The Verdict
With the exception of accidentally overwriting or deleting a file, there’s precious little that can go wrong when you test drive a new software, right? While this may be true for most benign software, such as text editors and web browsers, it certainly isn’t the case with video editors of the like that we featured in this Roundup.
All the tools feature a myriad combination of menu bars, tabs, sidebars and buttons. It’d be unfair to these tools for us to declare any one style or appearance as superior to the others, because each of these tools boast of vast user communities, which suggests that there are ample number of users that favour their user interface.
More than anything else, your choice of application will ultimately come down to which one offers intuitive workflow, because they’re all well matched in terms of what you can achieve with them. Furthermore, your choice is something that will vary for every individual. If you’re anything like most other people, you’ll begin to work with one tool, and over time as you become immersed into the art of film editing, learn to appreciate the different offerings of each tool. It wouldn’t surprise us if you even choose to work with multiple tools when working on a project. So, for example, you might use one for their transitions and effects, and another for manipulation audio.
If you’re a novice just getting started with video editing, you might find feel daunted by the sheer scope of the possibilities. This is why documentation is so important, and the biggest reason for deciding on Kdenlive as the winner.
Flowblade’s documentation wildly conflicts with its current design, which makes it unlikely new users will get very far with the tool. Although there’s little wrong with the project itself, we can’t recommend it to users for this reason. If not for the Quick Introduction Guide, LiVES would suffer a similar fate.
Openshot and Shotcut faired nearly identical in all the tests. The use of images to explain the different effects by the latter is a novel feature, which all the other tools should consider adopting. We’ve very reluctantly pushed LiVES off the podium on account of its lack of official binaries for different distributions.