final-cut-pro-x-vs-imovie

Final Cut Pro X and iMovie are two video editing software options created by Apple. 

iMovie is a free offering that allows Apple users to create and edit videos on all of their devices. Final Cut Pro X is a more robust creation and editing tool available only on Macs that offers users greater creativity and editing options. 

iMovie can be used by anyone with an Apple device. Users with no movie-making experience can pick up the software and create something, but it is also useful for skilled filmmakers who need to make something quickly and at no cost. Final Cut Pro X is aimed at film creators and editors who need more control and a greater number of features for their movies, but who are also willing to pay a fee to do so. 

Features

iMovie’s main feature is that it is free, but it still comes with huge amounts of built-in templates and tools that can satisfy the needs of amateur and pro filmmakers. It also has the advantage of having a very simple and clean user interface that makes learning the program less intimidating for beginners or users who are new to the Apple ecosystem.

Final Cut Pro X does offer some key advantages over its free counterpart. It offers accelerated performance and faster rendering if you have the hardware to take advantage of it. This also includes the ability to work with large style formats such as 8K video. It features the ability to edit multichannel audio in the program without exporting to another tool. With this, you are able to separate channels and reduce background noise. It also allows tagging of entire clip ranges with metadata for searching and the Smart Collections function that can automatically collect content into folders based on custom tagging.  

Limitations

iMovie and Final Cut Pro X don’t have many drawbacks, but let’s take a look at a few. 

iMovie being free leads to it having fewer overall options than Final Cut Pro X. It is not capable of working with more than two video tracks at the same time. This limits a user’s ability to use split screens, picture-in-picture, and cutaways. There is no motion tracking functionality so your text can’t follow an object in motion. iMovie is also unable to edit 360° video.    

Final Cut Pro X is targeted at more advanced users and due to its greater list of options and features has a steeper learning curve. Users have also reported that the program can be a resource hog and computers may need to be upgraded to really take advantage of the software. Another downside is that Final Cut Pro X does not offer stabilization or motion tracking for 360° video which some of its similarly priced competition does. Additionally, Final Cut Pro X (like iMovie) is only offered on Apple devices and some users may prefer software that works on all platforms. 

Pricing

As mentioned in previous sections, iMovie is free on all Apple platforms and even comes preloaded on Macs. Final Cut Pro X can be purchased for a one-time fee of $299.99 per machine. A 90-day free trial is also available and offers access to all the features of the program.