Video editing application for Mac

I can recommend Final Cut Express and if you want it real pro - Final Cut Pro. Note that a major new Final Cut version is nearly out - probably with the MacOS X Lion. Also note that some price drop is expected for both products, probably you should wait a month.


IMHO with imovie you can achieve NICE results, especially, when you starting to edit.

iMovie has several very nice features (some are not obvious at the first look), and probably you still do not discover them all.

Using professional applications like FinalCut and so on, i'm not recommending for someone who starting to edit. But, opinions are like slaps - they're always different. :)

Maybe, can you be more exact - what feature you missing from iMovie?

(0,02$) :)


As iMovie (surprisingly capable and free) and Final Cut Pro X (extremely capable and not at all free) have already been mentioned, I'll just point out the two other common answers:

Adobe Premiere

  • Expensive and you have to pay every month
  • Extremely powerful, surely falls into the "complicated" category like any powerful video editor.

Davinci Resolve

  • Available for free! There's a paid version but almost all users will be fine with the free one. They make money by selling hardware that works with the software, which is why they can give it away for free.
  • Extremely powerful and complicated to use all the features (you can do EVERYTHING with it including 3D animation). The basic editing features are not that hard to learn though.
  • Has serious performance problems on older computers. Even with all the elaborate optimization tools in place, I still can't use it on my 2013 MBP to edit a video with a title on top.
  • Did I mention it's free? If you have a new/powerful computer it's definitely worth at least trying Davinci Resolve out.