DaVinci Resolve

Resolve started as a colour grading system and grew outwards from there, which is why grading is still the strongest thing about it. The application splits into pages: Cut and Edit for assembly, Fusion for motion graphics, Color for grading, Fairlight for audio, Deliver for export.

The free version is genuinely usable, with no watermark. Paid Studio is a one-off licence rather than a subscription, adding higher export resolutions and frame rates, better noise reduction, multi-GPU support and the machine-learning tools the free build holds back. Resolve leans on hardware harder than most editors, so a laptop from 2017 will struggle where Premiere or CapCut cope.