iMovie vs. Lightworks vs. PlayPlay

iMovie is a great editing tool for beginners and users with little to no experience. If you are looking for a simple, straight forward way to edit your videos without having any training, this is the tool for you. If you are looking for a robust and very advanced editing platform, you may wish to look elsewhere.

Incentivized

Lightworks is a great tool for a non-designer to use because it provides a number of tools and capabilities that can be quickly learned. For someone who is an advanced video editor, it may not provide every tool they will need. Given how much can be accomplished through the free version, I think it's a great tool for making simple videos for social media, YouTube and other basic applications.

Incentivized

For any company that wants to use more video in their content and marketing overall, PlayPlay is your best bet. Anyone can make a video--no expertise required. Honestly, it's really fun to do, and you feel like a creative genius afterward! If you are making long-form videos or need something for a TV commercial, PlayPlay doesn't make sense. But you can absolutely take snippets from other video projects and break them into smaller videos. That's what we love to do. Also, they just launched a podcast tool to help podcasters use video to promote their episodes.

• iMovie allows users to upload their own clips and edit them together. You're able to add in more clips as you're working on your project which is great as some film editing software don't allow add ons of video clips once you've begun the editing process.
• iMovie continually saves as you're working on your project and syncs with your devices so you can work on your project from other like computers.
• iMovie is quick to update changes which allows time to be saved during the editing process. It's very helpful when you need to adjust 1-2 things and don't want to spend hours waiting for the changes to go through.

Incentivized

• Drag and drop all videos easily.
• Easy to split videos and strip.
• You can work with multiple sequences.

Incentivized

• Very simple-to-use but super professional looking video templates
• Intuitive platform for creating a story with video
• One-click resizing for social formats
• Amazing customer success--if you need it--offering recommendations to make your video look amazing
• Access to Getty Premier for video and image stock

• Audio for video editing is a bit limiting. A pro user would feel limited, but the average person can pretty well do what they need in iMovie and that's what matters for this platform.
• The design of the UI could use some updating so it doesn't feel so bubbly. This may purely be an aesthetic concern, and maybe the old style makes it more approachable, but i'd prefer to see a more slick design so you don't feel like you are using a kids program.
• If you ever want to share the project or manually manage files, it can be a bit difficult to figure out. Fortunately Apple allows you to import a project from iMovie into FCPX if you ever want to be upwardly mobile.

Incentivized

• I have had it crash on me while using; thought content is saved
• The user interface could be updated/modernized
• Hot-keys commands are not always intuitive

Incentivized

• Product is very easy to use; I got a little stuck on changing font colors with text
• Automatic subtitling is amazing, but you do need to adjust the words per screen

Once again, iMovie is a fast application. It's easy to use and navigate through. It has never frozen or glitched. There is an auto-save feature which helps you to easily close and re-open the software and continue from where you left off. Being an Apple product I do believe there is a level of superiority that surpasses Windows as well.

Apple does a great job supporting its products. I have never encountered trouble that could not be solved through chat or email. The knowledgebase section of the website, video tutorials online and various user forums also help with most issues. If after using all of these avenues you still have an issue, it may be time for you to outsource your project to a professional!

Incentivized

Not as easy to use as iMovie, and a similar cost structure. iMovie is easier for Apple users / and MS users, to both get proficient at. Movie Maker isn't bad, it just isn't as slick as iMovie. We actually used MovieMaker for a couple of years before migrating most users over to iMovie. We have not regretted the move.

Incentivized

Adobe is a great tool that is very competitive and I still use it depending on what PC I have on hand and how fast the job needs to get done but I selected Lightwork because I think that it is less complicated to browse and was able to learn the shortcuts fast, making my time more productive.

Incentivized

• iMovie is a very inexpensive alternative to other video editing software.
• It's very easy to train new users on iMovie, so time is saved there.
• We started a project where we were tasked to create a new 5 minute video every week. We started with little to no knowledge of video editing, but iMovie was so easy to pick up and use that we were able to start filming and putting together videos right away. If we had to learn a more complex program, like Premiere Pro, it would have pushed our timeline back considerably.

Incentivized

• It has helped us create more video content that we had not been able to do in the past
• Given that we can use the free version in almost every situation, there has been no direct cost to use

Incentivized

• Huge ROI--we're saving thousands on editing costs
• It's another way to repurpose content
• Our staff has loved using the product--also less work for them