9 Best GoPro Editing Software for Beginners and Pros

Editing arrives as an essential process to improve and beautify GoPro shoots for getting views and popularity online. Lots of GoPro video editors are pushed to you with arrays of editing features. If you have no idea about how to pick one out from the crowded market, we hope the following list of 9 best GoPro video editing software can help you - a junior editor or senior-level video maker - make a quick but right choice.

In this guide, we will review these 9 best GoPro video editors with which you can quickly master how to edit GoPro videos.

Before the ball rolling, a thing we have to admit is that there isn't a one-fit-all video editor, but most good GoPro video editors have the following 2 common features:

1. 1. Go compatible with HEVC video: GoPro record videos in HEVC format in certain modes. Not like the popular H.264 MP4 format that goes compatible with almost all editing software, there are only a few editors that can support HEVC codec correctly.
2. 2. Boast built-in footage stabilizer: Not all shakings in footages captured by GoPro can be eliminated by its own algorithm. For that reason, there are many times you need to deshake the footage with GoPro editors. A good GoPro editor has to be able to stabilize the shakiness and wobbles of your video. Surely, the benefits of a decent editor are far more than the above two aspects.

To make the result more practical and objective, we try all popular video editors to deal with different types of videos recorded by GoPro HERO11/10/9/8/7 under various shooting modes. The top 9 GoPro editors are categorized into two types, one for beginners and the other one for the pro. You can directly jump to the part which is suitable for you.

Top 9 GoPro Editing Software for Beginners and Pros

1. VideoProc Vlogger

Level: Beginners

When it comes to video editing, many people want to study Adobe Premiere, however Premiere is more difficult and time-consuming. Additionally, if you lack creative genes, you might not be able to produce high-quality products. When posting short videos, originality is typically the first need. Because we do not engage in professional editing work, there is usually no need to spend a lot of time on manual editing. Instead, we may create movies quickly using applications like VideoProc Vlogger.

 

VideoProc Vlogger, a multifunctional video processor and 4K video editor, shows off elemental and valuable editing features available for GoPro footage. Both traditional codec H.264 and new format HEVC for particular 4K clips from HERO 6-11 can be well imported to this GoPro editing software for further processing.

"Easy" is the label of VideoProc Vlogger. It is designed with an easy-to-navigate interface guiding you to find wanted function options in a breeze. With this tool, you can get functional editing tools to basically trim, merge, split, rotate & flip GoPro videos and advanced options to enhance video by changing speed, motion cropping, adjusting color, stabilizing shaky footage, correcting fisheye and reducing audio noise. Outside the toolbox, more editing shortcuts are provided with you to add effects/watermark/subtitle, cut clips, crop images, fix video/audio out of sync error, and adjust playback speed to create smooth slow-motion moments.

"Full GPU Acceleration" is the mystery of ultrafast and smooth performance VideoProc Vlogger delivers. It utilizes graphic cards (Intel, NVIDIA, AMD) to speed up video editing and processing procedure and meanwhile relieve CPU for other tasks bringing computer into a good workflow. Therefore, you will not experience lagging or crashing error even though you are editing a large-sized 4K HEVC GoPro video. The other thing benefiting from this technique is high quality. The resulting file can remain 98% quality of original image.

Pros:

Edit GoPro videos on Mac M1 and Windows 11/10/8/7.

The software is great for beginners, which provides straightforward UI and simple operation.

Responsive speed smoothens video editing, especially for 4K GoPro footage.

Offers a bunch of basic as well as advanced editing features for free.

Cons:

It requires downloading.

2. GoPro Quik for Desktop

Level: Beginners

GoPro Quik is officially made by GoPro and described as "the easiest way to offload and enjoy GoPro photos and videos". It gives quick access to video files from GoPro camera or SD card for organization through automatically importing. Choose your footage, view it in Quik and then you can make quick edits.

Hilights help find and track the best moment of the footage driving you to edit or share much easier. Trimming tools is used to remove extra parts while keeping the most brilliant parts. Gauges and graphs can be applied showing GPS path, speed, elevation gain and more when shooting snowboarding, skydiving or other videos with HERO11 or lower. The library of soundtracks is unlocked when subscribing GoPro Plus, which helps sync great music with video making your work more impressive. Quik also offers a very convenient way to share video clips on Facebook, YouTube and more.

Pros:

It makes a close connection with GoPro helping easily import, view, organize and edit videos and photos.

Conveniently import background tracks from music library and share your shots online.

Cons:

Lags happen when playing 4K/HEVC files.

Compared with other GoPro editing software for beginners, it can make the least edits.

Quik has fairly high system requirements. If you are using an older computer, you may encounter not responding, crashing or other errors when using it to play or edit videos.

3. GoPro Studio

Level: Beginners

GoPro Studio, this end-of-life free GoPro video editor, was entirely removed from Quik in August 2017, unavailable to download anymore. Nevertheless, numerous GoPro users still hope to download GoPro Studio and we would like to include it in the top list. Why?

GoPro Studio is that tool perfect for newbies, which features intuitive interface and brief tutorial. Open this GoPro editing software. The storyboard is shown where you can see a preview window for video playback in the center, media source on the left, effects on the right and timeline below. Now, start editing. It allows you to trim and join video clips, add titles and music, apply effects, adjust fisheye, speed-up or slow-down playback speed and so on. It also wraps the ability to create sequential videos and photos which is usually called time-lapse. What's more, editing templates can help you create a more professional-style clip.

GoPro Studio can do more edits than Quik but comes with several defects like not launching, not working and more. Because of no longer update, it lacks the compatibility with HEVC. If you are recording a 4K HEVC video using HERO11/10/9 , it will go to a failure to edit.

Pros:

It is easy to get started with editing and provides more helpful editing options than Quik, like cropping, effects, fisheye correction etc.

Cons:

It is unavailable now. Without updates, it can't well handle footage filmed by new models, for example HEVC videos. Even more, it can't work at all.

4. Corel VideoStudio Ultimate

Level: Professionals

Update: With version 10.5, Apple removed X from the name. It is Final Cut Pro now.

Corel VideoStudio Ultimate is a Windows-based GoPro video editor, which concentrates on storyboard and timeline-oriented editing. It has a simple but consumer-friendly interface so that it's a pretty good choice for beginners to learn advanced editing skills.

It well supports editing 4K, 3D, 360-degree videos and accepts a wide variety of video formats. It gives a quick access to cropping, scaling and organization after you import the materials. Thousands of filters, transitions and effects (picture-in-picture, overlays, green screen/chroma key and more) are provided to express your creativity. Sophisticated techniques, like video stabilization, lens correction, mask creation, multicam editing, motion tracking, unlock more powers to edit.

Compared with other top GoPro video editors for Pro, it delivers a middle rendering speed and less advanced editing tools.

Pros:

It has a simple and clear interface. Rich tools can meet most editing requirements.

Cons:

Middle rendering speed and less advanced options.

5. Windows Movie Maker

Level: Beginners

Windows Movie Maker was included video editing software in Windows until the release of Windows 10. In despite of its discontinuation since 10 January 2017 (but you can still have it here.), this program receives favorable reviews and is recognized as one of best video editing software for GoPro.

Import the raw file into Windows Movie Maker and then you can apply edits. Click Title/Caption to add explanation and annotation. Text tools enable you to set text font, size, bold, italic, transparency, effects and more. Click Add Music. Local or online videos can be applied to the video. You can also adjust the volume or set Fade In/Out. A variety of animations and visual effects are provided to create special looking. Images are able to be darkened or brightened after applying any effect. Trim and split tools are prepared. Playback speed can be switched from 0.125x to 64x. Windows Movie Maker also offers Video stabilization feature to fix shaky GoPro videos. A direct upload service is embedded. Log in your Microsoft account and then you can share the edited video clips to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and more.

Yes, Windows Movie Maker is unavailable now. Its existing errors like not importing/saving your movie, not supporting your movie and so on, can’t be solved. For Windows 11/10 users, unstable performance happens from time to time, although you can run it at the beginning.

Pros:

The software offers both basic and intermediate level tools, including more effects and quality enhancement options. Convenient to share on SNS.

Cons:

Not compatible with HEVC. It was discontinued so that you may encounter unexpected errors when editing.

6. iMovie

Level: Beginners

iMovie is a video editing software launched by Apple, which is free for the public. Although it is free, the features are very powerful and sufficient to suit the demands of ordinary families. Even advanced features like rewind, split screen, picture-in-picture, green screen replacement, etc., are supported. If you're not a professional and don't have to spend money on expensive professional video software, try iMovie first, it's likely to exceed your expectations. Note that iMovie is only for Apple devices, not other systems.

With the new audio editing tools in iMovie, you can become a great sound editor. Whether it's sound effects, dubbing, or music, it's all under your control. iMovie can display an audio waveform graph for each video clip, with color markers that let you see where the volume is too loud. To adjust the volume of an entire clip or a section, just drag the volume slider. To shorten or lengthen the fade effect, drag the edge of the fade. The new single-line display presents your entire movie project on one line, making it easier to preview and edit audio tracks.

Pros:

Simple to use. Even you are new to video editing, you can make a stunning video with iMovie.

Cons:

It only works for Apple devices like iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

7. Adobe Premiere Pro

Level: Professionals

Premiere Pro tops on the chart of the best video editing software for years. It collects rich and powerful editing capability for GoPro shots, general videos or even feature films. It gives full support of all GoPro raw files, from 4K to 360-degree video (from Fusion), from slow-motion to time-lapse.

Premiere Pro has a flexible interface to arouse your creativity on editing, but a bit complex to learn. It provides tons of editing features including trimming; transitions and effects; collaboration; color adjustments and effects; titles and captions; multi-camera angle editing; and audio editing; as well as enables you to download additional tools - like LUTs for color grading - from plugin center.

Premiere Pro supports GPU acceleration to optimize video rendering, making it faster and smoother. On the other hand, high-end hardware is required to achieve a really stable editing process.

Pros:

A video editing expert. Advanced post-production kits unlock more powers on color grading, quality optimizing.

Cons:

It has a high price tag. Additional apps are required to get access to some features. GoPro HEVC file may not be imported in trial version.

8. Vegas Pro

Level: Professionals

Vegas Pro is another top GoPro video editor we introduce to professionals and skilled amateurs. It focuses on bringing faster, smarter and creative non-linear editing solution for video and audio.

Customized interface is the first thing you can get from Vegas Pro. And then it unleashes the power to add effect or filter, apply a mask (for example logo), create stylized lighting and textured looks using compositing modes, embed a subtitle track, add missing stream, edit multi-camera and make a 360 project. In the latest version Vegas Pro 16, new features - HDR support, video stabilization and motion tracking – help deliver a pro-quality action video. Plugins like Picture-in-Picture, crop tool and LUT, can add something greater for your footage.

It gives native support for 4K HEVC videos from GoPro and takes advantage of hardware acceleration to speed up real-time rendering. However, some feedbacks talk jerky performance to edit large files.

Pros:

It has a flexible interface and gives wide choices of effects, filters and options for fixing quality issues.

Cons:

There can be a faster video rendering speed.

9. Final Cut Pro X

Level: Professionals

Update: With version 10.5, Apple removed X from the name. It is Final Cut Pro now.

Apple initially released Final Cut Pro X in 2011. It offers wealthy options for intermediate and expert to get more powers on editing. As a professional nonlinear video editing application, it can handle a wide range of video files, including GoPro footage.

Final Cut Pro X shows you a magnetic timeline for easily moving, trimming, splitting and rearranging. It gives the most efficient way to organize source files. You can tag clips with metadata, create Smart Collections and make use of Skimming to browse materials. Hundreds of built-in effects/filters and expansive third-party templates help you create a stunning project. Titles, transitions, captions can be applied as well. To optimize the quality, it offers noise reduction tools to remove grains on low-light images and color grading tools for color correction. The support of HDR and 360 videos make this program powerful to process more GoPro footage.

Final Cut Pro X uses all CPU cores and graphic cards (with Open CL support) to boost the performance of post-production, delivering accelerated playback, rendering and transcoding on Mac computer.

Pros:

It is an intuitive program, featuring trackless timeline. Built-in filter and templates are great. Automatically share to YouTube.

Cons:

Only available on macOS. Some advanced features are simplified.

The Bottom Line

What do you seriously want is the key criteria to choose GoPro video editing software. Entry-level programs guide you to achieve basic but enough edits easily. Prosumer-oriented applications possess more powers to handle advanced editing, like post production of films/TV shows.

Premiere Pro is the best for experts who are running a hi-grade computer. It has everything a veteran video maker needs. Your creativity and imagination on editing will be greatly revealed with its enormous innovative capabilities. If you are a beginner, start with some easy editors. VideoProc stands out from its peers coupled with its ease of use, rich features, fast and stable performance as well as high quality of resulting files.