Ask HN: Which small video editor do you use? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Which small video editor do you use?

47 pointssowhat163950 comments

When creating product videos, I'm looking for a very simple video editor, preferably in the browser, that can work with layers:

  - add video from a MP4
  - add text
  - add stickers (à la GIPHY)
  - render as MP4

I've tried this:

  - TikTok video editor, perfect, but only works on mobile (not available on PC), and anyway I can't export the finished video as MP4
  - TikTok Ad video editor, working on PC, but I can't export as MP4
  - Veed.io, kapwing.com, clipchamp, ... are ok, but they all have expensive pricing: at least 12$/mo for no watermark

Are there open source solutions? Or paid software with a one-time payment?

(I don't like to spend 15$/mo for this: it will be 540$ spent in 3 years! I prefer software with a one time payement, 50 or 100$)

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You're looking for kdenlive.

Blender is alright. It's cool that it has a video editor but it feels a little bolted on.

Davinci Resolve is not actually free for highest quality.

Kdenlive is essentially just a front-end for ffmpeg. Highest quality render settings don't cost anything but like much open source software the interface leaves something to be desired.

I tried "kdenlive" for Windows, and it seems cool, but the UI is a bit old, not very handy in comparison to more modern tools in the browser.

Idem for Blender, it is very powerful, but there are a few steps to make it usable in Video Sequence mode. Also it's a detail, but the filepicker (to import MP4 files) is not the Windows native filepicker, so it's not possible to copy/paste a path... All these little things make it less handy, in comparison to other tools.

Would you have an idea for a in-browser tool? (Without the recurring payment thing; I'm ok for a one time payment)

> the UI is a bit old, not very handy in comparison to more modern tools in the browser.

Old? It's a Qt app that looks best and most native in KDE. Why would one want a video editor in the browser? That does not make sense to me. :)

> Idem for Blender

What does this mean?

> there are a few steps to make it usable in Video Sequence mode.

What steps do you recommend?

> > there are a few steps to make it usable in Video Sequence mode.

> What steps do you recommend?

Here is a good video about it: https://vimeo.com/76661940 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uy_nh0ysVk

You have to customize a lot of little things here and there in the UI to make it work "by default" as a video editor when you start the software.

What is Idem for Blender? Is there a homepage URL?

I accidentally changed the layout of the app and could not figure out how to undo it back to default haha. Panicked for a bit but thankfully found an answer online.

It is a great tool though (free too) and yeah been using it for years.

If you're open to something more powerful, there is DaVinci Resolve [0]. It's free but proprietary.

For fully open + browser based there is mebm [1]

[0] https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/

[1] https://github.com/bwasti/mebm

DaVinci_Resolve_17.4.6_Windows.zip is probably great but ... 2.5 GB! I was looking for something more lightweight, but still a good idea, I'll have a look.

I also tried mebm months ago, but it's not really mature. (Is there a version hosted somewhere? the domain mebm.xyz is no longer available)

hey I wrote that second one! It's incredibly flattering to see mebm recommended despite its relatively immature state.

I've been considering resuming work on it, and this comment certainly provides a ton of motivation. thanks!

I am a former film post production professional. Resolve is the thing I recommend to people nowadays. It's free plan is still permissive enough to get really professional looking results and the color processing and quality is as good as it gets. And it runs in Linux as well (the original color grading consoles this was developed for were running Linux).

Of course the main issue with that recommendation is that Davinci Resolve is geared towards professionals. That means the tool can do much more things than any amateur will ever need or understand. If you invest a little time to understand the basics and don't tend to click random things without knowing what they do, this should not be any issue at all. Resolve has a very clear workflow and you can always skip the parts you don't need (e.g. color correction, audio mixing).

The real advantage here is that if you learn it, there is no ceiling to how professional your results can get in terms of post production. But don't forget the golden rule:

  Shit in, Shit out

Post production is great, but recording images and audio in a good way makes or breaks quality.

Did your post-production career involve CGI and VFX?

Yes, mostly for cinema and advertising tho. I used (and still use) Blender for nearly everything.

How long were you in the profession?

What other software were you using aside from Blender?

This looks promising https://www.openshot.org/

I've dabbled with Kdenlive[0] and Shotcut[1]. They're cross platform desktop apps. I'm not sure how they would handle stickers/giphys, might be worth a try though.

[0] https://kdenlive.org/

[1] https://www.shotcut.org/

I'd also add Olive[0] to the list.

[0] https://www.olivevideoeditor.org

I used Shotcut[0] once to execute on one of my worst ideas: editing an FMV game's video files into a movie. I recall that it was a little finicky, but worked well enough for the kind of thing I was doing. I've since used it a bunch of times for small things like you've described simply because I was familiar with it.

[0]https://shotcut.org/

I use KDenLive. I don't really do small simple tools.

Eventually you always wind up wanting one or two more advanced features. The simple tools don't prevent needing to learn more complex ones, nor are they significantly faster to use in most cases, so I tend to not really use lightweight apps.

Plus, with some categories, the small simple tools are actually harder to use and slightly dangerous(See dd vs Etcher).

A video editor won't overwrite a whole disk, but if you're concerned with malware, I would generally trust something I've already heard of rather than something obscure enough that you have to ask on HN to find it.

I’m sure people will hate on this because it’s Adobe but their Premier Rush is great for extremely simple editing purposes. It does constantly feel like you’re being scammed though because there are some checkboxes labelled with a little star that require you to pay.

I like Losslesscut for quick video editing, but not sure if it has text/sticker layers:

https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut

Don't forget Blender! (non-browser, but very powerful!)

https://www.blender.org/features/video-editing/

I found Blender has a huge learning curve. Maybe they since improved it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

MS Windows 10 and 11 has Video Editor

I don't know about layers and stickers, but it does text and fx and add music and so on. It's there already. Click on the magnifying glass and type Video Editor.

+1 Windows' Video Editor works well, although the good old Windows Movie Maker was great.

Openshot. FOSS with GPL v3 license. Really simple to use. You add video tracks, audio tracks, picture, text and them mix them together. Don't think it runs on the browser though.

DaVinci Resolve is free-as-in-beer but not Free-as-in-Speech, and it's a pretty serious bit of software. In Linux, it lacks some of the codec support and "nice-to-haves" like automatically exporting to Youtube etc, but if you use Linux already you probably use ffmpeg already and you probably know what you're doing with it.

You will need a fairly modern graphics card, but a low-end NVidia GT1030 will work perfectly well.

iMovie on my iPhone.

And Garage Band on my iPhone if I need to fiddle with sound.

Otherwise kDen Live on the laptop and just live with the complexity by accepting it will take a few hours over a few days to understand what I need to do by watching YouTube and reading forum posts and a manual.

It is sometimes hard to accept that learning is going to take time. And picking a standard tool with a non-trivial learning curve is faster and easier in most timeframes longer than five hours or so.

Because the five hours pales compared to all the “shopping” and “research” looking for a silver bullet.

There are people with more than a decade of Garage Band experience and nobody with a decade of TikTok experience.

I'm using kdenlive mostly.

If I wanted to automate it, I'd use ffmpeg with its filters for it, it's not super easy to get into, but it's very rewarding if you're going to do a lot of similarish videos.

I drop by HN almost every day, mostly just to learn some new thing during a break. This discussion has been very helpful to me.

I work a lot with Final Cut but it is tedious when you need short little cuts on many videos. I tried Shotcut and ffmpeg but they don't scan fast and smooth enough to be a help. This discussion has led me to some editors I did't know about. Tried a few and found one that will do the trick. Thanks.

I've recorded video presentations with OBS Studio. It might not be for post editing, but it worked for my needs. It was in my Linux distro's repositories too.

https://vidmix.app checks all the boxes: in the browser, layers, no watermark, captions, giphy integration, mp4 in and out

I use ffmpeg on command line most of the time for conversions, removing audio tracks, trimming. If I only need to trim I use the windows Photos app which suprisingly lets you trim videos!

The Photos app sometimes crashes when I try to trim large video files but it usually works on the second attempt, it's good enough for me.

No idea if this is on spec, but i use Youcut to make clips from films i watch, it works with Chrome, maybe others?

Are there any lightweight keyboard-driven video editors? Something like Vim but for video editing

iMovie on Mac or iPad could do all of this. If you are against Apple the GoPro editor is also pretty good and allows for this functionality. You don't have to actually use GoPro videos and is completely free (but they try to push you hard on their cloud storage )

At what point is it worth it to splurge on Final Cut Pro?

I'd say it depends on how many videos you do a year. My use case is videos either of my family or my mountain biking. Either way I don't have the time to really polish a video up.

I really like clipchamp.com and have used it with kids to make great short videos (you pay for longer/bigger), but it has been bought recently so may have changed since I last used it anger.

Go take a look... it's great (I have no affiliation)

Kdenlive for Linux

Da Vinci Resolve has nice experience on Linux as well.

Checkout the free and opensource AviDemux - does everything you want and a little bit more, and it is simple and easy to use.

Thanks for the idea.

I have tried Avidemux already, it surely is powerful, but the UI is rather "old", in the same way than Shotcut, etc.

I was looking for someone more modern, a bit like the TikTok app editing feature which is really great (except you cannot export to MP4 at the end, save a project, for future modification...)

The best for small videos would be a simple UI with Text, Media... (left column), timeline (bottom), and export button. Not much more. Here it's a screenshot from veed.io but the pricing is really too high (15$/mo is more than 500$ in 3 years): https://veed-assets.b-cdn.net/images/Webflow/legacy/6026a6dc...

So you want browser based, easy to use, a bunch of features, a modern UI, etc. etc. and it all has to be under $100 but preferably free, and every suggestion you answer has a minor niggle. It’s possible your expectations may be a little out of line with the largess of the developers whose products you are criticizing.

I dare say the Goldilocks approach may fail you here.

KDEnlive, Blender, and Da Vinci Resolve(very rarely).

Kapwing for quick demos, bug-reporting videos and such.

iMovie is perfect for your needs, it’s free. (If you have a Mac or iPhone.)

Actually Clips is probably closer to what they want than iMovie.

I use camtasia from tech Smith. Really easy and still powerful.

VSDC Video Editor

ScreenFlow

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