I've been a YouTuber for years, and like most people who have to create video content, I'm chained to Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription seemingly forever.But, there are other options that don't cost any money, and when you first read the title up there, I bet you thought of DaVinci Resolve.However, as good as Resolve is as a true professional-grade editor, it's not open-source, just free.
Also, most people don't actually need a professional-grade video editing suite, and that's why what we're actually talking about here is Kdenlive.Kdenlive has grown from a hobbyist tool into a serious editing suite Humble origins, but a bright future Close Kdenlive was first released in 2003, but it wasn't any sort of serious tool right out of the gate.Like a lot of open source software, it lacked polish.
It wasn't all that stable, and didn't have many features.You could argue that it persevered because Linux users who needed a video editor didn't have many options at the time.After all, video editing was still a niche thing to do.
This was before Web 2.0 and YouTube turned us all into amateur producers.Today Kdenlive has come through this crucible with a polished interface that stands toe-to-toe with Premiere or Resolve.It doesn't look or feel like a scrappy little FOSS app, but like the real deal.
Perhaps most important of all, Kdenlive isn't a Linux-only app anymore.So you can use it across Linux, Windows, and macOS with ease.Exposing it to a much larger install base of users means more attention, more resources, and a better editor.
It now has most of the editing tools everyday creators actually use Most, not all! That's not to say Kdenlive is a perfect 1:1 replacement for Premiere.Adobe still enjoys advantages in ecosystem integration and high-end collaborative workflows.However, the question now isn't whether they are in the same league or not, it's whether you actually need the features that Adobe charges you for or not.
Kdenlive now offers just about all the features a typical editor needs: Unlimited video and audio tracks Since it's based on FFmpeg, it effectively supports all audio and video formats It supports industry-standard 3-point editing You can customize the UI layout across your editing battle station with a high level of freedom It has a competent 2D title editor It supports Glaxnimate Multi-cam editing (for your podcast or indie movie) Plenty of effects and color grading tools And even more, you can see them all on the features page The fundamentals are all here, and while you aren't getting Adobe After Effects in open-source form yet here, the foundation is there and people are working on it.The pace of development is making it better every year There's no stopping the FOSS train Speaking of those people, one unique difference between commercial and open-source software is how the pace of improvement works.Instead of a fixed roadmap and slow but steady pace, projects like Kdenlive can react dynamically to what its users need now and don't have to wait years to implement incremental improvements.
The other edge of the FOSS sword is that too little community motivation can lead to projects that drag on, but for now Kdenlive seems to be an example of the former and not the latter, given the activity you can see for yourself on the Kdenlive GitHub page.You can also look at the Kdenlive release page to see how frequently it's updated and the sorts of issues being addressed, and features added.I don't know about you, but it's starting to look like a worthwhile horse to back in this race.
The biggest advantage is that it doesn't lock you into a subscription With Kdenlive you're asked to donate if you can or want to, but with Premiere you have no option to buy the software once-off anymore, and are locked into annual plans that come with a penalty if you choose to cancel early.To be fair, the asking price for Premiere isn't actually that much, though it does add up if you have to pay for multiple seats.But, it's not always about the money, but also about the principle of the whole thing.
Else you could go for DaVinci Resolve's free version, but that's not in the same spirit as Kdenlive's mission.I'm thinking of making the switch when my contract runs out with Adobe, and my colleague Nick Lewis installs it on every PC.My other colleague, Haroon Javed is a diehard Kdenlive fan, and you can probably throw a rock at random into our contributors and hit someone that uses it.
The best thing is that you don't have to cancel your Premiere subscription to try Kdenlive.Just download it, and play around with it.If your current workflow can transfer over, you might just save yourself years of payments.
Read More
