Shotcut Reviews & Product Details

Shotcut is a free, open-source, cross-platform video editor available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools for video editing, supporting a wide range of audio, video, and image formats through FFmpeg integration. Shotcut enables native timeline editing without the need for file import, allowing users to mix and match resolutions and frame rates within a project. Its intuitive interface includes multiple dockable panels, such as detailed media properties, a playlist with thumbnail view, filter panel, and encoding panel, facilitating a seamless editing experience. Key Features and Functionality: - Wide Format Support: Supports hundreds of audio and video formats and codecs, including popular image formats like AVIF, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, SVG, TIFF, and WebP, as well as image sequences. - Native Timeline Editing: Allows for multi-format timelines, enabling the mixing of different resolutions and frame rates within a single project without the need for prior import. - Device and Transport Options: Offers support for Blackmagic Design SDI and HDMI for input and preview monitoring, along with capabilities for screen, webcam, and audio capture. - Sleek, Intuitive Interface: Features multiple dockable and undockable panels, including detailed media properties, recent files with search, playlist with thumbnail view, filter panel, history view, encoding panel, jobs queue, and melted server and playlist. - Video Effects and Filters: Provides a variety of video filters, including color grading tools, deinterlacing, wipe transitions, track compositing/blending modes, speed and reverse effects for clips, keyframes, motion tracking, time remapping, and rotoscope. - Audio Features: Includes audio scopes, loudness, peak meter, waveform, spectrum analyzer, and JACK transport sync. - Hardware Support: Supports Blackmagic Design SDI and HDMI for input and preview monitoring, Leap Motion for jog/shuttle control, webcam capture, audio capture to system audio card, and multi-core parallel image processing. Primary Value and User Solutions: Shotcut addresses the needs of both amateur and professional video editors by providing a robust, free alternative to costly video editing software. Its extensive format support and native timeline editing streamline the editing process, eliminating the need for time-consuming file conversions. The intuitive interface and comprehensive set of features, including advanced video effects and audio tools, empower users to create high-quality videos without the steep learning curve often associated with professional-grade software. By offering cross-platform compatibility and continuous updates, Shotcut ensures accessibility and relevance in the ever-evolving field of video editing.

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Meltytech

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Shotcut Community

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$$$$$

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Christopher K.

Marketing Project Manager

Food Production

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

9/28/2021

"Shotcut Is A "Made-For-All" Video Editor"

5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

Shotcut is free all the way, yet I still have access to all the features I need for my YouTube videos which I create and upload nearly every day. It runs well on both my high power and my less powerful computer. Having edited over 50 videos for my YouTube channel using Shotcut, I don't know why I should get a more advanced and expensive video editor yet. It has a very short and user-friendly learning curve on essential features. The available tutorial videos are excellently presented and easy to follow. Hence I edited one full YouTube video on the very first day I acquired Shotcut. Very good for a beginner and a low budget video editor. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

Shotcut has no option for exporting to YouTube and Social media. This causes a delay at times when I am in a hurry to beat some YouTube prime posting time because I first have to export to my computer and then upload to YouTube. The time thus wasted can be a loss difficult to recover. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Shotcut solving and how is that benefiting you?

Since Shotcut runs at my desired time, I can produce three videos per day for my YouTube channel. That has helped my channel to grow faster than I anticipated to nearly 300,000 views in two months and adding at least ten subscribers per day. Since I have monetized my YouTube channel, the views translate into steady sales from my affiliate programs every week. Add to that the fact that Shotcut is free and you know I am in profit! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

JEANFED R.

Research Student

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

11/12/2021

"Very reliable for video editing projects"

5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

It never crashed when I used it for video editing, which is something that happens with other light video editing alternatives. The interface is intuitive and it lets you import many video formats conserving the quality. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

Not much of importance but it would be better to improve the appearance of the UI with newer icons and fonts. But aside from that from the time I've been using it, it has never failed me in any other way. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lindsey M.

Marketing Director

Machinery

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

Originally submitted 8/10/2021

"Free video editing software that's just as good as the expensive tools"

5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

I was pleasantly surprised that Shotcut provides all of the editing features I wanted and more even though it's a free product. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

I have no complaints. Multicam editing would be a nice feature, but there are plenty of ways to accomplish this through Shotcut even though it doesn't have true multicam functionality. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Shotcut:

Since it is free, there is no reason not to try it out! There are tons of helpful tutorials online and it's easy to get up and running. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Shotcut solving and how is that benefiting you?

We needed to be able to create and publish tutorial videos for our employees and customers so I wasn't looking for a super professional video editing solution, just some basic tools that could get the job done. But I was pleasantly surprised that I can do far more than I expected with this software. I really have yet to find anything I can't do with it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Kunal P.

Software Engineer

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

10/23/2021

"Free Video Editing Software for Professionals"

4/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

The thing which I liked the best is that it is open source or free. It has lots of features like any paid software, and that is too free. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

Sometimes it is lagging while exporting the video. I didn't like that part. Rest all things are Best. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Giovanni L.

Applications Engineer

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

11/23/2021

"Good for basic edits"

3.5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

I enjoy the fact that Shotcut is open source, meaning it is free and available to all. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

There is a learning curve to using the software, and it is not beginner-friendly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Education Management

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

9/18/2020

"Excellent"

5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

It is a super professional video editor taking into account it is cross-platform and for free. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

UI, a bit complicated but besides that, everything's is cool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

David G.

Senior Marketing & Sales Manager

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

10/31/2019

"Some people SWEAR by ShotCut, but I found it infuriatingly difficult to use."

0.5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

It is free. That's about the only good thing I can say for ShotCut. I don't understand why some people love it so much. In a world of intuitive software, ShotCut is decidedly OBTUSE. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

The user interface is NOT AT ALL intuitive. You have to read documentation and get caught up in learning the ShotCut way of doing things. If you are coming from ANY other video editing suits (FinalCut, Avid, Vegas Pro, Premiere), ShotCut will leave you scratching your head -- unless you feel like spending a lot of time reading documentation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Shotcut:

There are a lot of video editing suites out there - some paid (FinalCut, Adobe Premiere, Vegas Pro, Avid) and some free (DaVinci Resolve) -- whether you want to pay or look for something free, all of the ones I've mentioned are worth a look. What is NOT worth your time is ShotCut. I cannot tell you how hard of a time I had trying to learn this software and how infuriatingly obtuse the user interface is. More power to you if you can figure it out, but with so many INTUITIVE editing suites available, I think your time is better spent than trying to figure out ShotCut's weird way of doing things. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Shotcut solving and how is that benefiting you?

I could not solve any problems with ShotCut because it was so difficult to use. I imagine some people use it for editing video footage, but I could not even stitch two clips together. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ken Emar B.

Information Technology

Graphic Design

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

Originally submitted 8/25/2019

"video editing for free"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

I like Shotcut because it's free and is packed with features. It's cross-platform, which is great because I can easily use this on my laptop, which is Linux, and on my PC, which is Windows. Certainly, in my opinion, it's for professionals because of the advanced features this software has. Also, it supports up to 4K resolution, which is very impressive. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

The interface is very confusing and has a very steep learning curve; you need to watch some tutorials to be able to navigate around the software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Mark V.

Provost of Learning

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

7/31/2019

"Great tool for editing and producing videos"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

I appreciate all of the functionality that they have packed into this tool. Every time I use it I learn something new, and deepen my editing skills. I am continually amazed by the depth of this tool! It is great that I am able to import all of my raw footage and see it as thumbnails and can work with it from there. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

As amazed as I am with the depth of work you can do in ShotCut, it is also one of the things I struggle with in the tool. There is almost too much functionality and options to work with. I am not a professional in the world of editing and often find myself not sure how to select certain options. The only other issue I have had is that it will time out when conducting select actions and I just have to wait for it to catch up. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Shotcut:

I would highly recommend ShotCut for Video editing. Great tool once you get over the learning curve. There are some great support videos on the web to get you started and keep you advancing with your skills. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Shotcut solving and how is that benefiting you?

I use ShotCut to edit and produce internal team and external client training videos. I use it to produce all company communications and Team meeting recording for teammates who miss a meeting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

octavio rafael a.

Trabajador social

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

8/15/2019

"very functional"

5/5

What do you like best about Shotcut?

This is a good video editor for beginners because it is intuitive and its interface is very simple, so there are no difficulties in learning to use it on your own. Being an easier tool to use initially, it is possible to find tutorials that teach how to use Shotcut. It is free software and you can download it for free. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Shotcut?

Being a simple tool, Shotcut does not have many options for video effects; some users complain about "slowness," since, like several other video editing programs, Shotcut is also a heavy software; This is not a recommended video editor for those who want to deliver videos with very different special effects, as the goal of this tool is to be practical, simple, and intuitive for users. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.