DaVinci Resolve versus Premiere Pro. Here are five reasons that Resolve is better than Premiere Pro, and yet again, the last reason is quite a hot take. So stick around.

Reason 1: You Get The Same Interface Every Time

What I mean by that is if you were to sit down at a friend’s computer to help them with a video they’re already working on in Resolve, whenever you click over to the edit page you already know where all of the panels are, because Resolve is a less customizable program than Premiere Pro.

And I can hear you getting ready to comment. Matt, last week you made a video all about why Premiere Pro is better than DaVinci Resolve, and one of the strengths you listed was that Premiere’s interface is more customizable. So which is it? Is it better that Premiere is more customizable, or better that Resolve is less customizable but editors always know where their tools are?

Well, can’t it be both? Here’s the deal. Some editors want to customize all of their settings and panels, which Premiere Pro lets you do. But I would argue there are more editors out there who never customize their workspace at all. They use the same workspace all day, every day. And if they had to sit down at a workspace someone else had heavily customized, they’d be more confused and annoyed by it than happy, because Premiere is so customizable that they don’t know where anything is.

So in this case I think Blackmagic is catering to the majority of video editors, and by giving every editor the same interface, they’re hoping you’ll be able to edit faster because you always know where everything is. Let me know in the comments if I’m right or wrong about that.

Reason 2: The Color Tools

The second reason is, of course, the significantly more in depth color correction and color grading tools you get.

The motion tracking is terrifyingly accurate. There are tools upon tools and panels hidden inside panels, and it’s very obvious that Blackmagic has spent a decade more time on the color grading tools than on the rest of the software. That’s because Resolve got its start as a purely color grading tool.

In fact Resolve is so much better than Premiere Pro here that some Premiere users have taken to begging Adobe to bring back SpeedGrade, a standalone program you’d use to color grade back in the day. I don’t see Adobe doing that. That tool has been dead for a long time, just like this reason, because it’s obvious and we don’t need to talk about it any more. But I knew I’d get yelled at in the comments if I didn’t mention it.

Reason 3: Every Tool You Need Is In One Program

With Resolve you have the cut page for fast editing, the edit page for in depth editing, the Fusion page for advanced graphics and Fairlight for audio editing. It’s all in one, and getting to any of those pages is one click.

In comparison, while Premiere Pro is a very capable video editor, if you want to do advanced graphics work you’re going to need After Effects, and if you want in depth audio editing you need Audition. Both of those are completely separate programs.

Now, Adobe has a feature called Dynamic Link that lets you edit your clips or audio in After Effects or Audition while they’re still open in Premiere Pro, and any changes you make automatically update on your timeline in real time. Or at least they will in theory, because in my experience and a lot of other editors’ experience, Dynamic Link can be quite buggy, especially once you start throwing effects on things. Let me put it this way, it is definitely not a 100% success rate every time you open something up with Dynamic Link. It’s enough that I usually avoid it, and I’ll render out a clip and send that to After Effects rather than using Dynamic Link at all.

Don’t get me wrong, if Dynamic Link was rock solid it would be a different story. But this is an area where Resolve is significantly stronger, because with the Fusion and Fairlight pages it’s essentially like Resolve has After Effects and Audition built into the same program. There’s no need for something like Dynamic Link, because all of those pages are editing the exact same timeline, which makes things simpler and leaves fewer chances for bugs to appear.

Reason 4: The Small Things That Make Editing Satisfying

This is a smaller reason, but I think you’re still totally going to agree with me. It’s all the little tweaks and changes Resolve has made to make editing faster and more enjoyable and, in a word, satisfying.

Let me put it this way. If you open Premiere and Resolve next to each other and start editing, the interfaces are honestly pretty similar. You have a preview window, you have a timeline, you have a place to store your media. It’s not like you have to learn the magnetic timeline or something like that. But there are still subtle differences that in my opinion Resolve has nailed.

Say you want to add a fade to the beginning or end of a clip. In Premiere Pro you go up to your effects panel, find Film Dissolve, and drag it down onto your clip, or you use a keyboard shortcut. With Resolve you can do that too, but they also give you a half oval shaped handle at the top left and right corners of every clip. Drag that in either direction and it adds a fade, and you get a nice black triangle on the clip showing you exactly how long the fade is going to last, with a pretty slope on it.

It just goes back to that word. Satisfying. It’s more fun to use these features in Resolve, in my opinion.

Reason 5: It Just Feels Smoother

Last but not least, I told you I had a hot take for the end. And I know you’re probably thinking you know where I’m going with this. He’s going to talk about the price, and how Resolve is dramatically cheaper because you buy it one time instead of paying a subscription. But come on. That’s low hanging fruit. That’s too easy, and I promised you a hot take. So here you go.

The fifth reason, and this is also the biggest reason a lot of filmmakers are switching, is that you get a smoother interface with a program that feels less buggy overall. If you click on something, Resolve does it very quickly and there isn’t any lag.

Compare that to Premiere Pro, where sometimes you’ll tell the program to do something and it’s like it has to stop and think about it for a while. It’s almost like there are gears turning in the background going, yeah, I need to do that, all right, it’s got dust on it, okay, here we go. And then it loads the thing. Meanwhile you’re sitting there as an editor going, come on, let’s go.

Let me put it this way, and if you’ve ever played video games you’ll get what I’m saying. It sometimes feels like the DaVinci Resolve interface is running at 60 frames per second, the way a 60 fps game has that fluid movement and motion and just feels really good to play. Premiere Pro, on the other hand, feels like it’s running at 30 frames per second, and sometimes like it’s struggling to hit even that. Don’t get me wrong, you can play a game at 30 fps, but it doesn’t feel nearly as good as 60. My gamer friends will know what I’m talking about.

Disagree?

Then go watch the other video I made, which is five reasons Premiere Pro is better than DaVinci Resolve.

And yes, I know I gave Final Cut a hard time in this one, but I love you too, Final Cut. It’s just funny and it makes people laugh, because Final Cut is over there going, we’re being left out. Nobody’s talking about Final Cut right now. I’m sorry. I wish we were. If you want me to make a video about Final Cut, I could do five reasons why it’s better. I’ve already got some in my head. The magnetic timeline. It runs really fast on Apple MacBooks. They don’t charge a subscription for it. Aside from that iPad app, which they are starting a subscription for, but we don’t talk about that. Okay, never mind. Blackmagic has an app for free. There’s three of the five, just a little preview for you.

Anyways, my Edit Videos Like A Pro guide is completely free, and it will show you some of the most important things that took me years to learn as a video editor. It applies regardless of whether you edit in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro or even Final Cut.

Thanks so much for reading, and have a great day!