FlexClip review: online video editing platform is easy to use, great for beginners

Most businesses, brands and content creators will be aware these days of the need to create engaging video content in marketing their products or services. In today’s world, with the advancements we’ve seen recently in AI tools, there are a few utilities available to make this process far more seamless than it has been in the past.

In this review, we’ll be looking at FlexClip, which has emerged as a user-friendly, web-based video editing platform designed to simplify the video creation process, whether you’re crafting promotional materials, social media content or personal projects. Using templates, an array of AI functions and a number of different video and image editing tools, FlexClip looks to offer a comprehensive suite that will help quickly and easily bring your video visions to life. We tested it out to see how it fared, and find out whether it belongs among the best video-editing software around.

Specs and pricing

The first thing to be aware of this that FlexClip operates entirely online, which eliminates the need for software downloads or installations. This cloud-based approach is becoming more of a standard for AI tools, and there are other offerings from the likes of Pixlr and Canva that also follow the same format. It’s useful for content creators on the go though, as this ensures accessibility across various devices and platforms. As with many online tools, FlexClip offers a tiered pricing structure to accommodate different needs. All plans come with cloud storage, real-time preview and auto-saving capabilities and you can save on the product if you pay annually. More information can be found at FlexClip's site.

Value score: 3.5/5

Setup

• Easy, web-based setup
• Straightforward user experience but would benefit from guided onboarding

One of the nice things about a fully cloud-based solution is that getting up and running is a straightforward experience. Once you’ve navigated to the FlexClip website, you can simply sign up on the official website, and since it’s web-based, there’s no need for any installations. You can choose your package, make payment, and upgrade at any time to another tier if you’ve reached the limits of your current one. The design ensures that projects are saved in the cloud, allowing for seamless access and editing from any device with an internet connection but if you’re new to the platform, we though that to some extent, the immediate access might at first be off-putting. Although there are plenty of guides and tutorials available, FlexClip might benefit from an immediate onboarding process to guide you through the initial stages of creating your first project. At the time of writing, this option wasn’t immediately obvious.

Setup score: 4/5

Features

• Huge template library allows for lots of use cases
• Straightforward editing process

What’s immediately obvious when you do get into the system is that there’s a generous and comprehensive array of features that are tailored to both novice and experienced video creators. Templates and royalty-free stock videos, photos and music sit at the heart of the platform, and FlexClip claim that there are more than 6,000 customisable templates spanning various categories, mostly targeted to content creators and small and medium-sized business use. If you click on a templated video, you have the option to choose a 16:9 format, a 9:16 portrait format or a 1:1 square format and immediately the video switches into being perfectly suitable for each – a nice touch. Once you click ‘customize’, you’re into the main workflow, with essential editing functionalities including trimming, splitting and merging clips appearing to work quite seamlessly. You can incorporate text, overlays, animations and transitions to videos, as well as delve into a wide range of quite decent looking effects, much like you would on a more professional piece of editing software. In fact, if you’re a user of Premiere Pro or the like but just want something quick you can create for social media use, you’ll feel quite a home here as many of the shortcuts and features work in a similar way using the same conventions. We also liked the fact that it has an in-built screen recorder, which also allows you to record from your webcam, which is a great way of shooting short streaming clips for gamers and content creators.

Feature score: 4/5

User experience

• Drag and drop interface makes life easier and faster to create good results
• A well-presented layout and thoughtful user experience

It’s clear from the word go that FlexClip is designed with user-friendliness at its core but the way it does that is quite clever. The layout is excellent, with a ‘back to basics’ approach – a sidebar that acts as a ‘go to’ to find anything from templates to stock imagery is easy to navigate, and once you’re in to editing the videos themselves, the drag-and-drop interface ensures that even users without prior video editing experience should be able to navigate the platform with ease. The workspace is organised intuitively, and everything errs on the side of transparency and ease, which is welcome for an online platform. Edits are automatically saved in the ‘projects’ tab and one click of the ‘create a video’ button on the top right of the screen will bring you to the editing platform, with a dialogue box that immediately pops up asking you to import media. If you cancel this, and work with stock images instead, these are easily found, and you can search for pretty much anything you’re after. In our tests, we searched for videos of aircraft and immediately were presented with hundreds of different options of planes of all shapes and sizes, with included audio alongside too. One slight downside that’s worth mentioning is that this audio is embedded into the clip itself and doesn’t appear on your edit sequence as a separate track. It’s easy to split the audio out – you have to right click the clip and ‘detach’ audio, but it would have been nice to see this done automatically.

UX score: 4.5/5

AI tools

• Tools like text to speech works well
• Auto subtitle is worth using for users who want to create quick social videos

Like any creative online platform today, especially one that has editing content at its core, AI is seamlessly integrated and available for you to make use of straight out of the box, providing you subscribe to the plus or business accounts. There is a good array of options available, and we found things that help shape your video into a polished product to be the most useful, such as text to speech for narration, and auto subtitle for social videos. You can also provide a text or image prompt to create generate high-quality videos, but we did find that the chosen stock footage was a bit random at times, so you will have to go through and re-edit which means choosing exactly what footage you want from scratch is usually the best way to work. In terms of multi-language support, the AI tools also allow you to transform written text into natural-sounding voiceovers, supporting over 140 languages. There’s also an AI music generator which works quite well, but we found that background removal, image editing and object removal tools were slower and less accurate than other offerings. Great for speedy, on the fly edits, but if you need something intricate edited you’re probably better using AI in another platform like Lightroom or Photoshop and importing the results directly into FlexClip.

AI score: 3.5/5

Who is it for?

FlexClip caters to a fairly broad spectrum of users but the focus is on entry-level content creators who need to produce material quickly and easily. Small business owners would be a great target market, as the platform is ideal for creating promotional videos, product showcases and marketing materials without the need for extensive resource or expertise. With AI language translation and screen recording, it could also be of use to teachers, students and educators who need to create compelling presentations quickly.

We were impressed by FlexClip and it perhaps exceeded initial expectations. It’s a powerful platform that eases you into the process of content creation, but for more advanced users, has enough editing capabilities to create something quite compelling. The real jewel in its crown is its stock image and video library, and its extensive template creation, but users will have to pay more for premium subscriptions to access these and export at high-end quality. The included AI tools work well and provide some good creative options, but the editing itself is where the product shines.