The best video editing apps in 2021

Discover the best video editing apps for both beginners and pros, on Android and iOS.

 

These days, the best video editing apps are not just aimed at professionals working in the TV and movie industry. They're also a great choice for business use, YouTube creators, social media influencers, and anyone wanting to make their holiday videos look better. 

Whether you're using a tablet or smartphone, Android or iOS, there's a great video editing app out there for you (see our best tablets for video editing if you need a new tablet). Often faster, more efficient and more intuitive than desktop software, they make it easy to do video editing tasks wherever you are.

In this post, we've brought together the best video editing apps available today, including both paid-for and free options. Read on to find out which is the closest fit to your needs.

Meanwhile, if you want to do some video editing on the desktop, too, check out our roundup of the best video editing software. And to ensure you have the best hardware for that, read our expert guides to the best computer for video editing and the best monitor for video editing.

 

The best 5 video editing apps available now

 

01. Adobe Premiere Rush (cross-platform)

The best video editing app overall 

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS | Multi-track editor: Yes | Export directly to YouTube: Yes | 4K support: Yes

Aimed squarely at the YouTube generation, Premiere Rush is a cross-platform, video editing app that's purposely much easier to use than Adobe's more complex desktop tools, such as Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition.

Instead, Premiere Rush focuses on making it easy to process your clips quickly and upload them to social media. For example, it automatically converts your videos to the specific aspect ratios and quality levels required by each platform.

Premiere Rush is not just useful for YouTubers, though. It's also one of the best video editing apps for professionals, as it allows you to take content you've been working on in Premiere Pro, and make further tweaks to it on a phone or tablet. You can then upload that content to the cloud, continue working on it in Premiere Pro, and so on.

  

02. Quik (cross-platform) 

The best video editing app for GoPro users

Quik is the new name for the official GoPro app, which was rebranded in March this year with a fresh look, and incorporating the music-sync editing tools of the original Quik app.

This video editing app is focused on two main things: allowing you to remotely control your GoPro device, and edit your GoPro footage. It automatically imports your action footage, and makes it easy to do things like sync your clips to music, add photos, titles and timelapse sequences, and include graphs based on your stats.

We especially love the Horizon Levelling editor, which tweaks the angle of your scene to correct things if your camera wasn't mounted in line with the horizon. We also appreciate being able to go through your footage frame-by-frame to find standout still images.  Once your photos and videos are ready, you can directly upload them to Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and more, or share them via text or email. 

This app is free, but with in-app purchases you can get extra themes and filters, as well as the ability to autoupload photos and videos to the cloud. In our list of best video editing apps, this one is (kinda obviously) the one you'll want to use for your GoPro footage.

03. LumaFusion (iOS)

The best video editing app for iPhone and iPad users

Platform: iOS | Multi-track editor: Yes | Export directly to YouTube: Yes | 4K support: Yes 

LumaFusion is an iOS app that's commonly used by journalists, filmmakers, and video producers to capture and edit video on the fly. Produced by the creators of Pinnacle Studio, this app for iPhone and iPad gives you six video/audio tracks for photos, videos, titles and graphics, along with an extra six audio tracks for narration, music and sound effects.

The interface is pretty similar to Final Cut Pro X, with its magnetic timeline. One of LumaFusion’s most impressive features is that any effect can be keyframed, as can clip animation, allowing precise adjustments to your project.

Other advanced tools on offer include insert/overwrite capability, colour correction, a fully featured audio mixer, lossless export, support for vertical video, advanced title creation tools and slow motion/fast motion (forward and reverse).

Once you're done, there are endless sharing options and exporting options. For instance, you can export at different resolutions, qualities and frame-rates, as well as exporting audio and video separately. The app even supports for XML export to Final Cut Pro X. At one-off fee of $29.99 / £28.99, this all represents something of a bargain, and makes it one of the best video editing apps for professional creators out in the field.

Note though, that there’s no syncing between devices as yet, so you can’t start editing on your iPhone and then continue on your iPad, for example. We hope that will come in time, as the makers are continue to work on and improve the app. For example the latest version, released in March (2.4.4), fixed a number of issues, such as the import of zip files and stepping through audio clips in Preview. For more details, read our full Lumafusion review.

04. KineMaster (Android, iOS)

The best video editing app for Android

KineMaster is one of the best video editing apps for professional use. With high-end features such as blending modes, chroma keying, and audio mixing, this advanced app allows you to shoot, edit and export your footage on your phone or tablet via a mult-layer interface. It's available for both iOS and Android.

This is one of the best video editing apps for trimming clips and layers with frame-by-frame granularity. Audio clip timing can be adjusted, too, with sub-frame accuracy.  You can upload multiple layers of video (on supported devices), images and text, as well as multi-track audio. Beyond that, Kinemaster is packed with advanced features, including instant edit previews, precise volume envelope control, colour LUT filters, speed controls, chroma key compositing and 3D transitions. In short, while this is not quite Premiere Pro on a mobile device, it's not far off.

The app is free to download, but note that it adds watermarks to videos, which you have to take out a subscription to remove. A subscription also allows you to export at 1080p or 4K, and get access to over a thousand premium assets. Find out more in our KineMaster review.

05. iMovie (Apple devices)

The best free video editing app for iOS 

If you have an iPhone, iPad or Mac, you'll have iMovie, as it's automatically included with your hardware. This consumer app is a long, long way from being a pro tool like LumaFusion or Kinemaster. But if you're a beginner who wants to get started editing video, and add titles, music, voiceovers and photos to it, it's got everything you need.

iMovie supports 4K on modern devices, and as you'd expect, integrates beautifully with the Apple ecosystem as a whole. So for example, you can save your clips to the iCloud drive or stream them to an Apple TV via AirPlay, and everything plays nicely with Apple Photos, Mail and Messages too. Read our iMovie review to learn more.

iMovie doesn't get significant updates very often, but at least Apple pays attention to fixing bugs; so for example, the latest March 2021 update (10.2.3) solves some issues when it comes to fonts in titles and projects failing to import. 

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