Adobe After Effects allows users to create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions, remove an object from a clip, start a fire or make it rain, or animate a logo or character. The vendor states that with After Effects, users can apply motion-graphics and animation to any digital object.
$20.99
Per User Per Month
DaVinci Resolve
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Australian company Blackmagic Design offers their video editing application DaVinci Resolve for a wide range of high quality ultra HD effects, render queue, and video uploading options among other features.
$0
Free
Pricing
Adobe After Effects
DaVinci Resolve
Editions & Modules
Annual Plan (Paid Monthly)
$20.99
Per User Per Month
Monthly Plan
$31.49
Per User Per Month
Annual Plan (Prepaid)
$239.88
Per User Per Year
DaVinci Resolve 17
$0.00
Free
DaVinci Resolve Studio 17
$295.00
perpetual license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe After Effects
DaVinci Resolve
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
—
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe After Effects
DaVinci Resolve
Considered Both Products
Adobe After Effects
Verified User
Employee
Chose Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects stands out for its comprehensive set of tools for creating motion graphics, visual effects, and animations. Its seamless integration with other Adobe software, vast community, and extensive tutorials make it user-friendly. It offers a wide range of 2D and 3D …
After Effects is on par with most of these other non-Adobe software. It is able to edit, create, render, illustrate, stabilize video content; and so much more.
Obviously I use Premiere to edit and After Effects to post-produce. In the past I used 4D Cinema to create objects to insert in the videos, but now with a few external plugins all the objects you want are inserted.
I like Resolve more because it has all-in-one capability. Like in Adobe Premiere, I need to use Media Encoder for transcoding and export and After Effects for motion graphics, but Resolve has all-in-one software. It's the same with Final Cut Pro; they provide single …
DaVinci Resolve is Adobe's editing suite combined and for a fraction of the price point. Investing in DaVinci Resolve has far more longevity than Creative Cloud. The grading features DaVinci Resolve offers are far better than anything else on the market.
We attempted to give Resolve a chance. Never again
TrustRadius Insights
Adobe After Effects
DaVinci Resolve
Highlights
Research Team Insight
Published
Both Adobe After Effects and DaVinci Resolve serve distinct groups of professionals and enthusiasts, reflecting their use cases and functionality. DaVinci Resolve has been highlighted by its users for its exceptional color grading and color correction capabilities, making it a preferred choice among users who need advanced color handling in their video projects. It is especially popular in environments such as communications and digital modeling departments within organizations, where consistent and high-quality video output is crucial, as well as among filmmakers and colorists who require detailed control over their footage.
Adobe After Effects, on the other hand, is primarily celebrated for its robust motion graphics and visual effects tools. This software finds significant usage among graphic designers, motion graphics artists, and marketing departments where creating engaging digital ads and animations is a priority. Users favor After Effects for tasks that demand intricate graphical animations and compositing activities that are essential in post-production workflows where visual enhancement of projects is required. The tool’s integration within the Adobe ecosystem also enables a seamless workflow, making it a staple in environments that manage a high volume of graphics-intensive projects.
The choice between Adobe After Effects and DaVinci Resolve often comes down to the specific needs of the users: DaVinci Resolve for those whose priority is high fidelity color grading and video editing, and Adobe After Effects for users who require advanced graphic animations and effects. This divergence in use cases reflects the specialized nature of each software, catering to different aspects of video and production demands while offering tools that are optimally tailored to enhance the specific creative vision of their users.
I would recommend Adobe After Effects to a colleague above all other comparable software that I have used, however, with the caveat that it can be time-consuming to learn to use and can be frustrating if you are not familiar with the software. Difficulty aside, once you begin to understand how to use Adobe After Effects, it is the only software for the job.
I learned so much from this instructional exercise, and I appreciated how the educator is an expert all-day colorist. The section on sound reduction was particularly instructive. I noticed a few inconsistencies between certain methodologies in this instructional exercise and approaches suggested in the Advanced Color Grading in Resolve 15 instructional exercise (e.g., where to place sound reduction in the hub tree), but this is to be expected given that there is no one right way to do any of this. I also learned a lot about Resolve's "Restoration" modules for working with authentic film. This instructional exercise will come up again and again in my work.
Adobe After Effects allows you to exercise a great level of control over how to animate just about every aspect of an object. You can control animation speed of entry and exit, the direction of rotation, scale, position, and so many more attributes.
Adobe After Effects is so popular that you can find so many paid and free third-party plug-ins and scripts to incorporate into your project.
There is such a breadth and depth of features available in Adobe After Effects, you will never get tired of exploring the program and using its many features to take your projects to new heights
Adobe After Effects works well with other products in the Adobe Creative Suites including, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Media Encoder
Adobe After Effects allows you to customize the setup of your workspace and panels
Comprehensive - It has video editing, motion graphics, audio, and export tools in one package. It's probably more than most people need, but you don't have to use all of the tools.
Platform and format agnostic - I like that I can work on projects on Mac or PC, and there are regular updates for new codecs and cameras. You can edit pretty much any format with no compatibility worries.
Price - They offer a free version which has most of the functionality. It's a great way to try before you buy and learn the tools. The final price is only $300 per license for the full product. It's a bargain for everything you get, and you don't feel like you're not getting your money's worth, even if you don't use all of the tools.
Some areas of Resolve can leave inexperienced users feeling a bit handicapped. Multiple user sign-ins can be confusing, and determining where to place the database of users might need troubleshooting. The exporting workflow is a bit finicky and will need to be learned to use for even simple capabilities.
Resolve is not friendly on a single screen editing workflow, and even worse on a laptop. Ideally, an editor has multiple screens in the first place, but because a colorist needs to see scopes and monitor, handling both on the same screen, along with all tools is a challenge. This software is best with more screens.
While the NLE capability of Resolve makes for a quick editing workspace, my little experience with it leads me to the conclusion that unless someone desires a completely free alternative to other NLE software, Resolve is not your best friend. Other programs are better.
I will renew my use of After Effects since it's affordable and always has been reliable. They also always continue to update new features and add new things to compete with other software out there. I also like all the 3rd party plugins out there that keep my interest for the future and new toolsets and creative solutions.
There's a lot of features and functionality that Adobe After Effects offers that can be hard to navigate at times. Depending on the depth you plan to use the software for, that can take some time to learn. The built-in templates and tutorials really help soften that learning curve. Once you get past some of the basics, it's fairly simple to use.
I give it 9 out of 10 because I have been using Resolve since 2013 and am happy to see its evolution over the years. The Blackmagic team has really done a great job to make it better on a year-on-year basis. I like its workflow, that it has all a video editor needs, like transcoding, supporting a wide range of codes, video editing capabilities, a professional color grading suite, and improved Fusion and Fairlight, and in the end its export and mastering capability i can export pretty much every formate from it.
Adobe customer support is wonderful. They genuinely care about their product and the end user experience. The products they create have always been innovative and continue to improve. They have a huge chunk of the user market in their field and still strive to improve. This is such a big deal for me and other small business/organizations that need their products and don't have a large voice on our own.
Not only do they have classes available in Los Angeles, but they'll also allow you to work from home with the manual and demo materials, and then let you test out to get a certification. They get back to you quickly when you email, and they've got a "family" approach to customer service, they make you feel like you're important to them.
I find Adobe After Effects to be superior to iMovie and Final Cut Pro in that I am able to do much more with the software. It isn't as limiting as the other two. I also like that it isn't an Apple product. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Apple. There is a bigger learning curve with After Effects, but once you get the hang of it, there's really no comparison.
It has a free version that is very complete. It lets everyone on the team use a lot of very good tools for video editing that would be very expensive while using other solutions that are equally excellent but not as generous. The cost is a very good reason but not the only one, the software is actually really good.
Most of my videos are not public which is shown to clients. There is a clear improvement of quality which impacts the client interest. It's difficult to put a number but I am much more confident in showing our videos in the sales pitch.
