Whether you're a video editing expert or a newcomer who’s only just started dabbling in post-processing tools for your footage, you may have already heard about DaVinci Resolve. Heralded by many as one of the best video editing tools out there, it easily surpassed its rivals on many fronts, and here are five reasons why you should start using this all-rounder tool.

5 Less buggy and mostly stable

Whilst packing plenty of useful features

Losing hours' worth of work due to an unexpected crash can be really annoying. Although there are plenty of other stable video editors, none are as feature-laden as DaVinci Resolve. It’s easily less crash-prone than its biggest rival Premiere Pro and even on lower-end systems, you’ll encounter fewer bugs and glitches in DaVinci Resolve. And that's before you consider how optimized it is for PCs lacking in the performance department...

4 Rock-solid performance

Even on ARM laptops

Despite its myriad of tools, DaVinci Resolve is surprisingly fast and responsive even on outdated hardware. Sure, your overall performance may vary depending on the codec format, render resolution, and a handful of other factors. But there’s no denying its fantastic performance, especially on Windows on ARM devices. In comparison, most video editing tools still haven’t been ported over, while Premiere Pro relies on emulation instead of running natively on the new Snapdragon X Elite systems.

3 It has some of the best color-grading tools

Learning them all can be quite challenging, though

Color grading, or the act of modifying color tones in your footage, is one of the most crucial aspects of video editing – and it’s also another area where DaVinci Resolve pulls its own weight. In fact, it’s easily the industry-standard when it comes to color correction, with tools like color wheels, curves, node editors, scope, and IRE waveform modifiers allowing you to achieve precise brightness, hue, saturation, and other color values for your videos.

2 Decent set of integrations

That further enhance its utility

If you’re worried about plugins and integrations, then DaVinci Resolve has its own set of add-on utilities to bolster its video-editing capabilities. The node-based Fusion tool lets you inject high-quality visual effects into your scenes, while Fairlight can provide some extra oomph to the audio quality of your footage.

For those who want even more facilities, you can look into plugins like DCTLs, ProMagicBin, and Magic Animate. All that said, Adobe’s Premiere Pro definitely has the higher ground when it comes to the sheer number of third-party plugins, and I would’ve said the two are closely matched if not for the next section.

1 It’s free to use

And the Studio edition has a lifetime license

Unlike its nemesis, DaVinci Resolve comes with a free version that you can use indefinitely without any trial periods whatsoever. The most surprising aspect is that it works incredibly well for most of your needs, and depending on the type of content you create, you might not even need to buy the professional Studio version either.

To top it off, Blackmagic lets you purchase a lifetime license for the DaVinci Resolve Studio instead of forcing a subscription model. While the lifetime license does cost a whopping $295, you get access to even more post-production features in addition to GPU-accelerated rendering and multiple codecs, making it a worthwhile deal for professional video editors.

DaVinci Resolve is peerless even on non-Windows operating systems

As if supporting Windows on ARM wasn’t enough, DaVinci Resolve is even compatible with macOS and Linux, and it works pretty well on both operating systems. Following CentOS’ discontinuation, Blackmagic has moved the latest version of its flagship video editing software to Rocky Linux, though it’s still possible to run DaVinci Resolve on other popular distros like Ubuntu with a little effort.

Of course, just like every other software, DaVinci Resolve has its own share of issues. If you’ve been using Adobe’s CC suite for years, it can take some time to familiarize yourself with DaVinci Resolve’s complex UI. Besides more plugins on Premiere Pro, Adobe also has After Effects, which remains the best app for professional VFX compositing and motion graphics workloads. Nevertheless, DaVinci Resolve is still the better option if you’re only into video editing, and is surprisingly great for audio processing and VFX production.