The Ultimate List of Video Tools
Thirty years ago, you couldn’t make a professional video unless you had a big budget, a big crew, and years of production expertise. Today, it’s way different. There are hundreds of accessible, affordable video tools to help anyone—regardless of their production experience—quickly create a professional video. Using just your phone, you can film an entire movie!
We’ve rounded up the best video tools to cover every area of production, from video sizing to music scoring. Whether you’re making your first or hundredth video, this guide includes a variety of tools you can use to put together a high-quality, engaging video.
Every tool on this list has been tested and approved by Vyond customers and/or members of our team. Click to jump to each section:
Please note: this post includes two affiliate links and Vyond will earn a commission if you make a purchase.
Audio Editing
A video occasionally has complex audio needs—multitrack mixing, de-noising—that a standard video editor isn’t equipped to handle. If you need to make advanced adjustments to your audio files, edit them separately using one of these audio-specific editing tools.
- Cost: Free
- Experience level: Intermediate
- Core features: Audio recording, basic audio editing features, audio clip analysis, support for plugins, open-source
- Cost: $29.99
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Audio editing, music composition with instrument and drum parts, adaptive audio parts, effects, multi-track recording
- Cost: $20.99/month
- Experience level: Advanced
- Core features: Recording, editing, and mixing audio (including multitrack sessions), waveform and multitrack modes
- Cost: Free (for Mac)
- Experience level: Intermediate
- Core features: Audio editing and recording, a sound library for instrumental composing, audio effects
Closed Captions
Uncaptioned videos exclude a number of disabled audiences, including viewers who are deaf, hard of hearing, or autistic. Along with disabled audiences, there are also viewers who would prefer to watch a video with captions instead of listening to audio. Make your video more accessible by using one of the following closed caption services.
- Cost: Free
- Description: Automatic captioning; sometimes inaccurate, but you can edit for incorrect parts and download the corrected file to use in other locations.
- Cost: $2.50/minute
- Description: 99% accuracy, wait time is 4 business days (or $4/minute for one-day), need Wistia account
- Cost: $1.25/minute
- Description: 24 hour turnaround time, 99% accuracy
- Cost: Free
- Description: Free captioning and subtitling platform to create your own captions. Amara also offers quality translations at a cost.
- Cost: $1.04/min
- Description: Offers a 6 hour turnaround time.
- Cost: Custom
- Description: If your needs are more custom and likely to be recursive, 3Play Media might be your solution. They offer plans in up to 16 languages on their premier plan, and their pricing quotes are bespoke.
Equipment
Though you can make an entire video with just a computer, many professional videos involve additional equipment. Our pro tip: consider renting expensive equipment—such as lenses; they’re constantly being updated and quickly lose value. Here are a number of sites to buy or rent different types of equipment for video production.
B&H and Adorama are two of the most popular and well-respected sites for professional photography and video equipment.
Freelance Sites
Hosting
Once your video is created, you need a host—a place where the video will live. It’s better to find a hosting service than to use your own site as a host: Video files are large, so they will take up a lot of space on your server bandwidth and possibly cause viewing glitches. We’ve highlighted a number of video-hosting sites to help you find one that fits your needs, whether you’re looking for a free option or a more premium tool with reporting.
- Cost: Free
- Description: Receives lots of traffic, plays ads with videos, limited customization options for the video player
- Cost: Free to $99/month
- Description: Customizable player, simple embedding and sharing, advanced video analytics, software integrations, and much more. Vyond has used Wistia since 2011.
- Cost: Starting at $199/month
- Description: High-quality playback, client-side interactivity, lead capture and conversion tools, viewer analytics, and much more. Vyond has a partnership with Brightcove.
- Cost: Custom
- Description: Customizable player, simple embedding and sharing, advanced video analytics, integrations with other software, and video personalization campaign options. Vyond has a partnership with Vidyard.
- Cost: Freemium. $7/month to $75/month
- Description: Player customization, no ads, video analytics, and quick customer support. Vimeo was originally a place designated for creatives to share their work. While that’s still at the heart of Vimeo’s mission, they have greatly grown their business offerings recently to mirror other professional hosting services: teams, security features, live streaming, galleries, portfolio sites, review and approval tools, marketing integrations, custom calls-to-action, and more.
- Cost: Starting at $49/month
- Description: A full suite of video marketing tools including lead capture, video SEO, social sharing, and more. The ability to design and publish a video portfolio, secure portal, or marketing site. SproutVideo allows you to develop your own solutions with a platform API or a Javascript Player API, and their embeddable player is customizable, which allows you to generate responsive embeds, email embeds, or a lightbox embed.
Miscellaneous
HandBrake
- Cost: Free
- Features: Compress your video file to save space, and more
Music Libraries
Music builds an emotional connection with viewers, directing their feelings as they watch your video. Whether you need strings to emphasize a dramatic moment or you want a lighthearted tune for a happy explainer video, we’ve gathered a number of music libraries to help you find the right tracks for your video.
- Cost: Varies by track
- Description: Over 800,000 tracks and songs, free music, and sound engineering tutorials
- Cost: Varies by track
- Description: Royalty-free music, search by genre or mood, limited editing availability
- Cost: $199/year
- Description: Royalty-free music library; unlimited use, commercial or non-commercial, for a single yearly price (This is what we use at Vyond to supplement our music library)
- Cost: $49.89/year to $99.89/year
- Description: Royalty-free library of background music; the ability to adjust the momentum, depth, and power of each clip
- Cost: $299/year (Essential plan), $649/year (Premium plan), $999/year (Professional plan)
- Description: Video editor for animated videos; comes with a library of up to 100 royalty-free songs available to use on Vyond videos only
Production Resources
It’s never been easier to learn about video production. The internet is full of blogs, tutorial videos, podcasts, and more that cover everything you need to know about filming and editing videos. We’ve highlighted the top production resources that our video producers have found most helpful over the years.
Linkedin Learning
- LinkedIn Learning, an online course site, offers 1988 courses for learning about video production.
Iconlogic
- IconLogic, an online training site, offers several courses on creating videos with Adobe Premiere and Vyond.
NoFilmSchool.com
- NoFilmSchool.com is a professionally curated website full of video production knowledge. The comments section on each post holds an active community discussion around each topic.
Vyond’s Help Center Library
- For Vyond customers, our help center library covers every aspect of video making in Vyond Studio. The resources section of our site shares video knowledge for learning and development experts, marketers, HR professionals, small businesses and sales teams.
Screen-Recording Tools
Screen-recording tools, as you might have guessed, capture the contents of a screen. With this “footage,” it’s easy to explain how to complete a task on a computer, phone, or tablet. Whether you’re creating a demo for a software product or an educational tutorial, screen-recording tools are a valuable video resource.
- Cost: $249.00/user license
- Experience level: Intermediate
- Core features: Offers a variety of capture tools with additional editing features
- Cost: Freemium to $300/year
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Screen recording, webcam recording, view switching, built-in transitions, link sharing
- Cost: Free
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Screen recording, webcam recording, built-in transitions, link sharing
- Cost: Free (comes with Macs)
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Screen recording
- Cost: Free
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Screen recording and webcam recording
- Cost: Free
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Screen recording and webcam recording
Stock Video Footage
Some video projects—such as social media videos—are created on a tight schedule, with little time for filming. In that case, stock video footage is a great alternative to filming on your own. We’ve highlighted several sites that make it easy to find stock footage with clear categorization and powerful search engines. Stock video can be imported into Vyond and combined with animation.
- Cost: Unlimited download plans ranging from $25 – $50/mo
- Core features: Artgrid focuses on providing a simplified licensing experience for high-quality video footage from today’s best cameras.
- Cost: Starting at $29/month for photos and $79/HD video clip
- Core features: 247 million images available with 150,000 added each day, one of the largest libraries of stock video available.
- Discount: Vyond customers get 10% off their first purchase with code VYOND10
- Cost: $79.99/HD video, $199.99/4K video
- Core features: Royalty-free HD and 4K videos in multiple categories, including lifestyle and sports
- Cost: $16.50/month for unlimited downloads
- Core features: Over 92K stock videos and motion graphics, search by resolution and frame rate
- Cost: Free
- Core features: Over 12,000 free stock videos and motion graphics—no sign-up required. Most downloads are royalty-free and some require a Videvo Attribution License.
- Cost: Free
- Core features: Library of high-quality stock footage with easy search function
- Cost: Free
- Core features: HD and 4K stock footage in multiple categories, such as nature and travel videos
- Cost: Starting at $10/photo and $29/HD video
- Core features: A popular site for professional videographers with over 2.5 million stock photos and videos
Translation and Localization
There are a number of ways to make your video available to watch in different languages. The simplest solution is using a translation service to write subtitles in your international audiences’ languages. For a more immersive viewing experience, use a localization service to record your narration and dialogue in a different language and with some, even adjust the lip-synching to match the new speakers.
- Cost: Get a quote
- Description: Professional translation and localization in one centralized location. InWhatLanguage helps save you time and money by leveraging phrases stored in translation memory.
- Cost: Request quote
- Description: Hires voice over talent to re-record dialogue and narration in other languages, subtitle creation
- Cost: Get a quote
- Description: Records voice-over talent; film editing to adjust timing and lip synchronization
- Cost: Get a quote
- Description: Professional translation service
Video authoring (eLearning course creation)
E-learning professionals don’t need a background in production to create video course content. There are plenty of simple, user-friendly learning management systems available that make video-course creation easy for all types of users. Here are a few options to help e-learning professionals get started with video-course creation.
- Cost: Starting at $2,595
- Description: Learning interactivity features for videos, course templates, video and audio recorder, and editor, Camtasia for screen recording
- Cost: Starting at $499/year
- Description: Content library of 3 million+ course assets (templates, videos, icons, and more), includes authoring apps Storyline 360 and Rise
- Cost: $29.99/month
- Description: Interactive learning features, 360 video support, HD screen, and webcam recording, mobile course creation
- Cost: Varies
- Description: Interactive video editing (add chapters, quizzes, links, etc), video analytics
- Cost: $708+/year
- Description: Interactive editing (hotspots, in-video navigation, camera switching, branching, etc.)
- Cost: Varies
- Description: Create playable branching scenarios, compatible with Storyline 360, Lectora, and Captivate
Video Editing
It doesn’t matter how incredible your footage is—if your video isn’t edited well, it’s not going to look polished. To help you turn your video into a finished product, we’ve highlighted a wide range of editing tools for beginners and seasoned filmmakers alike.
- Cost: $20.99/month
- Experience level: Intermediate to advanced
- Core features: Color grading, intelligent audio cleanup, edit vector graphics, Motion Graphics templates, team collaboration
- Reviews: SoftwareHow
- Cost: $299.99
- Experience level: Intermediate
- Core features: 360-degree VR editing, video noise reduction, timecode window,multi-cam editing, motion graphics templates
- Cost: Free with a Mac
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Animated titles, special effects, 10 filters, built-in sound effects and soundtracks, voice-over recording
- Cost: Free app or $299 for the pro version
- Experience level: intermediate to professional
- Core features: Even the free version includes a powerful video editor with professional coloring tools, an audio editor, motion graphics, 3D animation tools, and more.
- Cost: $299.00
- Experience level: Advanced
- Core features: 360 editing, motion tracking, proxy editing, smart upscaling, multi-cam editing
- Reviews: SoftwareHow
- Cost: $63.99
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Split screen video templates, lens correction, 360 video editing, stop motion animation, 3D title editor
- Reviews: SoftwareHow
- Cost: $299/year (Essential plan), $649/year (Premium plan), $999/year (Professional plan)
- Experience level: Beginner
- Core features: Drag-and-drop animation editor, animated templates, character creator, props, music library
- Reviews: G2Crowd, SoftwareHow
Voice Overs
Professional voice-over recordings take a narrated video to the next level. A trained actor will bring emotion and depth to your video content. Not to mention, a professional voice-over will have a polished sound quality that lends credibility to your video. We’ve highlighted a number of online markets for voice-over talent, so you can easily find a trained actor to narrate your video.
- Cost: Varies by actor
- Description: Average turnaround time of 6 hours, quality screening
- Cost: Varies by actor
- Description: Delivery typically 24 hours or less, free revisions
- Cost: Varies by actor (pricing estimator)
- Description: Free audition process, hire in one click
Learn more about adding voiceovers to your video with our resource, “Record Voice Overs at any Budget.”
Create professional videos with the right set of tools
From editing software to closed-captioning services, there are numerous video-creation tools available to everyone, regardless of their production experience. Using this guide, you can find tools that match your experience level, fit your budget and have the features you need to make a professional, high-quality video.
