--- title: "Lightworks Software Reviews, Demo & Pricing - 2026" description: "Review of Lightworks Software: system overview, features, price and cost information. Get free demos and compare to similar programs." source_url: "https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/" page_type: "product" language: "en" --- [Home](https://www.softwareadvice.com/) / [Video Editing Software](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/) / Lightworks Software Advice offers objective insights based on verified user reviews and independent product and market research. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee. Overview [Reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/reviews/)[Alternatives](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/alternatives/) # Lightworks Review From $49.99-$119.99/month Free version 2 plans On this page - Overview - User Interface - Popular Alternatives - Pricing and Plans - Features - User Reviews - Popular Comparisons ## Overview Lightworks 4.2 [(34)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/reviews/) Pricing Starting at $49.99 per user per month Top Alternatives ### About Lightworks Lightworks is a video editing platform designed to help businesses develop and export video content across several platforms such as Vimeo or YouTube. Features include stereoscopic output, trimming, data backup, project archive and timeline rendering Lightworks enables users to produce video content in multiple formats, collaborate with team members in real-time and share media, edits, or bins. Professionals can import a batch of files, render third-party FX or export documents while performing edits. With its GPU pipeline architecture, users can add various effects such as primary or secondary color correction, masking and blurring. Lightworks is available on monthly and yearly subscriptions and also for a one-time fee. Support is extended via community forums, documentation and email. ## Lightworks User Interface ## Popular Lightworks Alternatives Main Product Lightworks 4.2 [(34)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 3.65Ease of use - 4.42Value for money - 3.78Customer support - 3.94Functionality Pricing Starting at $49.99 per month Alternative Product [Adobe Creative Cloud](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/adobe-creative-cloud-profile/) 4.7 [(7345)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/adobe-creative-cloud-profile/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.23Ease of use - 4.16Value for money - 4.17Customer support - 4.67Functionality Pricing Starting at $19.99 per month Alternative Product [Adobe Express](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/354910-adobe-express/) 4.6 [(1240)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/354910-adobe-express/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.50Ease of use - 4.42Value for money - 4.37Customer support - 4.37Functionality Pricing Starting at $4.99 per month Alternative Product [VideoPad](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-making/videopad-profile/) 4.3 [(181)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-making/videopad-profile/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.34Ease of use - 4.19Value for money - 3.85Customer support - 4.14Functionality Pricing Available upon request Alternative Product [Movavi Video Editor Plus](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-making/movavi-video-editor-plus-profile/) 4.8 [(1135)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-making/movavi-video-editor-plus-profile/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.81Ease of use - 4.40Value for money - 4.55Customer support - 4.70Functionality Pricing Starting at $54.95 per year Alternative Product [Vizard](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/432576-Vizard/) 4.9 [(473)](https://www.softwareadvice.com/product/432576-Vizard/reviews/) Ratings Breakdown - 4.86Ease of use - 4.48Value for money - 4.67Customer support - 4.74Functionality Pricing Starting at $29.00 per month ## Lightworks Pricing and Plans Starting price: $49.99 per month Free Trial Free Version Lightworks Create $49.99 per user, per month Plan includes: - 100's of Inbuilt Titles - 4k Export - Access to Stock Music & Video - Advanced Titles - Cloud Editing & Collaboration - Social Media Export Templates - Transitions & Effects - Unlimited Project Spaces and Advanced Metadata Lightworks Pro $119.99 per user, per month Plan includes: - 100's of Inbuilt Titles - 4k Export - Access to Stock Music & Video - Advanced Correct & Enhance Tools - Advanced Titles - Cloud Editing & Collaboration - Custom Output Formats - Export Exchange Formats and Advanced Metadata - Social Media Export Templates - Transitions & Effects Read More ## Lightworks Features - Popular features found in Video Editing 3D Video Editing Audio Capture Media Library Split/Merge Text Overlay Video Capture Video Stabilization - More features of Lightworks Data Import/Export Image Editing Social Sharing Supports HD Resolution Video Editing ## Lightworks User Reviews ## Lightworks customer ratings - Overall rating: 4.2/5 - Total reviews: 34 ### Rating distribution - 5 stars: 15 reviews (44%) - 4 stars: 15 reviews (44%) - 3 stars: 0 reviews (0%) - 2 stars: 4 reviews (12%) - 1 star: 0 reviews (0%) ### Secondary ratings - Ease of use: 3.6/5 - Value for money: 4.4/5 - Customer support: 3.8/5 - Functionality: 3.9/5 --- ### An amazing software to produce industry standard high quality videos. - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Shreyas B. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Games - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 6 months - Reviewed: September 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. in the big picture, it honestly is a great software for people looking to make YouTube videos or vlogs or short movies. It can definitely produce high quality stuff and you honestly don't need to learn a lot to use it. I mainly used it to edit my game play of the games I made in my company. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros The thing I liked the most about lightworks is the small learning curve. After playing around for a few days I had complete control of the application. I used it to edit youtube videos for my game dev and it didn't fail me. Even the free version is very good and can be used by anyone. For quick and precise editing, this software is probably the only one that comes to mind. #### Cons For people who might've been using Adobe's Premier, it may be a bit confusing at first, the keyboard keys but after a while it slides like a glove. Foe people looking to use the free version, the only downside might be that the max resolution produced is 720p but that's still pretty good too ! --- ### A very able video editing tool, quite intuitive. Also has a free trial that can be renewed - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Lucas M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Writing and Editing - Company size: Self-Employed - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. I am a big fan of beginner-friendly creative tools. Lightworks allows me to make short advertisement videos for my freelance business, even though I have no formal education in video edition. It also allows me to create and edit those videos on a computer that is not a high-end machine by any means. I usually export my short videos (with a length of up to 2 minutes) to a YouTube-usable format, H264-720p, with no issues and little wait #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros I consider Lightworks' interface to be quite intuitive, as I required almost no time to get used to it. I usually have no issues importing images, audio or other clips to a video project. Exporting also usually goes smoothly. I happen to have other video editing softwares installed, but very rarely had the need to use anything other than Lightworks. #### Cons I have no complaints about Lightworks. Its frugal set of features - that for some other people could be a turn-off - was enough for the edition whole Hollywood movies such as Pulp Fiction and The Wolf of Wall Street, so a little getting used to it should go a long way, especially for most beginner video editors. --- ### Overtakes all audio settings on desktop - extreme PITA. - Overall rating: 2/5 - Reviewer: Dan D. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Music - Company size: 501-1000 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for free trial - Reviewed: February 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered A lot of people seem to like this software, but the time I would have spent using it was spent troubleshooting my sudden and complete loss of audio. The time that this software would have saved me was made up for by the time I spent trying to work around the grayed-out IO hardware settings. The fact that a decision to lock the user out of audio settings in editing software can even be made in this day and age, is enough to call Lightworks a hot mess and move on. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 1/5 - Value for money: 3/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros I liked that the software was free, and got exactly what I paid for, minus most of my Saturday morning. #### Cons The audio only exports through System Sound, which by itself is not bad. But who the hell wants to toggle between audio devices, let alone rearrange speaker cables in an audio rack, just to open a piece of software? Furthering my annoyance, was the fact that ALL software on my computer defaulted to System Sound upon opening Lightworks. #### Reasons for switching to Lightworks $$$ --- ### Lightworks is to video what Gimp is to photos - powerful and free - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Benu B. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Product usage: Used other for less than 6 months - Reviewed: April 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Lightworks is free, capable, and flexible. For new editors, it's a good first step into the world of nonlinear editing, and it opens the door for Linux users to practice better digital creativity. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros Lightworks is a capable, flexible, and valuable video editor that almost anyone can learn. The workflow is adaptable to most project types, and the system requirements are easily achieved. Should a user require more advanced features, there is a "pro" version the company sells for a reasonable price, but this is optional. The fact that users can learn and evaluate the software, without spending a dime, is a huge plus. Lightworks is also one of the few capable editors that has Linux support, so that is a huge plus. More Linux support is always a good thing, and this software opens up lots of value to those users. Overall, Lightworks is to video editing as Gimp is to photo editing. Anyone can pick it up and learn for free, and it helps build creativity and technical skill for a diverse userbase. #### Cons The UI of Lightworks is archaic. This might seem like an arbitrary complaint, but for a video editing program the user needs clarity in what tools and windows are intended to do. Lightworks' iconography and relatively bright color scheme distracts from the work to be done. Also, Lightworks changes the mechanics of certain basic editing tasks, notably edit replace and ripple edit. My displeasure with the differences might just be my muscle memory from other programs, but these are fairly normal tasks that should be as easy/standard as possible. Perhaps for new users, there will not be much transition pain, but for seasoned editors, it may be a bother. --- ### Very simple to use video editor - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Carlos N. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: E-Learning - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: April 2021 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Very good experience, It does what I need and I managed to get it working without previous knowledge. The support in forums is very good. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros I am not a professional editor, I use the software for academic purposes, basically editing Zoom recordings of university lectures. The software does what I need, trimming, adjusting audio, cutting video segments, with a low learning curve for somebody with almost no experience in video editing. It works fine, and it works in Linux. #### Cons The free version offers limited options for exporting video, so I must use ffmpeg to get to the final version. The H264 codec is not optimized for long videos, so I use ffmpeg to recompress the result. --- ### My Lightworks Review - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Kymahn C. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Games - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used other for less than 6 months - Reviewed: March 2020 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Try it now and thank me later! #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Lightworks!....IS to me a lifesaver and is the first video editing software I used to edit my videos and I could tell you that it does a Nice job! I like how this app is easy to use-I only took me 5 minutes to know where everything is and what they do with out any help Costumer service if fire(GOOD!)...I told them about my email problem and they sent me the email(AFTER I TOLD THEM ABOUT THE PROBLEM)3 minutes after!...Which is pretty quick! Lightworks exports in HD 1080p and Higher Up to 4K! #### Cons It is a little problem when logging-in!..Not much but they took a whole 3 days to send a simple email I needed to log-in! #### Reasons for switching to Lightworks I just wanted to switch --- ### experience with lightworks - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Hospital & Health Care - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used other for less than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. pretty positive, nothing outstanding or special #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros pretty straightforward, easy to use, relativelt uncomplicated #### Cons there were sometimes snags and complications --- ### Awesome - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Adonay S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Information Services - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2020 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Once we learn the use of the program and practiced a lot, we've been able to create very awesome videos with nice transitions and also, if you need some basic audio equalizations, those can be done from the program itself, no need to use an audio processor unless you need to perform a special operation with audio. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros It has lots of features, from the most basic crops to highly advanced customizations. In the forum is possible to find additional effects that also look great and save time. There are lots of tutorials in their site about how to perform some of the most commonly used functions. #### Cons Not sure if it's a con, but it has a very long learning curve since there are no menus to look for the different operations that could be done, many of them are done via keyboard shortcuts (can't compare with other software since Lightworks has it's own approach on edition: nodes instead of layers). --- ### Liked the product, but there was some issues - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Kasey B. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Higher Education - Company size: 501-1000 employees - Product usage: Used other for less than 6 months - Reviewed: May 2018 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros It was fairly easy to use, I was able to splice videos together and get some pretty nice transitions for the software. Conversion was pretty easy, and I was very happy with the layout and design. #### Cons The biggest issue I experienced was that it didn't work with 4k MTS files. This was after splicing and cutting videos I had into one file. It didn't import the audio. I learned from their forums that this file was too new and not incorporated yet. It kinda put me in a pinch to find something else to spice my videos... --- ### Lightworks - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Sasha D. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Cosmetics - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 12 months - Reviewed: December 2021 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros It allows me to make a creative video with many effects. #### Cons It is too complicated for occasional use, it requires a lot of time. --- Showing 1 - 10 of 34 Reviews [See All Reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/reviews/) ## Lightworks Popular Comparisons [Movavi Video Editor Plus vs Lightworks](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/vs/movavi-video-editor-plus/)[Vizard vs Lightworks](https://www.softwareadvice.com/compare/210940-lightworks/vs/432576-Vizard/)[OBS Studio vs Lightworks](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/vs/obs-studio/)[Adobe Premiere Pro vs Lightworks](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/adobe-premiere-pro-profile/vs/lightworks/)[DaVinci Resolve vs Lightworks](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/davinci-resolve-profile/vs/lightworks/)[Filmora vs Lightworks](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-making/filmora-profile/vs/lightworks/)[Blender vs Lightworks](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/blender-profile/vs/lightworks/) [Compare All Alternatives](https://www.softwareadvice.com/video-editing/lightworks-profile/alternatives/) ## See what companies are saying about Software Advice