Premiere Pro is known worldwide for its video editing capabilities and power, but it is not a program that satisfies all tastes. For some it’s too expensive, for others it’s too complicated and others just want to use something different to edit their videos. Whatever your reason for not using Adobe software, today I present you with the top 5 Adobe Premiere Pro alternatives for Windows and macOS.
Adobe Premiere Pro CC + Your Life as a Hollywood Movie. Adobe's Premiere Pro is a professional. Editing audio in the timeline; Audio channel mapping in Premiere Pro; Use Adobe Stock audio in Premiere Pro; Advanced editing. Multi-camera editing workflow; Editing workflows for feature films; Set up and use Head Mounted Display for immersive video in Premiere Pro; Editing VR; Best Practices. Best Practices: Mix audio faster; Best Practices.
This list includes free and paid programs, with options for Windows and macOS, so it’s safe to say one of them will meet your needs.
1. Movavi Video Editor Plus
The best Adobe Premiere Pro alternative
Movavi Video Editor is one of the easiest to use. One of the reasons for many people to get discouraged in the editing activities and in the video editing learning process is the complexity of some software interfaces, like those of Vegas Pro or Premiere Pro. This is why Movavi Video Editor offers an intuitive interface, designed for easy handling, with tutorials and an “Easy Mode” that almost makes the video for you.
The interface has some features in common with other video editing programs, but achieves a simpler finishing, without overloading the main screen with too many options and features, so that the people who have never edited a video feel confident anyway with Movavi.
Among the features it offers, Movavi Video Editor 14 also includes a tool to stabilize videos with motion and to reduce the noise in images and video.
Movavi Video Editor is easy to use, but sometimes results in a bit short in the performance, so it is surpassed by other programs with greater power of editing and rendering.
2. Vegas Pro 17
The Best Premiere Pro alternative for Windows
Vegas Pro, formerly known as Sony Vegas Pro, is Adobe Premiere’s core competency when it comes to features. It comes with 4K video editing support and editing can be done in 2D or 3D by dragging and dropping elements. One thing I like about Vegas Pro is that its interface is very customizable and gives you total control over how you would like to edit.
Thanks to the OpenFX base, it works perfectly with almost all types of video effects, and Vegas Pro imports the project file and automatically converts it to its native format, saving you time and storage space on your hard drive.
Like other video editing programs, it also includes some unique features. Features include GPU graphics acceleration, multi-camera editing, independent editing windows, masking tools, automatic color selection, plugin support, 3D preview, stereoscopic 3D adjustments, autocorrection of alignments, Dolby Digital surround sound, support for multiple administrators, native XAVC support, Blu-ray Disc authoring, and much more. Overall, Vegas Pro is an excellent alternative to Adobe Premiere Pro that offers very similar features and, undeniably, a friendlier interface.
Platforms: Windows
Price: Trial version is free for 30 days. The paid version costs $599
3. Avid Media Composer | First
The Best Premiere Pro alternative for Enterprise
Avid has now released its free version of Media Composer, named Media Composer | First, available for Mac OS X.10.11 and 10.12; Windows 10 (Professional and Enterprise), Windows 8.1 (Professional and Enterprise), and Windows 7 Professional.
Under the slogan “Basically, Media Composer | First offers the same editing tools that your favorite filmmakers, editors, and directors trust on a daily basis. That’s why Media Composer First opens the doors of a career in the audiovisual and entertainment sector, much more than any other video editing tool.” Avid has released this software with the intention of facilitating a process of adaptation to its interface, without having all its features in their entirety, to make it easier to jump to its paid version.
Unfortunately Media Composer | First is limited to a timeline of four video tracks and eight audio tracks, which contrast with the 24 video tracks and 64 audio tracks that make its full version available to you. Free video and audio editing software for windows 10.
But its restrictions are not only present in the number of tracks made available to the user, but also in other aspects, such as resolution, being limited to a maximum of 1080p. The tools for color correction, audio editing, and effects will also be limited, as will be the options for export and import video, etc.
For its part, and in order to facilitate the learning of this software, Avid has made available a series of basic tutorials. In short, despite its restrictions, this is an ideal software for novice users aspiring to take their first steps in Avid, as well as professionals more accustomed to using other video editing systems who want to expand their knowledge or take the final step to this software.
Platforms: Windows and macOS
Price: Free
4. Final Cut Pro X
The Best Premiere Pro alternative for macOS
Apple Final Cut Pro X is another software that offers the same editing features as Adobe Premiere Pro but at a lower price. You could say that this application competes for face-to-face with Adobe. If you are a Mac user, then you should give Final Cut Pro a try, as it also has a free trial version.
It has one of the best interfaces of the applications in this list, it is simple, interactive and professional. It uses a magnetic timeline that is very different from Adobe Premiere Pro and other video editors. Instead of separating all video clips, this application adds secondary clips behind the main timeline for individual editing. If you have used any of the other video editing programs, the magnetic timeline of this application will be the first thing you notice.
Apart from the magnetic timeline, Final Cut Pro X also contains many other editing features, including Clip grouping, the ability to individually manage clips and see their effects, multi-camera support with up to 64 angles, automatic metadata reading, automated project management, and keyword assignment.
Now comes also the most interesting, which is the GPU support, effects and transitions, audio editing on the timeline itself, color adjustment, 4K support and much more. This application is best for you if you’re looking for Adobe Premiere Pro alternatives and you’re a Mac user.
Platforms: macOS.
Price: Trial version and a full version with a price of $299.99.
Read Premiere Pro vs Final Cut Pro: What’s the Difference?.
The Best Free Adobe Premiere alternatives
5. HitFilm Express
The Best Free Premiere Pro alternative
HitFilm is an editing and even post-production tool that lets you work with your videos for free. HitFilm Express includes the following content:
180 effects and adjustments.
Resolution up to 1080p with 8-bit color depth.
Editing and composition 3d.
Keyframe animation and graphic editor.
Chroma Key and extraction tools.
10 built-in premium effect packs.
HitFilm Express gives you up to 1080p editing with a large number of formats at your disposal. You can easily apply color styles from the effects tab of this HitFilm Express version, and even modify them to your liking to customize them.
Without too many complications you can separate a Green screen with the basic tools of the Hitfilm Express version. The quality with which it achieves it is worthy of other software at a much higher price.
When you finish your editing work, you can proceed to export in a variety of formats, and you can even link the program to your youtube account so that it uploads the content directly after rendering.
You also have on their website a list of additions for this free version, which will allow you to add packages of effects and/or tools to improve the software.
If you want to have the complete version, whether because you feel the free version is too limited, or because it is cheaper for you to buy the complete software instead of installing the free one and then adding too many add-ons, you can buy the PRO version.
Platforms: Windows and macOS
Price: free
6. DaVinci Resolve 16
The Best Premiere Pro alternative for Color Grading
Unlike Adobe, whose approach is to develop a complete suite of dedicated applications, Blackmagic has poured all the features of several acquisitions directly into its primary software tool: the DaVinci Resolve. When they acquired Resolve, it was just a gradation and color correction tool. Then an NLE video editor was added with version 10 in 2013. Then came Fairlight, a comprehensive suite of audio tools for manipulating and mastering audio. Now, with version 15, they have included their latest acquisition in Resolve: Fusion, which is an advanced node-based compositing tool.
Although there are many options for editing video for free and even online that you can use from multiple platforms, few are as complete and powerful as DaVinci Resolve, and with its latest release, it has added hundreds of improvements and additional tools.
DaVinci Resolve 16 offers editing tools, visual effects, motion graphics, color correction, and audio post-production, and you can download it for free for Windows, macOS, or Linux.
While the free version of the program includes all the editing features and lets you do projects with a maximum frame rate of 60 frames per second, you should be aware that the free version does not support h26x, so you’ll need to transcode videos of that type before you can use them.
The paid version, DaVinci Resolve Studio, costs $259 and offers multi-user collaboration, 3D tools and support for 4K and higher-resolution formats as well as frame rates of up to 120 frames per second, and includes other unique features and filters, such as glare or granularity effects.
DaVinci Resolve supports all major formats and the ability to process XML, EDL, or AAF files for import and export between it and other editing programs such as Final Cut Pro X, Media Composer, and Premiere Pro. And, its integration with Fusion allows you to send shots with visual effects to programs such as After Effects or ProTools for audio processing.
Resolve 16 is available for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux. You can download it from the Blackmagic Design website or the Apple MacStore.
Platforms: Windows and macOS
Price: free
Adobe Premiere Pro Alternatives | Final words
This list includes the best Adobe Premiere alternatives, and they all include a way to test the software in case you decide to buy a final version, so don’t hesitate to use the free or trial versions.
If you would like to learn about video editing software check our article about the best video editing software.
Recording audio is an important part of production that’s often overlooked, which can create some aggravating problems in post. Here are some solutions for cleaning up audio in Premiere Pro.
There are many reasons your audio recordings can suffer — background noise is too high and distracting, levels are too low, audio is blown out, your microphone wasn’t turned on. Regardless of the ailment, there are some good remedies online at your disposal (although perhaps not for leaving the microphone off.)
So find a quiet room, close the door, plop on some high-end headphones, and let’s dive in.
Adobe Audition Audio Editing Software
Adding and Manipulating Audio Effects
While Premiere Pro isn’t as a great of an audio resource as, say, Adobe Audition, it is more than capable for some of the basics of audio editing. In this video, ChinFat breaks down the process for adding and manipulating audio effects, as well as setting and working with keyframes and parameters.
Audio Master in Premiere Pro
Mastering audio is a term used to describe across-the-board edits for the final cut of a video. These are some of the tweaks and changes that go into cleaning up and making your audio tracks pop. Nathaniel Dodson at TutVid gives a good breakdown of some of audio mastering tips and tricks available to you in Premiere Pro.
Removing Background Noise (with 3rd Party Plugins)
Background noise can be detrimental to good audio recording. While it’s obviously best to address the issue from the beginning and remove it from the get go, there are times where it can sneak in. In the above tutorial by PremiereGal (full post can be read here), she outlines how to remove the background audio with the third-party plugin AudioDenoise by CrumplePop.
Some kinds of background noises to keep an ear out for while recording:
Fan noise
Traffic/street noise
Refrigerator hum
Air conditioners or heaters (especially turning on or off)
Background conversations
Miscellaneous electronics
Removing Background Noise with Denoiser
There are also some built-in effects options in Premiere Pro. In his tutorial, the TeachMeGuy gives some solid advice on how to clean up the same background noise problems with the built-in effects. While not always as powerful as some of the higher-end third-party options, it’s worth seeing what you can accomplish with a first go around.
Have any additional audio tips or tricks to share? Let us know in the comments.