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What Is a Good Video Editing App for Ipad

The best video editing apps in 2021

Four young people using phones to access the best video editing apps
(Image credit: Yan Krukov from Pexels)

With the best video editing apps, you can edit footage on your mobile device wherever you are. Because they're simpler to use than desktop video editing software, they're a great choice for beginners and hobbyists. And for the same reason, they're also useful for professionals and YouTubers wanting to make quick and easy edits on the go.

These days, the best video editing apps are surprisingly powerful. Most are available for iOS and Android, and can usually be used on both smartphones and tablets (see our best tablets for video editing if you need the latter). And if you've just bought an iPhone 13 Pro or Pro Max, which have the ability to shoot video in high-quality ProRes format, you'll certainly want a good app to make the most of your footage.

In this article, we bring together the best video editing apps available today, including free, freemium and paid-for options. We'll explain which apps are best for different tasks, and give you the facts and figures to help you find the right fit. Plus the prices on this page will automatically update in real time, allowing you to take advantage of any discounts, including Black Friday deals, the moment they're made available.

Meanwhile, if you want to move your video clips between mobile and desktop, then you'll need the best hardware too. You'll find help there in our guides to the best computer for video editing, the best monitor for video editing and the best MacBook for video editing.

We'll begin the top 3 video editing apps today – in brief – and then take a full dive into the best video editing apps around right now.

The top 3 video editing apps

The best video editing apps in 2021

Holiday footage being edited in Premiere Rush

(Image credit: Jason Parnell-Brookes)

The best video editing app overall

Specifications

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS

Multi-track editor: Yes

Export directly to YouTube: Yes

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Cross-platform +Useful export options +Free starter plan

Reasons to avoid

-Full version needs subscription

Premiere Rush is a cross-platform, video editing app that's aimed at YouTubers and social media users. With that in mind, it's made much easier to use than Adobe's desktop software, such as Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition.

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.

It's not just for amateurs, though. It's also the best video editing app for professional video editors, because it lets you 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.

The app's interface is nice and simple with large icons and panels, making it very straightforward for standard video editing tasks, such as dragging-and-dropping footage onto the timeline, correcting colour, mixing in music or voiceovers, or adding titles and transitions.

There's a one-minute tutorial when you first open the app, but actually, Premiere Rush is so simple to use, you might not need it, making it one of the best video editing apps for beginners. See our Premiere Rush review for more info.

How do you get Premiere Rush? Firstly, you can subscribe to Premiere Rush as a single app, or as part of a limited free starter plan.

Other options include subscribing to Premiere Rush bundled with Premiere Pro, or as part of the entire Adobe suite: check our guide to Creative Cloud discounts for the best price. Plus, since October, subscribers to the Adobe Photography Plan have been able to get Premiere Rush for free.

Whichever option you go for, you'll get constant updates to the app without having to pay extra. For instance, with the most recent version (2.0, released this month), you get unlimited exports on desktop, availability in additional languages, and thousands of new royalty-free sound effects and loops.

Quik screenshot on phones plus the Quik logo

(Image credit: GoPro)

02. Quik (cross-platform)

The best video editing app for GoPro users

Specifications

Platform: iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS

Multi-track editor: Yes

Export directly to YouTube: Yes

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Easy interface +Sync songs to footage +Horizontal levelling

Reasons to avoid

-Doesn't work with all phones

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

This video editing app is focused on two specific things: allowing you to remotely control your GoPro device, and edit your GoPro footage. It automatically imports your 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.

The Horizon Levelling editor tweaks the angle of your scene to correct things if your camera wasn't mounted in line with the horizon. You can go through your footage frame-by-frame to find standout still images. And 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.

The latest version, 10.5, launched this month, has updated the export settings to further improve visual quality and reliability. This app is free, but with in-app purchases you can get extra themes and filters.

LumaFusion screenshot and logo

(Image credit: LumaFusion)

The best video editing app for iPhone and iPad

Specifications

Platform: iOS

Multi-track editor: Yes

Export directly to YouTube: Yes

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Advanced features +Thunderbolt 4 support +No subscription needed

Reasons to avoid

-iOS only

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 similar to Final Cut Pro, with its magnetic timeline. Any effect can be keyframed, as can clip animation, allowing precise adjustments to your project. You also get 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).

A big update this June introduced a MultiCam Sync feature, which lets you sync and edit clips from multiple camera and audio sources. Plus, if you have the latest iPad Pro, you can take full advantage of your Thunderbolt 4 port for faster download and upload speeds. The very latest version (3.0.8), launched in October, added a new integration with Dropbox to make it easier to collaborate on footage with others.

Once you're done editing in Lumavision, 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 a low price, it's a real bargain, making it one of the best video editing apps for pros. For more details, read our full LumaFusion review.

KineMaster screenshot and logo

(Image credit: KineMaster)

The best video editing app for Android

Specifications

Platform: Android, iOS

Multi-track editor: Yes

Export directly to YouTube: Yes

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Advanced features +Multi-track editing +Precision control

Reasons to avoid

-Watermarks on free version

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.

Other features include 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.

KineMaster is free to download, but adds watermarks to videos, which you have to take out a subscription to remove. This also allows you to export at 1080p or 4K, and get access to over 1,000 premium assets. Find out more in our KineMaster review.

iMovie screenshot on an iPad and iMovie logo

(Image credit: Apple)

The best free video editing app for iOS

Specifications

Platform: iOS, Mac

Multi-track editor: Yes

Export direct to YouTube: Yes

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Free for Apple users +Easy to use

Reasons to avoid

-Not the most feature-rich -Not the most powerful

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 a great starting point.

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 got a big update in September, most notably adding the ability to import and edit video captured in Cinematic mode on iPhone 13 to Macs. If you have a recent iPhone or iPad, you can also now add, adjust, and delete focus points, and modify the depth of field effect in video recorded in Cinematic mode.

Filmora Go screenshot and logo

(Image credit: Filmora)

06. FilmoraGo (Android, iOS)

Free video editing app with a newly updated interface

Specifications

Platform: Android, iOS

Multi-track editor: No

Export direct to YouTube: Yes

4K support: No

Reasons to buy

+Free +Themed filters and effects

Reasons to avoid

-No multi-track editing -No 4K support

FilmoraGo is a free app for iOS and Android made by Wondershare that lets you edit online HD videos without a steep learning curve. And thanks to its themed filters and effects, it can help even newbies make their videos look impressively professional.

Some in-app purchases are available, such as songs and effects, but your videos can work perfectly well without them. And yes, there are internal ads, but they aren't especially intrusive. So while it's quite a basic app – for example, there's no multi-track editing or 4K support – it's still one of the best video editing apps around that doesn't cost anything.

The latest version (6.0), launched this June, gave the app a bit of an overhaul. It now features a brand new user interface, as well as an AR camera and light and dark modes. Plus you can now choose to splice videos in the same picture, there's an extensive range of templates in categories such fashion, food and travel, and you can use masks not only on the main track but also on the PIP track.

Note, though, that's it's only available on iOS for iPhone, not iPad; and that you'll have watermarks on your videos unless you upgrade to the paid version.

FilmoraGo was further updated in October, to make it fully compatible with the new iOS 15 operating system. If you like the app and fancy checking out its desktop sibling, see our Filmora X review.

Apple clips on iPhones and Clips logo

(Image credit: Apple)

07. Apple Clips (iOS)

The best video editing app for family footage

Specifications

Platform: iOS

Multi-track editor: No

Export direct to YouTube: Yes

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Free +Fun for families +Support for iPhone 13 Pro

Reasons to avoid

-Not a "serious" app

The best video editing apps are sometimes overkill, if all you want is to edit your family videos for fun. So if you're an iOS user, it's worth checking out Apple Clips. This free app allows you to create and send video messages, or tell video stories with filters, animated text, music, emoji, and stickers.

Primarily aimed at children and families, Apple Clips is pretty lightweight stuff: it's not even as powerful as iMovie. That said, with each successive update, it is getting a little closer to becoming a serious video editing app.

In April, for example, Apple added AR Spaces, an augmented reality feature available to iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro users. This latest update in September, meanwhile, allows you to import and edit video captured in Cinematic mode on iPhone 13, as well as ProRes video from iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max.

For more information, read our Apple Clips review.

Filmmaker pro screenshot on iPad plus logo in top left corner

(Image credit: Tinkerworks)

08. Filmmaker Pro (iOS)

Freemium video editing app with some unique features

Specifications

Platform: iOS

Multi-track editor: No

Export direct to YouTube: No

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Video grading +Green screen support

Reasons to avoid

-No multi-track editing -Best features not free

Filmmaker Pro is another one of the best video editing apps for your iPhone. This app is primarily aimed at consumers but as the name suggests, comes with some nice pro features too, including 30 filters, 17 transitions and Audiometer assisted voiceovers.

You also get video grading, a superb green screen support, nearly 200 different fonts for your text overlays, and some advanced tools such as chroma keying. A big update in July added a key frame animation tool, which lets you add multiple custom transforms to an animation stack that's applied to a layer.

Note that, like many apps on this list, Filmmaker Pro is free to download, but you won't get the full feature set and you'll have watermarks on your videos too. So it's best to consider this as a paid-for, subscription-based app, and treat the free download as basically a free trial version.

InShot screenshots on mobile plus logo

(Image credit: InShot)

09. Inshot (cross-platform)

Free app for making social videos

Specifications

Platform: iOS, Android

Multi-track editor: No

Export directly to YouTube: Yes

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Easy to use +Free

Reasons to avoid

-No advanced features -Pay to remove watermarks

Inshot is specifically geared toward creating clips for social media, and is one of the best video editing apps for that purpose. With a clear and easy to use interface, it makes it smooth and easy to import, trim and edit your clips together, then add filters, stickers, captions, emojis, and other fun things on top, as well as free music and sound effects. Plus it offers pre-built canvas sizes for exporting everywhere from IGTV to TikTok.

Note that the app is free, but comes with ads, and your videos will be watermarked. Both can be removed, though, with a small monthly subscription. There are also one-off purchases for more advanced features.

CyberLink ActionDirector

(Image credit: CyberLink)

10. ActionDirector

Android video editing app for action footage

Specifications

Platform: Android

Multi-track editor: No

Export directly to YouTube: Yes

4K support: Yes

Reasons to buy

+Free version +Slow and fast motion effects +Supports 4K

Reasons to avoid

-Basic editing only

Available for Android only, ActionDirector's is specifically designed for capturing and editing action video footage. So as well as being a basic video editing app, it also offers some nifty action effects to apply to your shots.

For instance, you can slow down or speed up video segments with precision, to create eye-catching slow-motion or fast-motion scenes. You can also highlight specific sections of your video to replay or rewind.

Beyond that the app also makes it easy to add titles and text, mix in music, and share video via social networks. ActionDirector is free, with in-app purchases for certain features.

Related articles:

  • The best computers for video editing
  • The best monitors for photo-editing
  • Best photo apps
Tom May

Tom May is an award-winning journalist and editor specialising in design, photography and technology. He is author of Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books. He was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine.

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What Is a Good Video Editing App for Ipad

Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/features/6-great-video-editing-apps-for-mobile