They also have manufactured and sell their own custom Lightworks keyboard, which is invaluable for editors working on professional or long projects. The only thing the free version of Lightworks limits are your output formats, so for projects that are not intended for YouTube or Vimeo, you’ll need to upgrade to the $24/month subscription. The free and the pro (paid) version of Lightworks are identical in terms of functionality. That’s certainly another big takeaway, there are no limits on video length, something many free tools impose on their users.

Lightworks has done a really fantastic job of creating an online community that operates in a forum providing users with support on everything from YouTube commercials to full length films. It’s a powerful little video editor, great for simple projects, and OpenShot lets you enjoy unlimited tracks and layers. While there is no multicam editing function, OpenShot does incorporate a few unique features that are often left out of free software, like chroma key function and basic 3D animation tools for things like snow, lens flares or flying text. You can smoothly resize your clips, scale, trim, mix audio all with drag and drop, with real time previews. If you’re looking for something that will be very easy to use and quick to learn for short video projects, award-winning open source video editing tool OpenShot has you covered. We found the top 4 FREE video editing programs that work with Windows, Mac AND Linux.

Our take? Don’t waste time digging around when we can do it for you! It’s also discouraging to find a video editing program that covers your needs - but then you realize it won’t work with your operating system (we see you in the back, Linux).

Lightworks free download for pc