5 Reasons Why You Should Use Shotcut to Edit Your Next Video

Nowadays, editing video footage is almost a required skill. It allows you to capture those important moments of life and preserve them for posterity or create gifs and memes to share on social media. However, you don’t have to spend huge amounts of money on the software used for this editing. One of the best free video editing programs is Shotcut, which is free and open source and works on Windows, macOS, and Linux. This is great because no matter what operating system your laptop is running for video editing, you only need to learn one set of commands and UI elements.

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5 Free, open and cross-platform

Eliminate platform dependency and other annoyances

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

It also runs natively on Apple Silicon, which makes newer Mac users happy. You can also rid yourself of companies with predatory data collection policies or other unsavory practices. Shotcut also runs on relatively 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 that is needed for video editing.

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4 No watermarks

Many other free tools, such as using your videos as advertising

While most freeware or no-cost video editing packages will brand your exported videos unless you pay for a premium license, Shotcut has no such policy. Any video you edit and export will be free of any branding, as if you were using one of the premium editing software programs. I struggled with basic video editors for many years because the other free options would build in watermarks, rendering the finished files unusable.

The worst part is that most of my editing was basic. I could have gotten a license for one of the more expensive editors back when they still had perpetual licenses, but I felt like that would have been too much money for my skills and needs at the time. If Shotcut had been around back then, I would have saved myself a lot of headache and wasted time looking for capable video editors that would also give me clean output files.

3 Is actively updated

The timetable does not yet have any fixed dates, but work is underway

While the basic video editors that come bundled with many operating systems rarely get new features, Shotcut has a thriving development schedule. Dozens of features are actively being worked on, and while there are no concrete launch dates, it’s likely that they will eventually arrive. New updates come out regularly, about every two months. That’s an impressive release schedule for any free software, and the list of upcoming features includes many things normally associated with premium software.

The developers also welcome feedback from the community. There is a suggestion category on the forums for any features you think should be added. Users can upvote, discuss and expand on them. The developers are also active on the forums and provide feedback on important features or whether the suggested features are already in the works for an upcoming release.

You can perform many advanced editing tricks

Shotcut’s active development means that new features are constantly being added. Some notable new additions include support for AV1, a space-efficient, open and royalty-free video encoding format that is becoming increasingly popular. While the software has supported keyframes for some time, this functionality has recently been extended to many filters, making it easier to edit specific parts of your timeline. Time Remapping is another new feature that allows you to speed up, slow down and even reverse parts of a clip for a cinematic effect.

These are all features from higher-end software packages and are often missing from free or basic editing apps. The interface uses a panel-based construction that can be moved around so you can reposition it as you see fit. Some convenience 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 like. Effects are managed in the Filters tab and there are tons of them, like chroma keying, color correction, adding text, and other advanced tools you may find handy.

1 Large number of supported formats

The ability to choose from extended formats is fantastic

One feature that often sets premium video editing software apart is the wide range of formats that can be used and then rendered as output files. Free editing programs are often limited in the resolution they support or other advanced features like tone mapping for converting HDR to SDR content. Shotcut can handle all of this because using FFmpeg means support for the latest audio and video formats, including AV1.

It can also handle many common image formats and animations created in After Effects, Lottie, Rawr and Rive. You can work with 4K and 8K footage, export individual frames as images for editing in other programs or as test patterns, 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 fidelity. It’s also codec independent, so you don’t need to install system codecs to use supported formats.

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You don’t have to pay for expensive video editing software, and Shotcut proves it

Being able to edit your own videos puts you in control of your memories. If you’re doing it as a hobby for personal use, you certainly don’t need professional-priced software packages to get started. Free, open-source software like Shotcut can meet your needs while you’re starting out, and can meet many advanced needs as your skills grow.

Shotcut

Shotcut is one of the best free and open-source video editing apps, offering numerous tools and features to help you make the most of your footage.