So, you're looking to change video editors?
Good choice! In 2024, there are so many amazing platforms out there, and as someone who has used
Premiere Pro for the majority of my 20 years editing, recently my eyes were opened to DaVinci
Resolve and CapCut. And now that I've seen them and what they can do, there ain't no way I'm ever
going back to Premiere. Never, ever, ever, never, never, never, ever... or will I. I'm pretty sure I
won't. So, which is the better editor of the two? After using both DaVinci and CapCut for editing
my YouTube videos, I've got some pretty definite observations and insights that will help you make
that decision. So, stick around to the end if you want the full list. I won't cover every single
feature, but I will share the main differences between the two that I've noticed and ultimately
who I think each software is for. DaVinci and CapCut are completely free. You don't need to
pay a cent to use either one, while they both do have paid versions: DaVinci at $295 USD
and CapCut at either $8 or $9 USD per month. These really are optional and not essential for
most use cases; therefore, pricing isn't really a factor. How easy are they to use? Well, I'd say
CapCut is probably the easiest software I've ever used. I picked it up in literally 10 minutes.
It has a very similar layout to other editors, and they've really simplified the user experience.
Most features are either drag-and-drop, or various tools can very easily be found in the extremely
simplified menus. Whereas, DaVinci Resolve... you can't do the same thing. It's going to take a bit
of time to learn it because it is a more complex and nuanced software with a lot more features,
therefore a lot more learning time. So, while you can learn the basics in under an hour, to master
the entire program, it's going to take quite a bit longer. So what about basic trimming and editing
of clips? While they can do the basics of trimming quite well, one big downside I've noticed
of CapCut is its inability to do multi-track editing. Here's what I mean: So, I've got a clip
here, which is easy enough to cut up. However, when you add a second layer, here is a text layer.
Let's say I want to delete left or Ripple trim, which is one of the most common edits you make
when you're cutting up dialogue. When I press Q on the keyboard, it trims track one but not track 2,
a.k.a. the text layer. This makes editing multiple layers extremely frustrating because let's say
I wanted to cut right through these two layers, both the text and the A camera. Instead, I'm going
to make a split in that clip, select the previous clip, and delete it. Then, it throws track two
out, so it's no longer in sync with the cut point of the bottom track. And that just took me
maybe 10 clicks. Here's the same thing in DaVinci: press Q, and it Ripple trims both layers. So,
I'd say if you're only planning on editing one single video on one track, this won't be an issue.
However, if you're like me and you like editing with lots of tracks, this is going to be a big
issue in CapCut and slow down your edits. I know this sounds like a small thing, but you make
cuts like this hundreds of times throughout a video edit; therefore, it's going to add lots of
little 2-3-5-second increments onto your overall edit time.Here's another difference between the
two: In DaVinci, let's say I want to move this text down and center it. I'll select the text, go
to settings, then position, and place it roughly where I think it belongs, which is probably about
there. That's fine. But in CapCut, watch this. This is potentially the... or one of the best
features of CapCut: the interactive viewer. I love being able to drag and drop graphics so easily
and have the blue guidelines guide you toward the center of the frame, especially handy for
symmetry freaks like me. I'm fairly sure DaVinci doesn't have this feature. When I click and drag,
nothing happens. What about adding an animation to this text? So, in... it's pretty straightforward.
Select the text, choose a transition you like, drag and drop it on, and... yeah, that was pretty
good. The transition isn't amazing, and a lot of the DaVinci templates, while they're pretty fun,
I wouldn't use the majority of them. In CapCut, to do the same thing, you just select a text, head to
animation, and here is a full library of different text effects that you can click to preview, and
these are actually, like, pretty good. I think I'd use them. In fact, I'd definitely use them and
have used them in my last few videos. So, I'd say the inbuilt library of transitions and animations
is definitely better within CapCut. This not only applies to text but also other drag-and-drop
effects where it's literally just one click of a button, and it applies the effect, as well as
silly sticker overlays like this, LOL. And while DaVinci does have some effect templates that are
honestly quite good, the program overall relies more on you creating your own within the software,
which can be done in the Fusion Tab. And this is essentially like the After Effects of DaVinci
Resolve, and it allows you to create effects from scratch that are miles better than the ones inside
CapCut. However, it does require you doing it manually at first and saving it as a template for
you to then use in the future, whereas, I don't know, I kind of like having the presets in CapCut
without having to make them from scratch. To me, personally, a fast workflow is really important,
which is why having a big library of templates and effects is super valuable. So, I'd say I'd
rate them about even for effects and templates, with CapCut having more inbuilt and ready-to-go,
and DaVinci having the ability to create more advanced templates and effects, as well as import
other effects that people have made and uploaded to various websites like Motion Array, which
is nice to have, but again, personally, I'd kind of rather have the effects inbuilt to begin
with just to keep things simple. Whereas, CapCut doesn't allow you to import outside graphics into
CapCut. What about color correction? Well, yes, obviously DaVinci Resolve wins for this. It's
the best software there is for color correction and allows you to do anything your heart desires
color-wise with your footage. They use DaVinci Resolve in Hollywood, and it's really such a
powerful tool for color correction, so hands down, it wins. However, how does it compare to CapCut?
This may shock you. So, I'm going to select a clip and head over to adjustment. And CapCut has
not just one but four tabs of color correction options, including a color oscilloscope in
the viewer because who doesn't like a good oscilloscope? I know I do. Anyway, so it's got all
the basics of color correction. This is the kind of stuff you'll see in the Lumetri tab in Premiere
Pro. Then it's also got HSL adjustments, so if you want to isolate individual colors and work just
on those, you can do that. It's got curves if you like color correcting that way, as well as
color wheels. So yeah, it's not DaVinci-level color correction, but it's also not beginner-level
color correction. There's quite a lot of options here, so I definitely rate CapCut for color
correction. I'd say it's for sure good enough for most use cases. Not every single project needs
Hollywood-level color correction when all you need to do is just change a few sliders here and there
and you're good. What about audio editing? Well, unfortunately, this is another downside of CapCut.
While you can edit audio and they do have some filters that do it automatically, like loudness
normalization, and if you do pay for the Pro version, you can select enhanced voice and vocal
isolation, which is a really good feature. Aside from that, I've got to say I really don't like the
audio editing of CapCut. The main reason being, if your sound is embedded in your clip like this
one is, the waveforms are so small you basically need to get out a microscope to see them. Like,
literally, if your clip is selected and the white border is around it, it conflicts with the
waveform so much that you're basically guessing where to cut since more experienced editors cut
based on the waveforms more than the actual clips. So, I found when editing with CapCut, I have to
actually deselect the clip then shuttle over frame by frame... okay, there I can see is a waveform,
so I'll make a cut there. And still, the waveforms are so small, and keyframing the audio is equally
hard because it's really so hard to see these waveforms. Like when the peaks go into the orange
zone, which is too loud, you've really got to squint to see what you're doing. Whereas if they
did have a dedicated audio track, which you can create if you right-click and go extract audio,
this does make it easier. But then it creates other issues with the multi-track editing causing
your clips to easily go out of sync. And yes, while you can group a clip like this, it still
just makes it really hard to edit this way. Like, I'm trying to unselect one of these two clips,
and it's not unselecting. Whereas in DaVinci, there is a dedicated audio track which you can
drag to be as big as you like, and it's really easy to keyframe the audio as well. So, there in
just a few seconds, I've isolated this part of the audio to make louder or quieter. And this is the
visual experience you want when editing audio. It needs to be really big because clearer visibility
translates to a faster editing experience. Also, DaVinci has an entire tab dedicated to audio
called Fairlight where you can do all kinds of advanced stuff to your audio. So, without
question, DaVinci Resolve beats CapCut for audio editing unless you only need the absolute
basics and you're happy for the auto leveler within CapCut to do all the work, which can
actually be okay if you recorded your audio properly to begin with. But if it's a track that
needs more individualized editing, then DaVinci is going to be the better choice. Another strength of
CapCut is the automatic captions option, which is available in the free version. These captions
are super stylish, and both the free and paid versions come with a ton of templates that are
great options for capturing short attention spans on social media. Whereas with DaVinci Resolve,
you need to buy the paid version to get automatic captions, and if you only do the bare minimum of
tweaks, they're not going to be on the level of CapCut. What about more advanced features for more
professional use cases? While CapCut does have some advanced features, some of my favorites being
Auto Cutout, where it automatically removes the background even if you didn't use a green screen.
Here's another cool one: it's called Relight, where you're literally relighting your scene
after the fact, and you can change the intensity, the color of the light. This is literally acting
like a light source in the scene; that is pretty advanced. And there are a few other decently
intermediate to advanced features in CapCut. But they have built the CapCut Editor to appeal
to a more beginner-friendly audience. Therefore, you're not going to get anywhere near the
amount of advanced features as you do in DaVinci. DaVinci is without question the best
option for advanced video editing since it has multiple tabs dedicated to multiple steps within
your video editing workflow. Each of which has hundreds of potential customizations you can
make to your video, including editing effects, color correction, audio, and export. All of these
act like their own software, yet it's built into the one DaVinci Resolve software. Whereas you
wouldn't say that about CapCut, these are just like boxes you can tick yes or no. So, definitely,
DaVinci wins for advanced features. Another place they differ slightly is with mobile friendliness.
With CapCut, you can edit on your computer, on your phone, tablet, or even an internet browser.
The best experience is obviously going to be on a desktop where you've got a faster computer, but
it does have an amazing mobile app which is great for quick video and reels. DaVinci doesn't have a
mobile app, but they do have an iPad app which is kind of like a simplified version of the main
software that still goes pretty advanced. But personally, again, I'd recommend editing on a
computer instead. The export settings of CapCut leave a lot to be desired. The maximum resolution
is 4K, and the other customization options are really on the basic side here. There's really
only a handful of basic options. Again, because it's designed for a beginner-friendly audience.
So, if export formats are important to you, then you'll probably want to consider DaVinci.
These are good enough, but due to there being so few options, either you've got to sacrifice
a little bit on video quality, or if you choose something like Pro Res, it totally blows out your
file size to 20 times what it should be. However, for social media, you can get away with H.264 or
HEVC for good enough video quality. With DaVinci, you've got a lot more options here: H.264
and H.265. It's got presets for YouTube and all the various platforms, and just a lot more
individualization of your export settings that you can take advantage of, and you're a lot less
likely to end up with a low-quality video or a video where the file size is way too big. It's
important to know though that both platforms have limitations when it comes to exporting: with
DaVinci, the limit is 4K resolution, so if you're exporting anything higher, you'll need to upgrade
to the paid version, which allows you to export, get this, up to 32K resolution, which I'm sure
is very common. Yeah, and with CapCut, the export limitation is 15 minutes; as long as your video is
under 15 minutes, you can export it. If it's over, you will need to upgrade to CapCut Pro. The
final factor I'll mention that I have noticed with both programs is performance speed. CapCut is
undeniably fast, both for video editing even with multiple tracks and lots of graphics, but also
exporting, which takes literally minutes or less even for a 10-minute video. And my Mac has not
had any issues editing videos in CapCut. Whereas, admittedly, I have had some crashes with DaVinci
Resolve because I like doing multi-track editing with lots of 4K clips. It does sometimes stress
it out, especially when you're using graphics, and the program can crash. Luckily, both of
these programs have an automatic save feature, so it doesn't matter. You're not going to lose
work even if the software does crash. However, one downside of the free version of DaVinci is
this performance issue which is where upgrading will fix that issue because the paid Studio
version has GPU acceleration and allows you to use multiple GPUs which inevitably speeds
up the editing workflow significantly. So, in conclusion, both CapCut and DaVinci Resolve are
fantastic editors, and if you choose either one, you'd be making a good choice since they are
fully functional with the free version; you don't need to upgrade unless you want those extra
Pro features. But again, you really don't need to. And while there are other free editors out there,
nothing touches these two in terms of what you get with the free version. So, if you're a complete
beginner, you've just picked up video editing and you want to start a YouTube channel and make
your own content without a massive learning curve, then CapCut is the obvious choice. It has a lot
of fantastic features and is so easy to learn, which makes it a no-brainer if you're a beginner
who wants a fast workflow. Whereas if you consider yourself a more experienced creator, you've used
a few other programs before like Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Avid, and so on, and you're ready
to upgrade to a more modern editor, something that does all the things that the non-linear editors
do, that After Effects does, that Audition does, and also does world-class color correction,
then DaVinci Resolve or DaVinci Resolve Studio is definitely going to be the right choice since
you can get way more customized edits in DaVinci, the trimming workflow is much faster due to the
multi-track editing, and you really can go quite advanced with your graphics. So, DaVinci really
could serve as the only editor you'll ever need, whereas with CapCut, you probably wouldn't
stay on CapCut forever. Eventually, once you're getting good at making videos, you'd
then upgrade to DaVinci. I can say personally, and again, I've been editing videos for 20 years,
I'm going to be using both. I think CapCut has a place for simple videos for social media with
cool graphics and automatic captions that are really well optimized for social media, TikTok,
reels, and so on. But my main editor is going to be DaVinci Resolve because you can edit
bigger projects much faster and it's got way more advanced options for when I need them.
So, even if you are an experienced editor, I would suggest trying CapCut; you'll be able to
pick it up like this, and you might even find that you love it since it really does make video
editing a fun experience. And unfortunately, that was something that I completely lost with
Premiere. Now, is there anything that you would add to this comparison? If so, let me know down
below. If you're going to give CapCut a go, then be sure to download my free CapCut keyboard
shortcuts cheat sheet if you want to edit 10 times faster through using one-tap shortcuts on the
keyboard. And now that this video has hopefully helped you decide which of the two video editors
to use, your next step is learning how to edit with them. So, in these videos here, you'll
find my complete beginner guides to DaVinci Resolve and CapCut and how you can get up and
running with them in less than 20 minutes.
