CapCut is my favorite video editing tool, by a long shot. Although the desktop version of CapCut compares well to Adobe Premiere Pro, the mobile version of CapCut is way better than Adobe Premiere Rush, the mobile version of Adobe’s video editing software. I would never have chosen to use Adobe’s mobile version if I had CapCut installed. With many mobile alternatives around, I have tried quite a few by now and have concluded that CapCut Mobile is by far the best option, and I’ll tell you why.

6 Free tools and a worthwhile upgrade plan

Premiere Rush just doesn’t offer much

Both CapCut and Premiere Rush are available for free with premium upgrades.

CapCut’s free app offers so many tools, features, templates, transitions, audio tracks, and it’s extremely easy to use. All of this is available without any charge. The CapCut Pro upgrade gives you access to some more exclusive templates, effects, and transitions, but you can create incredible videos with no real limitations under the free plan alone.

CapCut Pro starts from $8 for a monthly subscription or $12 for a one-off monthly plan, with other payment or subscription options available, should you feel the urge to try them.

Premiere Rush is a simple video editing tool. Whether using Premiere Rush's free version or Premium, it doesn’t offer much in the way of fun video editing features. It has basic video-editing tools, such as a timeline, transition options, some animated overlays — all of which are formatted for horizontal videos, not vertical — and a small audio library.

While the price of Premiere Rush Premium is cheaper than CapCut Pro — at $5 per month or $40 for a year, with only a 3-day free trial — you don’t gain that much extra from the Premium upgrade. To get all the extras to get you close to what you might find in CapCut, you'd need to subscribe to Adobe’s Adobe Express plan, which also includes Premiere Rush, as well as all the fun AI and traditional tools included in Express. This is $10 per month or $100 for a year’s subscription.

Premium users get premium graphics and overlays, music and audio, advanced audio editing features, 4K ultra HD export, and an auto-resize feature for exporting your videos to different platforms.

5 Social media integration

CapCut is made with TikTok in mind

Since CapCut is developed by ByteDance, the people responsible for TikTok, it features many TikTok integrated tools, including an audio library of licensed sounds and music ready for uploading to TikTok.

I’m not a TikTok user myself, but I do create short-form and long-form videos for other social media sites like Instagram and YouTube. Fortunately, CapCut has other audio libraries with copyright-free audio available for use on non-TikTok apps. Of course, you can always upload your own original audio too.

Once you've finished creating your video in CapCut, it automatically presents options for directly sharing it to TikTok, with exclusive non-watermark features, as well as saving it to share elsewhere (and there are ways around the watermarks for those options too).

4 AI tools

CapCut’s AI tools are helpful, not gimmicks

There isn’t much comparison between CapCut and Premiere Rush’s AI tools, because there aren’t any AI tools in Premiere Rush. To have access to AI tools in Adobe’s mobile video editing app, you need to subscribe to the Adobe Express Creative Cloud plan or one of the further Creative Cloud plans, costing much more money and needlessly buying extra software just for external AI tools from other Adobe apps.

The AI tools within CapCut are helpful for creating quick videos, editing visuals to the beat of trending audio, and customizing trending templates made with AI. There are even AI effects and filters to use on top of your video visuals. The Pro membership offers further AI tools, such as transcript-based editing and much more, but whether you stick to the free plan or choose to upgrade, you’ll still have more helpful AI tools than Premiere Rush provides.

3 Great sister apps

CapCut has integrated image editing tools

Hypic is a mobile image-editing tool also owned by ByteDance. You can access Hypic directly from the CapCut app, allowing you to directly integrate your edited images back into your video in CapCut.

Although already mentioned, I must discuss the connection between TikTok and CapCut and why it’s better than anything Premiere Rush features (which is actually nothing for direct social media integration). TikTok is the biggest social media app of the last five years, so using a video editing tool from the same developer to create TikTok videos is sure to provide you with the best results.

Also, Adobe Premiere Rush doesn’t have any non-Adobe affiliations. The app itself isn’t part of Adobe Creative Cloud, meaning you can’t edit the content in any other Adobe program unless you also subscribe to expensive Adobe software.

2 Cross-platform availability

Edit from your phone, desktop, or browser without losing files

Adobe Premiere Rush is an entirely different software than Adobe Premiere Pro (Adobe’s desktop video-editing tool), meaning that it’s not so simple to open and edit your files on both your mobile and your desktop workstations.

On the other hand, CapCut’s mobile app, desktop app, and its browser-version all let you save your files in the CapCut Spaces cloud, linking your account for you to be able to easily edit across its different platform options. While it’s often easier to edit short-form, vertical videos from your phone, and to edit long-form, horizontal videos from a desktop, there’s no rule that you have to. You can switch between your devices seamlessly, in whatever way you see fit, without losing your progress.

1 Simple interface

There’s practically no learning curve

CapCut’s mobile app has a very different interface from its desktop and browser versions. All the versions are simple to learn and use, but CapCut’s mobile app is the easiest. It has intuitive menus with well labeled titles for everything, and CapCut’s mobile app is designed similarly to scrolling around social media pages, so it feels very comforting if that’s what you’re used to.

Like in Premiere Rush, CapCut’s editing page does have a video timeline and audio features. There are many more tools in CapCut, allowing you to have more control over how you edit both the visuals and the audio of your videos. I’m not that well-versed in video editing software, but I’ve never struggled to find anything in CapCut mobile — and I haven't even needed any external tutorials to figure it out. It’s that easy and inviting to use.

You should choose CapCut for your mobile video editing needs

CapCut’s video software is simple, easy to learn and navigate, and offers almost infinite tools and features — and that’s just on the free plan. Compared with Adobe Premiere Rush, CapCut just offers more. Upgrading to Premium for either tool isn’t necessary as you don’t gain much from it, but Premiere Rush’s Premium offering is as uninviting and bland as the rest of the tool. In an age where mobile video editing is for an audience with a lower attention span, the effects, transitions, graphics, and other features found in CapCut allow you to create the perfect mobile video for a modern-day audience.

  • Capcut

    CapCut is a great video editor for vertical format mobile videos, with AI tools and tons of templates.

  • Adobe Premiere Rush

    Adobe's pared-down mobile video editing tool