These days, editing video footage is almost a required skill. With it, you can capture those important life moments and keep them for posterity, or create gifs and memes to share on social media. You don't need to spend large amounts of money on the software used for this editing, though. One of the best free video editing programs is Shotcut, which is free, open-source, and works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. That's great, because no matter what operating system your video editing laptop is running, you only have to learn one set of commands and UI elements.

5 Free, open, and multi-platform

Remove platform lock-in and other annoyances

One of the biggest drawbacks to the more well-known video editing software is the cost. Whether that's a one-time license fee for DaVinci Resolve or monthly subscriptions for Adobe Premiere Pro, that price sets a high bar for entry. Especially if you have modest video editing needs, many of the advanced tools in the paid packages are unnecessary. Shotcut is free to use and free of restrictions on usage and operating systems on which it can be used. It's developed to run on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and the open-source nature means bugs are fixed reasonably quickly when found.

It also runs natively on Apple Silicon, making recent Mac users happy. You can also free yourself from companies with predatory data harvesting policies or other unsavory practices. Shotcut also runs on fairly modest hardware, so you don't need a high-end computer to run it smoothly. The only crucial thing is to have enough RAM, as adequate memory is always something video editing needs.

4 No watermarks

Many other free-to-use tools like using your videos as advertising

While most freeware or free-to-use video editing packages put their branding onto your exported videos unless you pay for a premium license, Shotcut has no such arrangement. Every video you edit and export is free of any branding, as if you are using one of the premium editing software programs. I spent many years struggling with basic video editors because the other free options would bake in watermarks, making the finished files useless.

The worst part is that most of my edits were simple. I could have picked up a license for one of the more expensive editors back when they were still handled by perpetual licenses, but I felt that would have been overspending for my ability and needs at the time. If Shotcut was around back then, I would have saved myself a lot of headaches and wasted time looking for capable video editors that would also give me clean output files.

3 Actively being updated

The roadmap might not have any firm dates, but it's being worked on

While the simple video editors that come with many operating systems rarely get new features, Shotcut has a thriving development roadmap. Dozens of features are actively being worked on, and while they don't have specific inclusion dates, they likely will at some point. New updates happen regularly, at a rough cadence of every two months. That's an impressive release schedule for any free software, and the list of upcoming features includes many things that are normally associated with premium software.

The developers also welcome community feedback. There is a suggestion category in its forums for adding any features you think should be added. Users can upvote, discuss, and expand on these. The developers are also active in the forums and give feedback on important features or if the suggested features are already in progress for an upcoming release.

2 Large number of tools

You'll be able to do many advanced editing tricks

The active development of Shotcut means that new features are constantly included. Some notable recent inclusions are AV1 support, which is a space-saving, open, royalty-free video coding format that is becoming more popular. While the software has supported keyframes for some time, it recently expanded that functionality to many filters, making it easier to edit specific parts of your timeline. Time Remapping is another recent addition, with the ability to speed up, slow down, and even reverse parts of a clip for cinematic effect.

These are all features from more premium software packages and are often missing from free or basic editing apps. The interface employs a panel-based construction that can be dragged around, so you can reposition it to your liking. Some quality-of-life features are missing, like adding a video layer by dragging down a new clip, but you can still manually add as many layers as you want. Effects are handled in the Filters tab, and there are tons of them, such as chroma keying, color correcting, adding text, and other advanced tools that you might find handy.

1 Wide number of supported formats

Being able to choose from advanced formats is fantastic

One of the things that often sets premium video editing software apart is the wide selection of formats that can be used and then rendered as output files. Often, free editing programs are limited in the resolution they can support, or other advanced features like tone mapping to convert HDR to SDR content. These are all things that Shotcut can handle, as its use of FFmpeg means support for the latest audio and video formats, including AV1.

It can also handle many popular image formats and animations created in After Effects, Lottie, Rawr, and Rive. You can work with 4K and 8K footage, export single frames as images for editing in other programs or as test stills, and work with 10-bit video. Thanks to a partnership with Blackmagic, Shotcut users can work with advanced video codecs like ProRes and DNxHD for the best in fidelity. It's also codec-independent, so you don't have to install system codecs to use any supported formats.

You don't need to pay for expensive video editing software, and Shotcut proves it

Being able to edit your own videos gives you agency over your memories. If you're picking it up as a hobby for personal use, then you certainly don't need professionally-priced software packages to get going. Free and open-source software like Shotcut can handle your needs while you're starting out and can handle many advanced needs while your skill grows.