VidCutter
Incredibly simple to use.
Great tool for splitting and merging clips.
Small footprint (doesn’t take up much hard drive space).
If you’re looking for absolute simplicity, VidCutter shines.
This tool only does one thing: split and merge video clips.
It won’t add transitions, effects, or anything fancy.
And unlike the other tools listed here, VidCutter does not include a multi-track, non-linear timeline.
You get one track, and that’s it.
Clean and user-friendly interface.
Outstanding collection of transitions and titles.
Supports a large number of video, audio, and image formats.
Outstanding export feature (can export to numerous formats).
Can be run as an AppImage.
Depends upon Blender and can be finicky due to that.
Some animated titles take a long time to render.
Cannot handle more complex edits.
Random crashes can be experienced.
Animated titles can break if Blender isn’t updated along with OpenShot.
Video import can be slow.
The interface is well designed, and the feature set is extensive.
OpenShot is considered an all-purpose video editor and can serve your average editing needs.
If you need more complex editing tools, OpenShot might fail you.
The one caveat to adding animations is that complicated clips take a while to render.
Because OpenShot is found in the standard repositories, installing OpenShot is simple.
All you do is open your distribution’s app store, search forOpenShot, and clickInstall.
Kdenlive
Easy to use interface.
Wide range of file format support.
No animated titles included.
Can be slow to process video.
Depends on some KDE libraries.
Kdenlivewas born from the KDE project and is one of the best open-source alternatives to iMovie.
If you’re migrating frommacOS, this tool is what you want.
Shotcut
Efficient video processing.
Some built-in effects and transitions.
Built-in timeline editing (no video import necessary).
Audio can get a bit complex.
In some respects, Shotcut plays in the same field as OpenShot and Kdenlive.
However, Shotcut is more advanced than the other two.
Although Shotcut cannot be found in the standard repositories, it runs as an AppImage.
The biggest caveat to Shotcut is the learning curve.
You won’t find this tool to be quite as simple as either OpenShot or Kdenlive.
However,the developers created plenty of video tutorialsto help you along the way.
Flowblade
Simple interface.
Large amount of filters.
Bins to keep track of project files.
Fast video file importing.
Lack of animated titles.
The Flowblade interface is similar in layout to OpenShot, as is the feature set.
One of the highlights of Flowblade is the included extension filter set for video, audio, and images.
Like OpenShot, Flowblade focuses on ease-of-use; you won’t find a steep learning curve.
Flowblade was written in Python, so you might find the software responds faster than OpenShot and Kdenlive.
