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Premiere Pro better than Resolve as an editing software ?
I’m hesitating between Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. Can you tell me what features exist in Premiere Pro that don’t exist in DaVinci Resolve, and that would justify the huge price difference? I understand there are other reasons to choose Premiere, like it being the market leader and allowing certain integrations, such as with After Effects. But I really want to know in what specific areas Premiere Pro, as an editing software, is actually better than DaVinci Resolve.
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17 Replies
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Hey Patrick,
Rather than focusing on “features”, it would be more relevant for you to define what kind of work you want to do?
Currently, if you are happy with something overly expensive, that breaks all the time, and the company’s point releases are avoid at all costs, then Premiere Pro is perfect.
If you want something that feels a bit clunky, but has delivered on 27 of the movies that were nominated for this year’s Academy Awards (Oscars), then Davinci is fantastic.
Admittedly, I’ve never had to use Davinci Technical Support – which tells you how bad the software releases that are coming out of Adobe is.
https://creativecow.net/2026-oscar-nominated-films-powered-by-blackmagic-design/
If subscription is your thing, and you want to get into high-end editing, then AVID is making its way back from years of not really keeping up with the market. And the “Standard” version cost less than Premiere Pro…Most importantly, what are your aspirations with the work that you want to do?
Is this for making a living, or for your own projects?I have all the above NLE packages, and currently reducing my reliance on Premiere Pro. Adobe Creative Suite is no longer what it used to be, and the company’s C-Suite is not fixing the problems.
Just yesterday, a colleague who has used Adobe since 1997 told me that he cancelled his subscription and has replaced all the Adobe apps that he used most with free or minimal-cost alternatives.
The other “small” issues to consider are what computer you will run your software on?
And if you need a better monitor and more storage?Hope that this helps?
Atb
Mads
creativecow.net
2026 Oscar Nominated Films Powered by Blackmagic Design – Creative COW
2026 Oscar Nominated Films Powered by Blackmagic Design – Creative COW
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There is no such thing as “better”. All programs have their pros and cons, which includes price.
If we want to look at Oscar nominations, than it is only fair to point out that most of the Blackmagic nominations were for grading not editing. Avid is still by far Hollywood’s choice as an edit platform.
Does that make it a “better” editor? No it does not. A lot of the idea of “better” comes from experience, and familiarity with the software you use.
I have been on Avid since 1995. I love it. Yes it is pricey, but its media management is second to none. Its interface might not be as fancy as some others, but that means nothing to me. There is nothing I can’t do in Avid, that can be done in Premiere or Resolve, but it may take a bit of extra work to get there for some things. Again, the same statement can be said for the other programs in discussion. They all handle editing, one way or another in the same basic context.
I have been using Resolve for colour correction since around 2010 or 2011?..whenever it first came out as a $1000.00 software rather than $250000.00. It is fantastic at that job. I bought Fusion when Eyeon still owned it, so I’m very comfortable in that program for effects.
As for editing, i have cut a couple of corporates on Resolve, but i use Avid for series and features. The reason i would jump to Resolve for a piece would be because of a need for some multilayer graphic/edit/multibox items. Resolve is very fast at this. Avid can do it, but there is usually a lot of rendering, and the manipulation of dve boxes is not nearly as smooth in Avid as it is in Resolve. For long form editing, i do not like Resolve’s interface. It is just not designed to be highly adaptable. Avid and Premiere both allow the user to setup the interface the way they want, putting panels pretty much anywhere you want.
Premiere…while i am not an expert in Premiere, I have recently cut on two seasons of a series, where we were forced into Premiere. I did not like the experience. I found the program buggy. I would be cutting along, and all of the sudden, something would stop working, and I would have to relaunch the progam. This would happen several times a day. We were working in a Production environment, which is Premiere’s way of mimicking Avid’s shared project environment. It is clunky, and no where near as nice as Avid’s way of allowing multiple editors to work on multiple, or the same project using the same footage at the same time. That is one area where Avid shines. I personally will not work on Premiere anymore. I have already promised myself to turn down season 3 of the aforementioned show if it should be offered to me. That is how much i enjoyed my Premiere experience.
In the end, I cut on Avid, I colour in Resolve, and I finish back in Avid. If i need to jump to Resolve, or stand alone Fusion for some fancy effects during the edit then i do so. I don’t lose sleep over using what ever tool gets a particular aspect of the job done correctly, and then bringing those elements back into Avid to complete the edit.
If you can afford an Avid license, I think it is well worth learning the program, and as Mads pointed out, if you can afford a Premiere license, than you can probably afford an Avid license. The costs are actually pretty close, although most people assume Avid is much more expensive, but Adobe has a bad habit of sucking you in with a cheap introductory price, and then blackmailing you with a 2x price increase when it is time to renew.
Obviously Resolve is the least expensive way to go, but I am not a huge fan of it as an editor.
In the end, if you want to run a business, spending money is part of the game. Hopefully you can get it back with some paid jobs, and hopefully you will get to the point in your career where the idea of 5 or 6 hundred dollars a year for software is not that bad of a business cost.
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OK, the interface of Premiere is more customizable than the Resolve one. That’s something. Any other features that Resolve don’t have? And please just answer this question instead or telling me that i shouldn’t ask that question or that there is no one software that is better than another. I’m just looking to know what feature Premiere has that Resolve don’t. Thank you.
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Patrick,
That is somewhat of a passive aggressive answer.
Davinci and Premiere Pro is no different than meat pie from your local supermarket.
Choose two brands, read the ingredients on the back of them, and you have your answer.
If that is too much, try ask AI.But don’t come seekeing for help, if you are just after a list of differences, because you are too lazy to find out by yourself.
Both Premiere Pro and Davinci have free trials.Good Luck.
Atb
Mads -
I’m sorry if my answer felt passive-aggressive, I am just trying to clarify my question. What interests me are the differences in features between the two software programs. Of course, I could look at a simple list of what these two software programs offer, but what I’m interested in are which features really make the difference BASED ON USER EXPERIENCES. The ones that might lead some editors to find Premiere superior to Resolve.
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Patrick,
That is OK, but every user have their own experiences with the software.
The way you are framing your research is “I’m just looking to know what feature Premiere has that Resolve don’t”.
Why?
That premise is based on you wanting to know why Premiere Pro is better than Davinci, so why not state that from the beginning.As Premiere Pro has been around for longer than Davinci, you might get a better response over on the COW Davinci-Resolve forum.
Not least as many of the Davinci users are likely to have migrated there from Premiere Pro, or like me, use both pieces of software + FCP and AVID and a few more.
https://creativecow.net/forums/forum/davinci-resolve/As long as you understand that whatever answer you get it is useless if you don’t know what you want to use it for?
Off-line, on-line, grading, motion graphics, shorts, branded content, corporate, educational, unscripted, broadcast, documentary, drama, Feature films, Finishing..?
The list is endless.But if your only purpose is to convince your boss, colleagues and peers that Premiere Pro is better, then you are forgetting to sell yourself as an editor – as opposed to a “button-pusher”.
Atb
Mads
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Please don’t see it a an agression but i’m just looking to an answer to my question.
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The point is this software is all pretty much the same. It can cut and splice and overwrite. It can do comps, it can transcribe audio. It is the motor memory that really makes you faster on one or the other. You wanted features…I gave you features…I talked about cost, I talked about shared projects, I talked about vfx handling g, I talked about rendering, I talked about reliability…what else do you want?
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For example, on another forum, someone answered my question with this list :
– Full Screen (Cinema Viewer) mode that doesn’t disable editing tools.
– Source clips have “alternate timecode” support.
– Keyboard modifier to toggle current trim action.
– “Allow Selection tool to choose Roll and Ripple trims without modifier” option.
– Find All in Timeline function (Resolve’s Edit Index only lets me move the playhead clip by clip)
-Integrated masking tools (in the Edit Page).
– Obviously the Tilde key toggle to maximize the panel under the playhead, endlessly useful.
– Better scripting support (eg getting and settings selection status)That’s exactly the kind of answers i’m looking for and i’m pretty sure that everyone who have used both softwares has his own list.
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Hey Patrick,
And that list of yours is already out of date.
Why, because the Davinci-Resolve team are good at listening to their user base, one thing that the Adobe team don’t seem to be doing.
As suggested AI can give you those answers, here is one example:
“In DaVinci Resolve 21, the Edit page masking capabilities are enhanced by faster AI tools and improved integration of Fusion effects. While the Color page is traditionally used for complex masking, the Edit page allows for quick, direct masking using OFX effects and inspector tools.”
Don’t get me wrong, there are things that Premiere Pro used to be great at, but as the Adobe point releases over the last 2 years have got increasingly worse. And their support team ask you to roll back, rather than help find a fix. Then it is no longer a question of superiority, but more about what NLE works best for the job.
This might be of interest to you:
https://youtu.be/sgnPmv7ATzI?si=PQfFPdRDL8tlf2aD
Adobe is raising their prices, and making good money, but the investors have lost faith in them. And the Adobe CEO have, at long last, announced that someone else will be taking over in the C-Suite.
Atb
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