Online vs. Desktop Video Editors: Which One Should You Choose?

If you ever wanted to create or edit a video, you might have asked yourself what software or website to use. Both online and offline options can help you achieve a great end result, but the way you envision it (along with a few other aspects) can help you decide which is suitable for you.

To give you a helping hand, here are a few of the differences you should consider before you decide.

Online video editors

Online, or cloud video editors are websites you can freely access from your internet browser to create or edit videos. Free to use and with a user-friendly interface, they help make your work process easier compared to most offline software while offering the same core tools and options. As any product however, they come with a series of advantages and disadvantages.

Pros of online video editors:

They require low system specifications.

At present most of us own a personal computer, laptop or tablet, but not always a powerful one that can successfully carry the workload generated by a desktop video editor. This is why the alternative of cloud video editors comes in handy with their low system requirements that most of us can meet.

You benefit from instant access and cloud storage.

If you edit and render your videos online, you will avoid the long download and installation time you could have already spent creating and editing instead. By opting for cloud video editing, your work will also be constantly backed up, which will prevent its loss in the event of a system failure or a power outage. Online video editors benefit from fast rendering speeds, with as little as 3 minutes to render and publish your work.

Cloud video editors are more affordable.

Online video editors are mostly free to access and use at your leisure, with some offering packages focusing on meeting your creative or business oriented needs at very affordable prices.

You can share and edit them online with your team.

Time is of the essence and online video editors are the key to make it easy and fast for you to share your work.

Since your progress is saved on the cloud, you and your collaborators can view and bring suggestions to your video online. By doing so, you avoid the hassle of uploading and downloading your videos to and from a separate storage platform or of using external storage devices such as USB sticks or hard drive disks.

Before settling on an online video editor, take these points into consideration:

They depend on your internet speed.

If your internet connection is weak or very slow, an online video editor might not be suitable for you. While the system resource usage is lower than a desktop editor’s, you need stable access to the internet to ensure that your changes take effect and that your work will be backed up.

What if you don’t like using cloud storage?

Despite the safety and confidentiality that cloud storing offers, it is understandable that it is not suitable for everyone’s working style. As some people still aren’t used to or do not want to opt for storing and backing up their work on cloud storages, if you also prefer taking a more traditional approach you should rather consider a desktop video editor. 

They are not suitable for long, very high quality videos.

Online video editing websites do not support very long and extremely high quality videos. When working on a project, take into consideration its length and whether your videos require light or advanced and very heavy editing, for which a desktop software will meet your needs and expectations better.

Desktop video editors

Various offline video editing software are available to download on your computer or laptop. Designed to employ a large number of tools and options, they are useful for and target heavy workloads, such as creating and editing lengthy movies with many changes and complex visual effects.

A few reasons why you should consider them:

You can use them anytime, anywhere.

Since a connection to the internet is not mandatory for desktop video editors, you can access and use them as you wish at any time, from anywhere as long as you are carrying a computer or laptop with you. You can work offline and save your progress locally without having to depend on a web connection.

You can create and edit any type of video.

The greatest benefit to a desktop video editor is the variety of format saving and editing options, ranging from short to long videos and from light to heavy editing, for instance. There are no imposed boundaries outside of what your computer can successfully render based on your memory size and processing speed.

While they offer a lot, desktop video editors come with a set of disadvantages:

They have a complicated interface.

While desktop video editors offer advanced and considerably more editing options, it takes a long time to find and remember where everything is. The time necessary for that can be worth it if you plan to use such offline software long term, but the complicated paths and the high variety of options is overwhelming and not very friendly, especially for a first time user or for people looking to create small, short projects.

Their system requirements are much higher.

Long videos and heavy editing mean higher system requirements. Your CPU, GPU and RAM are heavily solicited by desktop video editors, so you should check if your computer can handle it well and meets the required processing speed, memory size and storage space.

If you notice your workflow slowing down, you should look into how to increase rendering speed to bring your project back on track as soon as possible.

For example, a couple of solutions can be erasing your temporary files and closing any other RAM consuming software, such as your internet browser (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox etc.). The software you use might also have hardware acceleration options, which you might want to take a look at before tweaking to ensure that they serve you best.

Desktop video editors are more costly.

Desktop video editing software is expensive and can be seen as a long term investment, especially if you’re looking for the best or latest ones on the market. Even if they offer a free limited trial period, you will have to purchase a license afterwards which can be rather expensive and you might also have to renew.

Now that you know what the differences between online and desktop video editors are, you can choose which one to use based on your personal or required criteria. 

In case you opted for an online video editor, check out these reasons why Flixier is perfect for you:

It is the fastest and the most powerful online video editor, allowing you or your team to quickly create, make changes to and render your videos. Not only are its system requirements low, but it is also free and you can use or test it out even without creating an account.

Flixier comes with a vast range of video editing tools for you to access with ease and comfort due to its user-friendly interface with straightforward functions. No longer do you need to spend time looking up where to find various options, as they are all only one click away.

Since it is a cloud video editor, your work is constantly backed up so you will not have to worry about losing progress. Working on the cloud also allows for online collaboration projects, where you and your peers can instantly add suggestions and modify your videos in real time. 

Flixier has integrations with platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Zoom and Google Photos among others, which allows you to not only import videos from your computer, but also from such platforms. If you are a content creator you can also publish your videos directly from the website, either instantly or by following a set schedule.

We hope that this article helps you find the best suitable option for you, be it an online or a desktop video editor and we wish you luck with editing and publishing your work!