5 Best Lightweight Video Editors for Your PC

A lightweight video editor usually has a smaller memory footprint and lower CPU usage. Generally, it won’t any pressure on your computer and is very friendly to video-editing beginners. Now, we are going to introduce 5 powerful and lightweight video editors. Let’s get started!

5 Lightweight Video Editors at a Glance

• MiniTool MovieMaker
• iMovie
• VSDC Video Editor
• Shotcut
• OpenShot

Here is a concise comparison table of these lightweight video editors.

1. MiniTool MovieMaker

MiniTool MovieMaker is a free, lightweight video editor for Windows. It has a clean, easy-to-navigate interface that is perfect for beginners. With the frag-and-drop timeline, it is easy to layer videos, images, and text, apply effects, and make other edits without complex settings.

When exporting videos, you can select the output format, resolution, frame rate, and video quality. Best of all, the software does not leave a watermark on the exported videos, ensuring clean and professional-looking results.

MiniTool MovieMakerClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Key Features:

• 4K video editing, multi-track timeline
• Numerous transitions, filters, effects, elements, and motions
• Split, trim, crop, and merge video clips
• Change the video aspect ratio and playback speed
• A wide variety of text templates for titles, captions, and credits
• Color correction and 3D LUR presets

MiniTool MovieMaker is among the least intimidating video editors I’ve come across.https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/minitool-moviemaker

2. iMovie

The next great lightweight video editing software is iMovie, which can meet most of your video editing needs. It has a simple drag-and-drop function and supports multiple video formats.

The most impressive thing is that your projects are stored in Apple’s cloud, which means you can interactively edit them on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Key Features:

• Crop, trim, rotate and merge videos
• Various video transitions and filters
• Add built-in sound effects
• Record your voiceover
• Add subtitles to videos
• Split screen
• Change video speed
• Stabilize shaky videos
• Fade in/out music
• Color correction
• Green/blue screen

iMovie's interface is much simpler than most video editors, with a trackless timeline that lets you drag video clips anywhere. It shows you only the tools you need at any given moment, without cluttering the screen.https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-imovie

3. VSDC Video Editor

Another outstanding lightweight video editor is VSDC Video Editor. It comes with a set of powerful features and supports all popular video and audio formats.

This video editor offers all the essential features for editing videos. If you need more advanced tools, just upgrade to the Pro version.

Key Features:

• Lots of video filters and transitions
• Apply a picture-in-picture or split-screen effect
• Multi-color Chroma key
• Color correction
• Motion tracking
• Stabilize shaky footage
• Record real-time voiceovers

While rendering, VSDC shows you the time elapsed for the project render and the expected time left, which is helpful. It even lets you output multiple projects in batch mode and can shut down your PC on completion.https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-imovie

4. Shotcut

Shotcut is also one of the best lightweight video editors. Unlike the above 3 tools, it is an open-source video editor that can work on all platforms.

It supports a wide variety of video formats and offers a great number of video editing features. However, it would be a little bit difficult to master the program.

Key Features:

• 4K supported
• Tons of video effects and filters
• Resize, trim, rotate, cut, and reverse videos
• Real-time preview
• Tone generator
• Fade in/out audio
• Detach audio from video clips
• Export single frame as image or video as an image sequence

User friendliness doesn’t exactly spring to mind when thinking of Shotcut, but everything you need to cut a video is there, and it shouldn’t take you long to get to grips with the interface.https://www.techradar.com/reviews/shotcut-2203

5. OpenShot Video Editor

The last lightweight video editor we’d like to introduce is OpenShot Video Editor. Like Shotcut, it is also an open-source video editor, available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

OpenShot supports a wide list of video, audio, and image formats. And it provides you with basic video editing features and many practical audio editing features.

Key Features:

• Trim and slice videos
• Add as many layers as you need
• Remove the background from your video
• Color correction
• Visualize your audio files
• Add titles to your video
• 3D animated titles and effects
• Reverse, slow down, and speed up videos

It’s one to consider if you’re creating personal projects, perhaps like a video compilation from a holiday or for a celebration of some kind, especially if you don't have much experience with editing tools.https://www.creativebloq.com/reviews/openshot

Bottom Line

The top 5 lightweight video editors are listed on this page. Which one do you prefer? If you have any questions or suggestions about it, please let us know via [email protected] or share them in the comments section below.

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