I was interested in video editors, and I’ve used DaVinci for quite a while. Although it is NOT FOSS software, the free version is really incredible, and a look at their privacy policy doesn’t seem to be too concerning.
I found another program, Kdenlive, which sounds really promising, but I was wondering if it was worth making the switch if I already use DaVinci. What do you think?
I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer in the way of privacy. I’ve honestly never thought about this side of things for a video editor. DaVinci Resolve is certainly a lot better than Adobe with its watchdog processes running in the background.
But there are some other things worth considering. If you run Linux, Resolve will not decode/encode AAC in any version of the program (though you can buy a third-party encoder) for legal reasons. H.264 decode/encode will work only in the Studio version, and only if you have a NVIDIA GPU. Give it about five years and maybe this will change. Resolve is also an absolute pain to setup on most Linux distributions
On macOS and Windows, H.264 and AAC encode/decode works fine on Resolve. Resolve is a fantastic NLE with lots of features. It’s very polished. If it could handle the codecs I work with, I would use it.
Instead, I use Kdenlive, which is also great and works the same on macOS, Windows, and Linux. It’s not so great with 4K media as playback won’t be real-time. That’s because there is no hardware acceleration in the program (yet). Over the next few months, the developers are planning to ship some big improvements to Kdenlive. It used to have a reputation for being buggy, but it’s been stable in the time I’ve used it with only a few crashes.
Sorry I couldn’t be of much help privacy wise.
there’s also natron - github.com/natrongithub/natron for scripting + shaders capabilities
DaVinci Resolve is a great video editor (Not even comparable to any open source). If you don’t want it to phone home you can always just use a firewall like
Lulu(macOS)
Opensnitch(Linux)
Portmaster (all operating systems )
But if you just want to put a few clips together I would recommend shortcut (just the one I prefer)
Problem. It’s a registered program (Unless you use the limited demo version). So, unless you have a physical hardware key for it which are now being discontinued and replaced by license keys, with a limited 3 activations limit (But infinite usage. It will just make the previous older activated devices, request to input the license key once again), it is kind of required to let it phone home, as it seems for me, to pass throught the same domain.
That is, except if you can firewall block it on the demo version, or if you have ways to block it’s internet usage which I would like.
I would say the “demo” free version is fine for 95% of people as it has most of the features of the paid version.