The best Premiere Pro alternative software for MacOS? A simple, solid editing program is what you’ll get with Apple iMovie. It’s been around for the better part of 2 decades, which speaks to its reliability as an alternative Premiere Pro editing option. If you’re looking to simply cut video, add basic effects and transitions, and 4K resolution movies, then iMovie will give you everything you need. If you’re interested in some more advanced features for professional editing features, this one is going to be too basic for your needs.
Final Cut Pro X is historically Premiere’s top competitor in the indie NLE market. I was brought up in the editing world during the heated battle between Final Cut and Premiere users. It was a gruesome battle between editors — I even almost got fired from a gig early in my career for arguing with my boss about using Final Cut over Premiere. Even though I may be committing a cardinal sin amongst Premiere users for suggesting Final Cut over Premiere, I’m going to write this with as little bias as possible. Final Cut is a solid, simple editing platform. It may be joked about as being “iMovie Plus,” but it’s actually got some serious horsepower behind its simple, friendly exterior. One of my favorite parts about Final Cut is its ability to take complicated editing tasks and condensing them into an incredibly easy to use, drag and drop effect. I started doing a few projects within the program this past year, and there were times that I was able to use effects that took me thirty seconds which would have taken me five minutes in Premiere to execute.
As its name suggests, Openshot is an open-source and free video editing program. There are no hidden pay-walls or premium packages lurking behind the corner. As its developers claim, Openshot will remain free and open-source forever. The program offers pretty decent video editing tools and capabilities, along with a user-friendly interface and a reasonable learning curve. However, its biggest strength is the huge app store which offers tons of useful plugins. As powerful as it is, Openshot still lacks some of the high-end features found in Premiere and similar professional-grade suites. Other issues include the lack of rotoscoping options and a somewhat poor timeline zoom. The program is compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD-run computers. See more details at Adobe Premiere alternatives.
There’s no doubt that Adobe Premiere Pro is one of the best video editing tools that is out in the market right now. It is the go-to choice for many video professionals including many famous YouTubers along with professionals working in the movie and TV industry (Dust to Glory, Superman Returns, Avatar, Deadpool are some examples). That speaks volumes about the power of Adobe Premiere Pro. However, like any other piece of software, it is not flawless and it has its own fair share of problems. For example, Adobe Premiere Pro has a history of compatibility issues with the macOS operating system. Just a few months back, a new bug was found which wreaked havoc and caused heavy thermal throttling in the new Macs. I also don’t like the fact that Adobe Premiere Pro comes with a subscription pricing which means I have to pay a monthly fee of $19.99 if I want to keep using this software. Adobe Premiere Pro is also very resource hungry which means that you can only use it if you have a powerful setup.
VideoPad is another Adobe Premiere alternative that is good for filmmakers. The program is free for non-commercial home use. It allows using videos, images (including animated ones) and audio tracks as source files for a project. The program supports different formats. It means that a user does not need to use video or audio converters to prepare the material for editing. There is the possibility of advanced work with clips by changing such basic video parameters as brightness, contrast, and gamma, playback speed in a selected area, turning the video at any angle in three-dimensional measurement, narrowing and stretching a video within a given size, transparency and much more.