15 Best Professional Video Editing Software of 2019

Looking for a professional video editing software at your budget? Look no further! We’ve compiled a list of 15 professional video editing software for any budget here to help you save your time and effort!

Nowadays, making videos is not the game of giant studios only. Everyone can make videos, especially when we have a bunch of powerful, and affordable professional video editing software out there.

In consideration of the usability, purpose of use as well as editing features the program offers, we handpicked 15 best professional video editing software among more than 30 free and paid programs we’ve tested during the past 3 years.

This article can help you save tons of time, and effort searching for the best video editing software to suite your needs.

Best For Making Educational Videos

Like other video editing software, these programs offer basic video editing features plus professional features to speed up your creation of educational videos such as how-to tutorials, product demos or online training video courses.

1. ActivePresenter – Free

ActivePresenter is our first pick as the best professional video editing software for creating screencast videos, software demos and online training videos. This program has everything you need to create professional-looking educational video content at your budget. It’s completely free to use without any restriction.

This program includes a screen recorder, a slide-based video editor with basic and advanced video editing features like chroma key, closed caption, audio effects plus a bunch of smart annotations. If you’re professional trainers, teachers or online video creators, ActivePresenter is no doubt the best option to try. Read our detail review of ActivePresenter here to learn more about it.

2. Camtasia – $249

Camtasia has been around for over 20 years now. It offers full array of video editing features for creating instructional learning videos. The program also includes a high quality screen recorder like ActivePresenter plus dozen of unique features that screencast creators would love to use. Click here to learn more about Camtasia!

Camtasia is compatible with both Windows and Mac. It’s available to trial within 30 days. License price per machine, lifetime is $249.

3. Movavi Screen Capture Studio

Movavi screen capture studio is an 2-in-1 program which offers important features for creating tutorial videos and software demos. Compared to above expensive programs, Movavi screen capture studio won at the price. This program includes a full HD screen recorder and a video editor where you can use to assemble your recordings after finished. The video editor also comes with annotation tools, animated texts, callouts and some advanced features like chroma key or video stabilizer.

New users can trial Movavi screen capture studio within 7 days. After this time, you won’t be able to use the program any more. Movavi Screen Capture Studio license price is set at $59.95 per lifetime. To learn more about it, read our review here! 

4. VSDC – Free

VSDC is one of the most interesting free video editors for Windows we’ve ever reviewed. It provides all necessary tools to create instructional tutorial videos, attractive movies that everyone can learn easily. Surprisingly, this free program won’t leave a freaking watermark on the output like other trial software. While the free version has all features you need, Pro version will only cost $19,99.

With VSDC, everything is possible. This awesome free video editor also includes 3D editing, 4K support, chroma key and many advanced features. For your information, this program  Click here to learn more about VSDC.

Best For Video Editing Beginners

Based on the ease of use, below professional video editing software programs are the best options for beginners and casual users. These programs are good choices for those who don’t have prior experiences in video production. All programs have the same user interface style and workflow.

5. Filmora Video Editor

Filmora video editor is a lightweight and easy-to-use classic timeline video editing software that any beginner should try now. The program lets you add up to 100 video/audio track to the timeline for editing. All the main features, including cut, crop, rotate, brightness control, add filters, transitions and so on, are displayed clearly on the main window. This arrangement helps new users save their video creation time.

Filmora video editor is compatible to both Windows and Mac. It’s capable handling 4k videos, and includes tons of special effects, filters, and transitions which can be easily applied via drag-n-drop action. This program has a free edition you download and trial. However, it will leave a watermark on the output. The cost to remove its watermark is about $59.99 per license. To learn more about Filmora video editor, click here to read our review! 

6. Movavi Video Editor

Movavi Video Editor is a powerful yet easy-to-use video processing program for Windows. Cut and join video clips with zero quality loss, apply stylish video effects and filters, add music, titles, and much more! Despite its extensive functionality, Movavi’s video editing software is very easy to work with: take a pinch of fantasy, mix it with some free time, and you’ll have a Hollywood-like video with a lot less effort. Download the program, review the information on this page – and your path to fame has for sure begun! Movavi has two version for Windows, one Movavi video editor for personal at $39,95 and Movavi video editor for Business at $79,95 which are good deal for professionals.

Movavi editing tool is easy to navigate and use by drag-n-drop into the timeline

7. AVS video editor

AVS Video Editor is an easy video editing program. Create, edit video, capture video/ make a video slideshow/ cut, merge, trim video files/ save to any format. AVS video editor can work on Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, XP, 2003, Vista (no Mac OS/Linux support).

AVS Video Editor supports all key video formats. Edit & save video files in AVI, VOB, MP4, DVD, WMV, 3GP, MOV, MKV, using popular codecs H.264, MPEG-4, H.263 etc. Process video with different frame sizes: HD, Full HD, 2K Quad HD and 4K Ultra HD. To learn more about AVS video editor, click here to read our review!

8. Lightworks

Lightworks is a super easy video editing software for those of you who want o become a Hollywood film editor in near future. This program has been used for editing many famous blockbuster Hollywood movies such as The King’s Speech or The Wolf of Wall Street etc. Take a look at this review to learn more about Lightworks.

9. VideoPad Video Editor

VideoPad video editor is a simple to use, intuitive video editor for creating professional videos quickly that you can trust. It is a cross platforms editor (Windows, Mac and Android) which can capture video from various file formats and devices. VideoPad has a really friendly, classic and intuitive editing interface that everyone can learn quickly. You will have a menu bar on top of the editing window to control the whole project while clips, audio and image are placed on the left of the window. You also have a preview window on the right of the windows and a timeline at the bottom. All major editing buttons are displayed with a small icon, you can recognize it easily.

Best For Movie Editors

These powerful and decent video editing suites are suitable for those of you who want to create nice looking movies with special effects, add-on plugins, 360 degree video editing and more. These programs are so much more expensive than the above mentioned tools. However, they’re worth your money!

10. Cyberlink PowerDirector 16 Ultimate – $99

With an intuitive interface and an unrivaled feature set, PowerDirector delivers high-end performance editing for both standard and 360º video. Built to be flexible, yet powerful, PowerDirector remains the definite video editing solution for anyone, whether they are beginners or professional.

11. Vegas Pro 15

VEGAS Pro 15, came to life on August 28th 2018, is an all-in-one video editing software package that is expected to become a big rival of the famous brands in the market today such as Adobe Premier Pro or Final Cut Pro. The program is said to help us work faster, more efficiently with a customizable interface, Picture-in-Picture OFX plug-in, Powerful hardware acceleration technologies, ACES 1.0 support and DVD Architect for DVD and Blu-ray Disc authoring. That’s sound promising and I am very excited to test it.

When it comes to video editing, professional editors often look for important updates to help them save more time as they normally deal with large project with lots of stills images and small clips. But, casual users may only want to get an easy to install program with intuitive interface so that they can finish their work painlessly. Magix did a great job after took over this program from Sony. The new VEGAS Pro 15 is not only affordable but also has powerful features for pro editors to use. Magix VEGAS Pro seems to be on the right track to become the best professional video editing program for any editing level with their massive updates in this new version. To learn more about this software, read our review here!

12. Hitfilm Pro -$314

Pro‐level editing. Super-powered visual effects. Next generation films. HitFilm Pro 2017 is a unique mix of video editing, visual effects and 3D compositing all in one product. Includes 3D object rendering, a powerful particle simulator, over 500 customizable visual effects and presets, professional color grading, industry-standard BorisFX titling and over 150 creative plugins for use in other video software.

13. Adobe Premiere Pro CC -$239.88 for 1 year subscription

Edit video faster and more fluidly than ever before with the powerful, more connected Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Dozens of brand-new features, including a redesigned timeline, improved media management, and streamlined color grading, allow you keep the focus on your creative work.

Because Adobe Premiere Pro CC is part of Creative Cloud, you get immediate and exclusive access to all the latest updates and new features as soon as they’re released, and you always control when to download and install them. You can also conveniently sync settings between your computers; tap into a free and growing library of expert training videos from Adobe and others; and showcase your work on Behance.

Download, install, and run the full version on your own computer, and conveniently manage your subscription from your games and software library.

14. Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate – $89.99 

Edit your media your way with the power, creativity and control of Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate video editor – our best just got better! Pinnacle Studio Ultimate delivers the tools you need to create pro-like videos, including premium effects from NewBlue FX. With powerful features like new Morph transitions, Split Screen video, Multi-Camera video editing and more, you can create HD and 4K videos with the controls, filters and precision you need to edit like a pro. Get the controls you need and go beyond what you thought possible with Pinnacle Studio Ultimate!

Bottom line

We know that there are still more professional video editing software out there. As mentioned earlier, deciding to use which software depends very much on your needs and your budget. We hope this piece of information is helpful for you. Share with us your opinion and don’t forget to follow us to receive more valuable post notifications in the future.

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Good luck!

This post is updated in March, 10th 2019 for the purpose of keeping it up-to-date.