different ways, so you can pick ones that match your level of skills, and personal preferences. See More

See All

Flowblade

Top Pro

Powerful and light-weight

Top Con

Linux-only small user base

If you have a friend/machine running anything other than Linux, it won't work. So you cannot transfer knowledge as easily and this also results in a rather small user base so also fewer tutorials and online support. See More

howtopam's Experience

A light-weight small video editor with numerous functions and tremendous power. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux

Top Pro

Multifunctionality

Top Con

Lack of advanced editing features

Doesn't support stabilization or complex transitions for example. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Flowblade is licensed under GPLv3 with source code available on GitHub. See More

Top Con

Requires higher display resolution

Top Pro

Stable

Has an interface similar to OpenShot and PiTiVi but doesn't crash when previewing videos or after few render. See More

Top Con

GPU rendering is unstable

A fair amount of hardware and driver combinations crash the software. See More

See All

Olive Video Editor

Top Pro

Scale / move elements directly on viewer

This video editor has the ability to move things in the visual space straight in the viewer panel compared to the others where you need to change some value of x or y to scale or move things in your composition. This might not matter much in many cases but if you have a lot of elements moving or scaling throughout your scene, this is the fastest and a much more intuitive method than having to adjust the scale/position values of individual axes separately. This again is a big reason why I prefer an alpha (a damn good alpha) version of this software than a stable release of Kdenlive. See More

Top Con

Still in alpha / No stable release yet

Not exactly going to be a long term con. The official website clearly states the same, which is why this piece of software should not be used for important projects. Then again it is so damn good that Olive editor is right now my primary editor for most projects. The fact that there is NO stable version of this software does bother a bit as it's ability to handle complex projects is almost unpredictable. But all said and done, it's still not crashed on me even once. Even though an alpha, the best damn alpha release ever. See More

WiseMiach's Experience

Simply wonderful! One of the few cross platform video editors that has lightning fast editing preview without having to create proxy clips for every step owing to GPU preview. A huge advantage considering the amount of time saved in having to not wait for proxy clip generation thereby allowing for a more flexible workflow. Beautifully blended workflow combining a bit of premiere and a slight bit of after effects. Having the control to edit content visually by resizing or moving clips and other elements directly on the editor / viewer gives a tremendous amount of creative freedom. See More

Specs

License:GPL-3.0

Supported platforms:Windows linux mac

Computer Specifications:Almost anything

Top Pro

Blazing fast preview

GPU preview means a lot and I honestly cannot understand how other video editors do not have this as the default choice. Incredibly fast previews tested even on low end machines. This is the sole deal breaker for me when it comes to editing clips. See More

UpbeatTuireann's Experience

i have had very good experience with Olive video editor. after 3 month installing and editing 1080 video in an old PC, no crash no lake, worked as charm, Unbelievable! See More

JoyousNapkiraly's Experience

Is very good See More

See All

Davinci Resolve

Top Pro

Hollywood approved

Has been used in hollywood a lot. See More

Top Con

Not open source

DazzlingFrigg's Experience

I wanted to use a Linux first, open source editor but I rely on stability for work and sadly I couldn't get a workflow that didn't include a significant number of crashes and glitches. DaVinci Resolve on the other hand is absolutely stable, never crashes, never glitches, has excellent tools, a smooth workflow and incredibly fast rendering. IMO better than Premiere. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Has free version

Free version for all platforms. See More

Top Con

Not traditionally an editing software

While the built in editor is great, the software is mostly focused on color correction. See More

Valentin's Experience

The best video editor software I've ever seen. See More

Top Pro

Clean and modern UI

The interface is clean and modern. Providing a nice smooth experience. See More

Top Con

Free version is limited to Ultra HD

That's enough for most people, but 4K is not free anyway. See More

ExceptionalErimon's Experience

This tool is way ahead of the current OpenSource alternatives. Whilst Blender is a 3D tool with a video editor, this is a video editor with a 3D modeler and it does video editing very well. Motion stabilization, transitions, color grading... all shine. If you don't mind using a closed source application, this is the best free (and possibly non-free) video editor as of 2019. See More

Top Pro

Actively developed and rapidly improved

At version 12 this was looking like a strong contender for the future with a few rough edges. At version 14 this is an exceptional editor, and some would argue it's a better editing experience than even Premiere See More

Top Con

Lacks features

It functions flawlessly as a basic editor, but when you try to get into anything beyond titles, fades, and basic animations, you will likely find the toolset lacking. See More

Top Pro

Stable and supported

The software is actively developed on, and is incredibly stable See More

Top Con

Currently needs a sound card and a pro version on Linux

As of January 2018 the Linux version doesn't support system sound so you'll need a card from Blackmagic. Assuming you want h264 you'll also need the pro version of the software. See More

Top Pro

Stellar color correcting

The color correcting tools resolve provides are quite powerful. See More

Top Pro

Has a free version which is only lacking a few features

Top Pro

Presets for other software

If you like the way that Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere Pro function, there are built-in templates that change the program layout and functionality to match those pieces of software. Even better, you are prompted whether you want to use these on startup so there is no digging through menus to find this feature. See More

See All

Shotcut

Top Pro

PiP (picture in picture)

You can put multiple movies on the corners or anywhere on the movies. See More

Top Con

Cannot select multiple clips at once on the timeline

You can only move one clip at a time on the timeline, which means relocating a clip is a real pain. See More

OrganizedThaleia's Experience

Simple and very intuitive, Shotcut is also very powerful with html animation as it understand javascript script. It does 4k and work smoothly with green background. You can do professional movie like blender or lightwork once you have discovered all the hidden gems under its hood See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Multiple screen abilities

Top Con

No advanced effects such as rotoscoping, and motion tracking

Shotcut really just is an advanced clip assembler. See More

Sojan Janso's Experience

Well organized, simple, stable, and faster than most alternatives. Is not fully featured, and does not support rotoscoping, keying etc. See More

Top Pro

Graphic animation

Example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTHvJ5yEEHs See More

Wernight's Experience

To me I'm comparing it to Blender, and I feel that Shotcut is awesome for simpler edits. If you want full power however I think it gets limited (say stabilizing, adding effects, complex transitions, compositing...). See More

Top Pro

Complete configuration of the layout interface

EnergeticBres's Experience

Intuitive, fast, feature rich, stable. Works will all kinds of files and especially handles mixing of files with different framerates and sizes. See More

Top Pro

Accurate white balance dropper

Especially for uinderwater video, the dropper does a very good job to bring back the natural colors See More

Top Pro

More stable than most other FOSS competitors

Shotcut is generally more stable than competitors such as Openshot and Pitivi, although it lacks some of their features. From HN: "It happens way less than Openshot or Pitivi but it's still present." See More

See All

Cinelerra-GG Infinity

Top Pro

Fast

Compositing and previewing 1080p video works at a full 60 frames per second on moderate hardware. See More

Wolfgang Brunner's Experience

The editor with the best performance. Due to good proxy support also suitable for laptops. Lv2 support, multi-camera editing, audio synchronization on the timeline. Camera tracking and much more. A little training the best program for Youtuber and filmmakers. See More

Specs

Supported platforms:Linux

Max resolution:7680x4320

Top Pro

Create Clips From Source Files

Allows users to create clips of a specified portion of a source file from the preview window. See More

InquisitiveTawrich's Experience

I like it, because it is a real powerful video editor for linux. See More

Top Pro

Powerful Effects

Take the BlueBannana effect for example, it alone can both color correct, color shift, color mask (think chroma key), and give live statistics on the current frame. See More

See All

OpenShot Video Editor

Top Pro

Easy to learn interface

By using a clean interface that is uncluttered and simple to understand the program allows for intuitiveness that is not always seen in other video editors. See More

Top Con

The GarageBand of video editing

Not a terrible downside, unless you are looking for the latest, fastest, cutting edge production software. It does small things extremely well, but has difficult workarounds for more extreme edits. See More

UpbeatSilenus's Experience

I wanted to like this but after trying KDENlive I found it quite limiting (both the lack of zoom (several seconds showing in OpenShot vs zooming down to fractions of a second in KDENlive) and I couldn't get it to show me a live previous of the video in the timeline. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Top Con

Timeline only zooms in to eight seconds

Although this is supposedly fixed in the daily builds, it is not out for the public yet, and it can be very frustrating to align and grab clips that are less than eight seconds long. See More

UnbiasedNike's Experience

Crash, crash, crash... when it didn't crash I found it to be in that middle zone of more than a basic editor, but not a professional one... features are not very intuitive. It took me more than 30 minutes of randomly clicking to figure out how to adjust the effects applied to a clip and then I was underwhelmed with the options. To be fair... I was looking for something specific when I tried this out. I've used Adobe and other video editors in the past and this just missed my current needs and my expectations based on past experiences. See More

Top Pro

GPU rendering

The GPU rendering is said to still be in beta, but works smoothly, even on low end GPU. See More

Top Con

Editing effects is not intuitive at all

Applying effects is as easy as drag and drop. But if you want to edit them, you'd need to right click on each clip and select Properties. You'd need to experiment with not-so-well documented parameters which take forever to preview just to see if you are on the right track. It is sort of easy to learn unless you want more than drag and drop controls. See More

DignifiedSucellus's Experience

I had the least amount of issues, as a beginner, with openshot. Every other software had project stopping issues. The only other one that I could have possibly worked around the problems was Olive. Openshot isn't cluttered, the gpu rendering worked amazingly, it was very easy to understand coming from a background in audio only production using Reaper. Openshot was able to run on a cheap machine as well: i5-4310u and intel 4400HD graphics. It did struggle trying to run it, but mild edits and exports were possible. Keep in mind that is an extremely under-powered machine, but was still able to complete projects where almost every other software on this list failed using W3520 Cpu and GTX 980 Ti. It is just a more well written software as far as open source goes See More

Top Con

Only simple editing, no compositing such as rotoscoping

ConscientiousPyroeis's Experience

I have used it. See More

Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience

Awesome ! See More

ExceptionalErimon's Experience

This tool is for casual users. If you want something simple to use for beginners, this is it! See More

stalliondrift's Experience

This crap supports only AAC for audio codec! See More

See All

Lightworks

Top Con

Closed source

Top Pro

Over 20 years in development and used to create Oscar winning films

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Import image formats: DVCPRO HD

Export video formats: Uncompressed SD 8 bit and 10 bit

Import audio formats: DVCPRO 50

See All Specs

Top Con

Free edition limited export

Just allows for 480p and 720p suitable for YouTube or DVD. See More

Top Pro

Incredibly fast once you learn the tool

Top Con

Free version is limited to 720p output

Whereas the full version can export to a wide variety of formats and resolutions, Lightworks can only export H.264 / MPEG-4 up to 720p. See More

Top Pro

The only professional level editor for Linux

See All

Natron

Desktop targets:macOS, Linux and Windows

Cinelerra HV

Add Video or Image

Cinelerra CV

Add Video or Image

Wondershare Filmora

Top Con

doesn't run natively on Linux

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KDENlive

Top Pro

Surpisingly complete

Although its definetly not as good as all the profetional softwares out there, this video editor provides more than enough features for almost any amateur film developer, from alpha manipulation and audio correction, to multiple tracks and speed control. See More

Top Con

No hardware acceleration

If you don't have a CPU that's good for video encoding, the render time can be quite bad. See More

CharmingPakhet's Experience

Way too slow even on beefy hardware See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Free and open source

Top Con

Doesn't support multi frame-rate video editing

When you choose the mixed frame rate option, your video with 60 fps will be broken (slow down and trimmed). (This con might be just misunderstanding of how to do video editing and production from the user who typed in). See More

David Eltz's Experience

Stable and feature-rich, KDENlive has proven itself to be Linux's only viable Adobe Premiere alternative. See More

Top Pro

Stability

Older versions tended to crash, but Version 17 is very stable. See More

Top Con

Crashes heavilly with composit timelines and changes in speed

Kdenlive just does not digest stacks of more than a clip very well, especially when they include alpha layers. Changing speed using the "speed" effect also often causes sudden crashes during playback. See More

CoolSeonangsin's Experience

Has a lot of features. See More

Top Pro

Keyframe support

Many settings in KDENlive filters can be keyframed. This permits for dynamic placed changes in the properties all throughout the clip (for example, multiple changes in audio volume). See More

Top Con

Does not have good distribution channel

You have to go to their website to get newest version, does not auto update via package manager. See More

PleasantHuehuecoyotl's Experience

i used it to creat ananimation video after drawing images using krita, exploiting keyframes i made a beautiful cartoon. See More

Top Pro

Multi-track grouping and simultaneous multiple track editing

The option to group multiple video and/or audio tracks is absolutely marvelous for use with multiple view angles and sound tracks. This permits you to modify all the tracks at the same time and prevents the need to constantly re-synchronize your clips. KDENlive can also edit multiple selected tracks at once without grouping them, which permits great flexibility when changing edits. See More

Top Con

Timeline cursor is not working

Timeline cursor is not working well on Kubuntu, very difficult to use it. You have to switch all the time between project monitor and clip monitor to get it work. See More

NeighborlyBochica's Experience

Everyone can build up his owne display layout See More

Top Pro

Open Source

Kdenlive is licensed under GPLv2, and built on top of other open source projects like FFmpeg. See More

Top Con

Dose not work well in Windows

They do not support windows well like other distribution. You will face a lot of problems. See More

ExceptionalErimon's Experience

This is the most feature complete with good user experience OpenSource video editor. It has more features than most alternatives, and compared to Blender a lot of common video operations aren't hacks or slow as hell. See More

Top Pro

Flexible keyboard shortcuts

While out of the box it uses shortcuts similar to what one would expect with tools like Premier Pro and Final Cut, it also allows all of these to be remapped. See More

Top Con

Poor multicore and GPU rendering support

Although KDENlive does have some support for multicore processor and GPU rendering, its overall support is not very good (especially when it comes to stability). See More

Top Pro

Works great as an audio editor

Audio is edited in the same way as video, which makes it one of the best audio editors. See More

Top Pro

Nvenc cbr 14 mbps - custom profile export for nvidia card kepler or better

f=mp4 vcodec=nvenc_h264 vb=14000k acodec=aac ab=128k. See More

See All

The Best 1 of 15 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for KDENlive

My Recommendation for KDENlive

Surpisingly complete

No hardware acceleration

Free and open source

Doesn't support multi frame-rate video editing

Stability

Crashes heavilly with composit timelines and changes in speed

Keyframe support

Does not have good distribution channel

Multi-track grouping and simultaneous multiple track editing

Timeline cursor is not working

Open Source

Dose not work well in Windows

Flexible keyboard shortcuts

Poor multicore and GPU rendering support

Works great as an audio editor

Nvenc cbr 14 mbps - custom profile export for nvidia card kepler or better

14 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Blender

My Recommendation for Blender

Integrated compositor and renderer

Hard to learn

Fast

Common video editing operations are complex

Supports addons

Does not handle NURBs

Includes video editing & compositing tools

Too many possibilities, no unified workflow

Python extensibility

Very versatile

Has a powerful rendering engine

Wide import and export format support

Free and open source

Keyboard shortcuts

Coherent and streamlined workflow / internal use logic

Has proxies to speed up work with higher resolution videos

Powerful animation suite

Has good community support and many tutorials

My Recommendation for Flowblade

My Recommendation for Flowblade

Powerful and light-weight

Linux-only small user base

Multifunctionality

Lack of advanced editing features

Free and open source

Requires higher display resolution

Stable

GPU rendering is unstable

My Recommendation for Olive Video Editor

My Recommendation for Olive Video Editor

Scale / move elements directly on viewer

Still in alpha / No stable release yet

Blazing fast preview

My Recommendation for Davinci Resolve

My Recommendation for Davinci Resolve

Hollywood approved

Not open source

Has free version

Not traditionally an editing software

Clean and modern UI

Free version is limited to Ultra HD

Actively developed and rapidly improved

Lacks features

Stable and supported

Currently needs a sound card and a pro version on Linux

Stellar color correcting

Has a free version which is only lacking a few features

Presets for other software

My Recommendation for Shotcut

My Recommendation for Shotcut

PiP (picture in picture)

Cannot select multiple clips at once on the timeline

Multiple screen abilities

No advanced effects such as rotoscoping, and motion tracking

Graphic animation

Complete configuration of the layout interface

Accurate white balance dropper

More stable than most other FOSS competitors