When comparing HitFilm vs Lightworks, the Slant community recommends Lightworks for most people. In the question“What are the best video editors for Windows?” Lightworks is ranked 6th while HitFilm is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Lightworks is:
Lightworks has been used to edit movies such as Wolf of Wall Street, 28 Days Later, Pulp Fiction, The King's Speech and many, many others.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Beginner friendly
Amazing all-in-one starter software thanks to a lot of powerful presets and a simplified workflow. There are tips, guides, explanations and easy access to community support. The interface is intuitive and easy to overview.
Pro Combines editing, VFX and 3D tools in one package
True 3d that handles particle-effects and 3d models in unified space, optical flow 2d tracking, 3d planar tracking with a lightweight version of Mocha, color-correction and color-grading.
Pro Import 3D models
You can import .obj, .lwo or .3ds models right into your composites, then texture and animate them. No 3rd party plug-in required.
Pro Real 3D
Particles, models, lights, camera tracking, effects, etc are all in true 3D space. You don't have to manage object or effect depth or angles by obfuscation.
Pro Powerful presets & visual effects
Color grading, motion blur, lights, flares, 3D muzzle flashes, procedural fire, etc. They both work out of the box and can be heavily customized. More than 150 visual effects and more are added constantly.
Pro 3D camera data support
Pro Splash screen
Gives access to community.
Pro Mac & PC support
Works on both Mac OS X and Windows.
Pro Powerful particle simulator
Physics based 3D particle simulator that can interact with surfaces and forces. You can have custom particles, size randomness, bounce, different emitters, etc. It can even be set to animate based on audio waveforms.
Pro 2D & 3D motion tracking
A 2D track is built in HitFilm and the "Camera Solve" part of Mocha comes integrated with the software
Pro Hollywood approved
Lightworks has been used to edit movies such as Wolf of Wall Street, 28 Days Later, Pulp Fiction, The King's Speech and many, many others.
Pro Highly polished editing workflow
Lightworks is very focused on just the editing workflow. It's full of functionality that eases the workflow. For example, media manager can be used to storyboard, "mark and park" can be used in timelines, cut points can be adjusted in 3 ways (end point of a clip without adjusting the start point of a clip that comes before it, start point of a clip without adjusting the endpoint of a clip that comes after it or start and end points of 2 joined clips at the same time) without shortcuts, just intuitively placed mouse hover points around the cut point. Such attention to detail is what makes it an efficient tool for editing.
Cons
Con No OMFI support
Open Media Framework Interchange (OMFI) is a platform-independent file format intended for transfer of digital media between different software applications.
Con Lack of audio tools
HitFilm can playback, cut & rearrange audio, but it lacks even basic tools like EQ.
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.
Con Doesn't support multi-frame rate videos
Unlike the other video editor, this one doesn't support multi-frame rate video.