Filmora Video Editor Review: Is it the Best Video Software in 2023?

Filmora is made for creators who mainly rely on ready-to-use templates and libraries to boost video production speed and quality.

The program has an intuitive user interface and easy access to a massive selection of effects, transitions, text animations, and more with complete control. It allows you to create professional-looking videos within the shortest time.

Simplicity joins enthusiast-level video editing tools in Wondershare Filmora.

Filmora is a feature-rich video editor with some advanced tools like motion tracking, chroma key, PiP, audio synchronization, etc.

We will deeply dive into the features, performance, and effectiveness of this video editor. Remember to read this article until the end because $49.99/year is a huge investment if you are just starting out.

This is a 360-degree review of Filmora Video Editor. Generally, such reviews tend to be lengthy, but I will try to keep this review short and informative by discussing the actual features you will use 60-80% of the time.

Whether you have just started your own YouTube channel or want to launch highly engaging videos without scratching your head over a professional-grade video editor, Filmora by Wondershare is a perfect choice.

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Editor’s Summary

Overall Rating – 4/5 Stars
Price – $19.99/month or $49.99/year, or $79.99 for the lifetime license. Free Plan– Yes. You can Get it Here
Basic Editing, Effects, and Libraries – Filmora is empowered by the stunning library of effects, transitions, text animations and royalty-free music by Wondershare. Cutting, trimming, joining and organizing clips is a breeze
Ease of use and learning – The program has a pleasing user interface that allows easy access to almost every powerful feature from the dashboard. One can master video editing using Filmora within a couple of days
Performance – Startup time and rendering speed are well appreciated because they can be compared to the top video editors of 2022. However, we faced sudden crashes and errors while importing media from social media accounts and exporting the final video directly to YouTube
Support – Wondershare has been serving video editors for the last few years. Over time, they have crafted excellent product guides and informative tutorials for their customers

Filmora is an easy-to-learn video editor with tons of project templates, presets, and effects. It allows users to create simple yet engaging videos within a short time. If you are a beginner who hasn’t used any kind of video editor in the past, then Filmora is the perfect choice for you.

It is a value-for-money deal. It is worth trying if you are new to the video editing industry. You will definitely fall in love with the ease of use and the advanced abilities of the program, like motion tracking, PiP, audio synchronization, etc.

In the era of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, users are looking for video editors that are quick, up-to-date, professional and easy to use. A few advanced programs like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro are considered the industry standard. But they focus on editing movies, short films and other complex projects. Also, they are very hard to learn if you do not have any prior experience.

On the other hand, Filmora focuses on YouTubers, Photographers, Social Media Influencers, Tutorials and How-to guide makers. It simplifies the video editing workflow and eliminates the needless complexity of professional-grade video editors.

Everyone can use the Filmora video editor, from beginners to enthusiasts, to create short and professional-grade videos for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

What has impressed us so far?

Huge selection of ready-to-use templates and presets. Intuitive and standard user interface similar to the market-leading programs like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. The schematic representation of transitions helps a lot while choosing them. 4K video and H.265 codec support. Keyframe editing, which is limited to rotation, scale and opacity. Modern tools like Motion Tracking, PiP, and Chroma Key work seamlessly.

What could we love to see in the upcoming update?

The Filmora team should work on importing media and exporting the final video to social channels to eliminate unexpected crashes. Also, the stabilization feature needs to be more accurate and include additional controls. Multicam editing will create lots of value for this program.

What’s new in Wondershare Filmora 11?

Wondershare released Version 11 of Filmora in February 2022. Since then, the program has been updated several times throughout the year, and currently, it has reached Version 11.6 in August 2022. The recent update is loaded with stunning video effects.

These continuous updates imply that the team is working hard to improve the software and keep it up to date with the latest trends and features.

For the sake of convenience, let’s only talk about the latest feature upgrades in the upcoming section of this article. You can visit the official website to learn more about the latest templates, effects and library updates.

#1 RGB Curves: Now, users will have precise and full control over the intensity of every shade with RGB Curves.

#2 Importing files from Dropbox – Create a new project and start importing raw video and audio clips from third-party cloud drives like Dropbox.

#3 AI Portrait – This new feature allows users to instantly remove the backgrounds from the raw video and replace it with the photo or video of their choice

#4 Speech to Text / Text to Speech – Enhance the video quality with subtitles or voice-over using SST and TTS tools. These features are particularly useful in the case of Vloggers, Podcasters, Teachers and more.

#5 Silence Detection – Improve user engagement with a silence detection tool. This tool allows you to scan and detect silent pauses in your videos.

#6 Title Editing – Explore more than 30 categories of titles, including WordArt, Basic, Titles, Tutorials, and more. Spice up your videos with nearly thousands of text types

Apart from the above feature upgrades, hundreds of effects, transitions, and animations are added to the program with each update. Don’t forget to check them as well.

Pricing

Monthly Plan – $19.99/month
Annual Plan – $49.99/yearly
Perpetual Plan – $79.99 for Life

Filmora video editor by Wondershare is the big bang for the buck. The program includes professional-grade features and lots of effects, transitions, and animations at affordable prices.

It is available on a monthly, yearly, and lifetime subscription basis. You can opt-in for a 7-day FREE trial and test this software before purchasing.

It is a fairly priced program compared to giants like Adobe Premiere Pro, which costs $239.98/year. Such heavy programs are loaded with unnecessary technical details which are useless for beginners and people on the go. If Filmora sounds costly to you, then note that any other software below this price point will have poor performance and lack major editing features.

The pricing of Filmora is quite low compared to the value it brings to the table. So we highly recommend you opt-in for a 7-day FREE trial plan or, if necessary, a one-month plan to explore the power and compatibility of this video editor. I am very sure that you will love the simplicity and ready-to-use templates offered by Filmora.

Windows and Mac Compatibility

You can use Filmora on Windows (7 to 11) as well as Mac (version 10.7 to 11).

It works seamlessly on both operating systems. A few features, like sharing video templates through the cloud and instant video mode, are available for Windows users only. Also, one thing to note here is the use of Apple’s Rosetta 2 translation engine to run the Wondershare Filmora. We noticed that though the features and specifications are almost identical, the performance of the Windows version is slightly better than the macOS version.

Consider downloading a 7-day FREE trial version of the Filmora and follow me along while I take you through the interface, navigation, presets, effects, transitions, and more. At the end of this article, you will have enough knowledge to launch your first video using Filmora.

Also, unlike heavy programs similar to Adobe Premiere Pro, which needs 3.3GB of PC space, Filmora will take only 800MB.

Windows Version – Get it Here
Mac Version – Get it Here

After 7-days, if you feel it doesn’t meet your requirement, you can uninstall it without worrying about anything.

Interface

The user-friendly interface is the main ingredient behind the success of Filmora. An intuitive dashboard with seamless navigation is one of the selling points of this program.

Its simple and clean user interface is available in dark mode by default. Dark mode lets you focus on the preview window by making it the most prominent thing on the screen. But you have the option to switch to bright mode as per your preference.

Filmora’s highly appreciated dashboard is divided into three panels: Media, Preview, and Timeline. We will take a thorough look at these panels in the following section and try to understand the simplicity and ease of use offered by them.

The relative size of each panel can be adjusted, and the Preview Window can be switched to full-screen mode for better viewing.

1. Media Panel

One can also call this section as the Control Panel of the Filmora. It allows you to import files, apply filters and transitions, adjust colors, select text presets, access motion tracking, and more.

The complete knowledge of the media panel is the key to success. You will be correcting, adjusting, and enhancing the video quality using the options available in the Media Panel.

At the top of the media panel, you will notice eight icons: Media, Stock Media, Audio, Text, Transitions, Effects, Elements, and Split Screen. The purpose of each icon is very clear from the name itself.

Filmora is a true time saver for beginners because instead of just listing down a huge number of transitions, animations and effects as seen in Adobe Premiere Pro and other professional-grade video editors, it schematically represents transitions and displays tiny previews of effects and animations. So, beginners don’t have to spend lots of time exploring and testing each effect, transition and animation.

Starting a Project

Filmora is a highly developed and versatile video editor supporting almost all types of video, audio and photo file formats, including MP4, M4V, 3GP, MOV, MKV, MPG, MPEG, M1V, M2V, MP3, M4A, WAV, WMA, JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, and more.

One can import standard, HD and 4K content. While creating a new project, the program allows you to set the resolution between 320p to 4K. Various aspect ratios are also available.

Starting a new project is a breeze. Use media stored on the local Computer, Stock Media, Shared Files, Custom Templates created by you, and Relink Media to create new projects. While importing media, you can choose single or multiple files at once.

Filmora can be connected to Facebook, Flickr and Instagram to import videos and images. The process is simple but not well-developed yet. I faced many errors while importing images from my Facebook and Flickr accounts.

The program includes feature-rich Internal Library Management that allows users to organize, sort and filter the imported files.

2. Preview Panel

Also known as the Preview Window, it is the place where you will see all the changes or alterations applied to your raw videos in the timeline.

It allows you the preview of the final video before exporting it. You can control the preview playback using buttons like start, stop, volume control, etc.

3. Timeline Tracks

This is the real bread and butter of the program. It is a drag-n-drop interface located at the bottom of the dashboard, covering almost half of the screen. We didn’t notice any lag or sudden crash while editing our videos, including several HD and 4K video clips with few soundtracks, effects, transitions, and more.

You will play with your media files and adjust or enhance the video quality using the effects and animations with the help of timeline tracks.

A toolbar section is seen at the top of the timeline. It gives easy access to some essential editing tools: undo, redo, cut, crop, chroma key, speed change, slide edit, audio mixer, keyframing and more.

In contrast to Movavi, which supports unlimited timeline tracks, Filmora allows you to add 100 timeline tracks. Although limited, this much of timeline tracks are more than sufficient for short video creators, YouTubers, teachers, and content creators.

A magnetic timeline aligns new clips with the previous ones whenever you add them to avoid empty spaces in the final video.

We could not import the media files through direct drag-n-drop in the timeline section. It seems to be a missing feature in Filmora’s video editor compared to its rivals.

Take your time and explore this section because the complete knowledge of Timeline Tracks and its functionality is crucial for the project’s success.

Basic Editing, Effects and Color Correction

Apart from basic video editing tools, the Filmora comes with lots of color correction and enhancement capabilities. A massive library of effects and transitions adds up here, allowing this program to dominate most of its rivals.

Once you open the program, you will instantly notice that the middle section (Toolbar) is loaded with various icons to give instant access to basic video editing tools right from the dashboard.

Cropping videos to specific aspect ratios, trimming the unwanted parts of the clips, splitting videos, adjusting the speed and all of the remaining basic audio and video tweaking features works flawlessly.

Effects

Filmora includes a brilliant collection of thousands of video effects to spice up your videos. For added convenience, these effects are categorized under various names like Gaming, Education, Travel, News, Business, Food, Events, Wedding, Pets, Family, Friends, Businesses, and so on.

To explore further, you can click on Filmstock, which includes 400+ premium and professional-grade video effects by experts. Most of the Filmstock assets are quite expensive, but FREE options are also available.

You will surely appreciate the full control over the parameters of the effects like Boris FX and NewBlue FX. The team is working tirelessly to improve this list further.

Moreover, you get access to nearly 300+ impressive video filters. They are categorized as Shake, Glitch, Glow, Mosaic, Cinematic and more.

Transitions

Plenty of seamless transitions is another selling point of this software. We were surprised by the number of transitions offered by Filmora at this price point.

Transitions are grouped into several categories for quick navigation. It includes Festivals, Basic, Ripple & Dissolve, Speed Blur, 3D, Gaming, Metaverse and so on. You can search for a transition using its name.

They are represented schematically, and you need to download them before using. Modifying transitions is really simple. All you need to do is double-click on the transition in the timeline and then adjust the duration or transition mode as per your choice. Once done, you can apply adjustments to single or multiple transitions with one click.

Frequently used transitions can be added as the Favorite by right-clicking on it and selecting the option “Add to Favorites.”

Color Correction

You can use the auto-correct feature to enhance the raw videos’ color quality. However, in our test, we felt more comfortable adjusting the color manually because auto-correction didn’t meet our expectations.

Use the advanced Color option placed above the Timeline for color correction and color match. Filmora allows you to play around with the Contrast, Saturation, Brightness, Temperature, and Tint of the videos. For further enhancement, use RGB curves and have full control over the colors and lights of the video.

3D LUTs by Filmora is worth your time. It can enhance the look of a video and give it a specific mood.

Filmora is packed with 30+ LUTs (Look-up Table), which are named after popular movies for easy interpretation. It includes Harry Potter, House of Cards, Mission Impossible, Reign, Sparta 300, Star Wars, Walking Dead, Cyberpunk, etc.

Chroma Key

For beginners, the Chroma Key may sound like new technology jargon. But in simple words, it is a feature that allows users to replace the background of the video. Filmora works pretty well in this aspect.

The use of Green screens is very common nowadays. Professional and amateur video creators use Green Screen backgrounds while shooting the video. Afterward, they use Filmora and other similar programs to remove the Green Screen and replace it with another nice-looking background of their choice using the Chroma Key.

You can use the eyedropper tool to pick any color in the video. Then use Chroma Key to completely remove or replace the selected color from the video.

For further refinement, use Offset, Tolerance, Edge Feathering, Edge Thickness, and Alpha Channel.

PiP (Picture in Picture)

PiP is a method of displaying two videos on a single screen. You might have seen gaming or how-to videos where the main (background) video is displayed across the entire screen, and the creator’s live video is placed at one corner of the screen.

It can also be called an overlay effect.

All you need to do is place two or multiple videos above one another in the timeline and resize them as per your choice. Use the preview window for resizing the video clips.

Pre-built shapes will help you create professional-looking PiP videos. Also, playing around with blending modes and adjusting the opacity will significantly improve the look and feel of the video.

Motion Tracking

We have tested tens of video editors to date, and Filmora is one of the few video editors that successfully tracked an object’s movement in the video.

You can pin graphics or add text or blur to the moving object, and the software will take care of the rest.

Using motion tracking is really simple. All you need to do is double-click on the video in the timeline and select the motion tracking option, then mark the object you want to track with the tracker box and render the effect. That’s all!

Few software like Movavi are capable of AI-driven motion tracking with added controls over the opacity and feathering of the masked object. It would be great to see such advanced motion-tracking capability in Filmora’s future upgrades.

Audio Editing

Filmora allows you to trim unwanted parts of the audio, split it into small audio clips, separate audio from the video and so on. The real power of Filmora lies in mixing, balancing, and combining different sounds and audio signals using the Audio Mixer tool.

There are five audio effect samples that you can download and use: Big Room, Small Room, Echo, Lobby, and Phone. It also includes 172 background tracks to spice up your videos.

The program comes with decent Pitch adjustment and Audio Equalizer options. You can remove the background noise with one click using Denoise. Also, adjust audio waveforms to lower the sound or make it loud.

We tried beat detection with one of our videos to automatically mark the beats and create a perfect match. The program works flawlessly with several Beat Models and the options like Highlight Frequency, Highlight Offset, or Mark highlighted beats only.

A few audio effects are missing in Filmora, for example, Acoustic effect, which is used for stimulating concert halls and other environments.

Text Presets

As per the statistics, using text animations is proven to boost video engagement. Filmora seems to be the true believer of this fact because it offers 1000+ title types grouped under various categories like Openers, Subtitles, Lower Thirds, EndScreen, Callouts, EndCredits and so on.

We are in love with 80+ text animations that helped us spice up our videos in every possible way. They are schematically represented so that you don’t have to worry about getting lost while testing all of them.

These premade templates or title types are easy to use. They are editable right from the preview window. You can replace the text, change the font styles, colors, and size, control the animations, set the duration and more by clicking on the Advanced option.

More Editing Features

Filmora is the true all-in-one video editor for beginners and amateurs. It has a range of robust features crucial for creating nice-looking and professional-grade videos.

We have already discussed the most important features in the previous sections of this article. Now let’s take a look at a few more basic tools that are worth mentioning and can help a lot.

Instant Mode: Import your media files and quickly create videos with a few clicks using Instant Mode. All you have to do is to select the appropriate template from the available options: Vlog, Business, Education, Family, Vlog, Cinematic, Slideshow, and Upbeat. These templates contain all the essential effects, transitions and soundtracks. Do not forget to tweak the template settings as per your choice to match the media before exporting the final video.

Screen Recording: You can record your computer screen and create tutorial videos within no time using Filmora. This built-in screen recorder is as powerful as one of the best-dedicated screen recorders available in 2022. The program allows you to set the frame rate and the video quality, along with options to display the mouse clicks while recording.

Wondershare Drive: Users will get 1GB of Wondershare Cloud Storage for FREE to share photos, videos, music and other media with friends and colleagues. For more storage, you can visit the official website and choose the respective plan as per your requirement. The pricing starts at $4.99/month for 20GB of Cloud Storage.

Stabilization: We are not impressed by the Filmora’s stabilization feature because it didn’t work well for our video footage captured using a DJI drone. But it wasn’t that bad, though! You can definitely give it a try. This feature is particularly useful for smoothing out the shaky footage from the drone, action, and 360 cameras.

Auto Reframe: Filmora has taken Auto Reframing to the next level with AI technology. It will automatically detect the focal point of the video and keep the main action or object in the frame. Thanks to Auto Reframe because creating Instagram videos with respective aspect ratios is a breeze. Moreover, you can choose from multiple aspect ratios like 1:1 or 4:3, depending on your target social media channel.

AR Stickers: This is another AI-driven feature of the program. It is capable of face-tracking. You can apply fun and engaging stickers like cats, bears, pandas, koalas, bunnies, glasses, and even heart eyes. YouTubers and Social Media Content Creators can leverage this feature to add emotions and personality to their videos.

Speed Ramping: This fancy feature helps change the speed of the video to make it more engaging and effective. For example, slow down the video to highlight the details or speed it up to make it funny. You can also choose reverse playback. There are additional speed effects available with variable speeds. Try these variable speed effects available under the Speed Ramping tab.

Exporting and Sharing

To export your final video, click on the big “Export” button in the upper right corner of the Media Panel (Control Panel).

Exporting videos is a breeze. In contrast to enthusiast-level video editors like Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro, loaded with lots of technical details while exporting, Filmora’s exporting dashboard is intuitive and easy to interpret. You only have to deal with the resolution and frame rate of the video while exporting.

You can export 4K videos in MP4, MOV, and MKV.

Other videos and audio file formats supported by the Filmora are WMV, AVI, HEVC, F4V, TS, MPG, 3GP, WEBM, GIF and MP3.

Do not forget to play with video quality settings marked as Best, Better, and Good to see the results that meet your requirements.

Filmora supports the latest H.265 codec.

For now, the program allows you to share your video on YouTube and Vimeo. Before sharing, you need to log in to the respective platform and grant permission. The process is seamless and will take hardly a few seconds. While sharing, you can add a title, description, category, and tags and change the privacy settings.

Rendering

When it comes to rendering performance, Filmora dominates most of its rivals and even professional-grade video editors like DaVinci Resolve. As per the PCMag statistics, Filmora is among the top 5 video editors with excellent rendering speed.

Filmora uses GPU acceleration for faster rendering.

In our test, we tried rendering a 4:40 minute long project video with a considerable number of HD and 4K raw video clips. It also included a mix of transitions, effects and text animations. We used Windows for this rendering, and Filmora successfully did it in 1 minute and 6 seconds. We are really impressed by this short and quick rendering duration.

My daily laptop has 64-bit Windows 11 with an Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB RAM and Nvidia 4GB Graphics Card.

On the other hand, I used an Apple MacBook Air which has an M1-based processor. The same video took around 4 minutes to render, which is quite a considerable time compared to software like iMovie, which could have taken much less time.

I have seen lots of software lagging, crashing, and suddenly shutting down because video editing requires lots of computing power. IMHO, this is inevitable because it truly depends on your working style, project size, use of powerful effects, animations, presets, and even the system configuration, which may sometimes fail to cope up with user demands.

But you can trust Filmora because at least it will never disappoint beginners and amateur video editors working on YouTube videos, tutorials, courses, social media videos, etc.

Rating

Performance – 4.5/5

Filmora offers incredible performance in terms of startup time and rendering speed. Available templates, animations and effects can be applied without any lag or sudden crash. We have rated this software 4.5 out of 5 stars because of the stability issues. The program stopped responding several times while exporting and importing media from social media.

Price – 5/5

Compared to its rivals and other enthusiast-level video editors, Filmora earns our 5/5 star rating. This is a value-for-money deal because, at this price point, you won’t find any other software with such a massive library of effects, transitions, and text animations. The program is built for creating wonderful and professional-looking short videos for YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

Learning Curve – 4/5

Filmora uses a standard user interface similar to Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro. It is easy to learn and made for breaking down complex video editing processes into simple steps. The official website offers many video tutorials and how-to guides that would help beginners with basic video editing. Moreover, as per our experience, a newbie will hardly take 3 to 4 consistent days to understand this software. You will find a handful of tutorials by experts on YouTube and other third-party websites.

Effectiveness – 4.8/5

It is the perfect software for beginners and amateur video editors. Filmora’s simplicity and collection of templates are remarkable. I used Filmora to launch a product promotion video within two days. Slicing and joining video clips is just as easy as it gets. The program is packed with nifty video editing tools like Motion Tracking, Chroma Key, PiP, Auto Reframe and so on.

Best Alternative to Wondershare Filmora

There are very few rivals of the Filmora at this price range of $49.99. Industry-standard software like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro are far more sophisticated, so it doesn’t make sense to include them here.

Remaining software like TechSmith’s Camtasia and CyberLink PowerDirector are costlier than Wondershare’s Filmora. So we are not going to talk about them as well. For the sake of this article, we will only talk about the software that are available for the same price and offers the same functionality.

#1 – Movavi

Movavi offers loads of power, ease of use, and speedy performance. In contrast to Filmora, the software contains less number of effects, transitions, and templates. It is a powerful program with an unlimited number of Timeline Tracks. In terms of performance, Movavi does a better job than Filmora. Check our complete review of Movavi Video Editor by clicking here.

#2 – Adobe Premiere Elements

Premiere Elements is not a part of Adobe Creative Cloud service. You can purchase this software for $99.99 without an Adobe subscription. Unlike Premiere Pro, which mainly focuses on movie makers and cinematographers, Premiere Elements is made for YouTubers and short video makers who share their mini-masterpiece with friends and family. Of course, it is more powerful and feature-rich than Filmora. But the steep learning curve and the program’s complexity should be considered before choosing it.

Conclusion

If you want to create stunning videos without digging deep into the technical side of video editing, then Wondershare Filmora is the perfect choice for you. You will feel embraced by a huge selection of effects, transitions, and text animations while launching new videos in the long term. It is far better than almost all market-leading video editors that rely on users to create their own animations and presets.

We found that no other software comes with such a huge library of templates and animations at this price range. So this program makes sense for people who want to focus on the content while letting the software take care of the creativity.

There are a few issues with the performance and particularly with the social media integrations and exporting. We hope to get them resolved in future updates.

Its been a while since we have been using Filmora to create product promotion videos for our clients. We are surprised by the way it helps us launch the videos within the next 2-3 days of shooting.

You can try this software for FREE for 7 days and explore its powerful features and libraries.

FAQ

Q. Is Filmora safe to use?

Wondershare’s Filmora has been around for the last few years. It has attracted a huge fan base and customer trust over the years. Moreover, Wondershare is a reputed brand that sells many similar audio and video editing tools.

It is a safe program with no harm to your device or privacy. Malwarebytes AntiMalware didn’t detect any virus or malware when we ran a copy of FREE software downloaded from the official website through it.

Q. Is Filmora free to use?

You can download a 7-day FREE trial of the Filmora from the official website. Do not trust third-party websites selling the cracked version of the program because it may contain harmful viruses that might risk your privacy.

Note that only 10 exports are allowed in the trial version.

Moreover, the Filmora pricing starts at $19.99 per month. You can also purchase this software for a year at just $49.99. This feature-rich video editor is worth investing in. You will get 24/7 technical support from Filmora with a paid subscription.

Q. Can I remove the Filmora watermark?

It is not possible to remove the watermark if you use the trial version. But you can get rid of it by purchasing FIlmora’s monthly, yearly or lifetime plan that starts at just $19.99.

It is a fairly priced software with lots of professional-grade video editing tools.