OpenShot vs Shotcut: Which Is the Best Free Video Editor Of 2021?

According to Cisco, 80% of the world's internet traffic is expected to be on video content in 2020. This comes in as a blessing for everyone who is trying to learn the art of video editing for reaching out to customers or enhancing their online presence. And the best part is, with Shotcut or OpenShot, everyone can get a hang of the entire video editing drill without investing in any paid video editor.

These two open source video editing programs have many similarities. Both are free of charge, well-supported community, mild-learning curve, to name a few. But, both have many differences as well. So the big question on many beginners' minds is "OpenShot vs. Shotcut, which is the best open source video editor?" Now, let's take a look at the pros and cons of each freeware, and then make a comparison to see which one will win the battle.

OpenShot

OpenShot is meant for Mac, Windows, and Linux users who are on the lookout for an easy and quick way of learning the art of video editing. You can bank on this beginner-oriented video editing tool to help you in scaling, resizing, rotating, and trimming clips apart from mixing audio for highly professional results.

Some standout features of this community-driven software are the basic 3D animation tools for adding flying text, lens flares, or snow to the captured frames as well as the chroma key function. The download pack of OpenShot comes is around 130MB which is twice that of Shotcut. However, this is not a biggie when considering so many effects and elements prepared by OpenShot, over 400 transition effects, and 40 vector title templates.

OpenShot is capable of saving your videos in all popular file formats including HEVC 4K, H.264, VP8, AVI, and DVD. However, it needs some enhancements on the stability as crashes happen too frequently when handling large projects. If you are trying to edit some basic videos for being uploaded on your social media channels such as YouTube or Instagram, then OpenShot can serve you pretty well with its sheer simplicity.

Full review of OpenShot Video Editor >

How to edit video with OpenShot >

Pros

• Features a wide range of transitions which can take your video editing game a notch higher.
• Supports brilliant audio editing to enhance the overall appeal of your videos.
• User friendly interface allowing accessing all video editing features and previewing their work from a common window.
• Include more than 40 vector title templates.

Cons

• Lagging and crashing problem seems to happen at any time on any engine.
• You might not find ready-made solutions to your problem and have to wait for some time to get it resolved.
• GPU acceleration still cannot be used well for video encoding/decoding.
• No ready-made preset for social media or prevalent portable devices.
• Lack of flexibility to apply more accurate adjustments to the footage.

Need an Alternative to OpenShot/Shotcut that Supports VCE, NVENC, QSV Acceleration? Use VideoProc Vlogger

Shotcut

This is another free video editing software which can be used for creating 4K quality output. It is compatible with a wide array of formats that helps users in exercising complete flexibility while mixing and matching frame rates and resolutions within the same project.

The dozens of audio filters and a plethora of audio editing toolkits give you complete control over the audio stream. With the support of multiple video tracks and a pile of video effects, you can do just about anything to spice up your videos including making video composition, inserting creatively transitions, correcting picture colors, applying 360° filters, revamping playback speed, keyframing the object, and more.

The native timeline editing capability of this open-source software makes it redundant to proceed with video import. You can try out everything ranging from splicing and locking tracks to waveforms and multi-tracks using the sleek interface and intuitive actions of Shotcut.

Full review of Shotcut >

How to crop, rotate, add text/transition in Shotcut >

Pros

• Has a well-laid-out interface offering support to a plethora of formats.
• Source code can be modified for adding to its security and integrity.
• Comes with an impressive stock of audio and video filters that can be combined and layered as per preference using its simple slider and checkbox systems.
• You can keyframe for the parameters of the host of video filters.

Cons

• Errors like Shotcut.exe stop working happen very frequently.
• Lack of existing transitions for making slideshows or movie montages.
• Not support to add SRT or SUB subtitle file.

OpenShot vs Shotcut