Adobe Premiere Pro Review 2024 – Pros and Cons I wish I had Known Earlier
Summary ⮯
Among cons, Adobe Premiere Pro lacks the important functionalities for Live Streaming, Screen Recording and AI Voiceover. The built-in free effects are also very limited in Premiere Pro. However, among pros, Premiere Pro has the powerful features, including 8K video editing, Motion Tracking, AI Speech To Text, Multicam Editing, 360-degree video editing, Cloud Storage, and support for external plugins.
I have made my best efforts to present a neutral and unbiased opinion about Premiere Pro – the video editing software by Adobe. This Premiere Pro editorial review includes sections about the best subscription plans, comparison with other video editors, pros and cons, as well as the ideal computer specs to run the software. At the end, you can provide your feedback to improve this review article.
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Adobe Premiere Pro works on Windows PC and Mac computer 💻 only. It does not offer mobile 📱 apps for Android and iPhone.
Best Subscription Plan for Premiere Pro
The full Adobe Creative Cloud package includes the Premiere Pro video editor.
You can buy the subscription plan for Premiere Pro only – no need to subscribe to the full Adobe Creative Cloud plan. However,
👉️ Compare Options & Pricing Plans ⮯
⮩ Wondershare Filmora vs CyberLink PowerDirector vs Corel VideoStudio vs Adobe Premiere Pro vs Movavi (links open in new tab).
Both above options have the Monthly as well as the Annual subscription plans.
I have discovered that the prices on Adobe official store at Amazon are comparatively cheaper, than what Adobe offers at Premiere Pro website.
Reason to Avoid “Annual, paid Monthly” Plan
Be mindful that that if just want to test the Premiere Pro software, then Never Subscribe to the “Annual, paid Monthly” plan.
In this case, for example, you are paying $23 per month but if you change your mind and cancel the plan after a month, the ‘early termination fee’ will apply and you will be forced to pay additional $126 – because according to the Adobe early subscription cancellation policy, 50% of the remaining 11 months will be automatically deducted from your credit card.
The “Annual, paid Monthly” Plan is expensive than the “Annual, Prepaid” plan of Premiere Pro.
When to Subscribe the “Annual, Prepaid” Plan
If you have decided to use Premiere Pro permanently, then you should choose the “Annual, Prepaid” plan – because it is more cost effective. The price for “Annual, Prepaid” plan of Premiere Pro is cheaper than both other options of the “Annual, paid Monthly” plan as well as the “Monthly” plan.
Benefit of the Monthly Plan
If you want to just test Adobe Premiere Pro, then subscribe to the Monthly plan.
Based on my experience, I will suggest you initially subscribe the Monthly plan initially, and test the software whether Premiere Pro can run on your computer or whether you can easily use it. If you are satisfied then you can easily change the Monthly plan into the Annual plan – no need of redownloading. The Monthly price plan of Premiere Pro is slightly expensive but it has no fear of early cancellation penalty.
My above analysis and advice are also beneficial for you if you are thinking to subscribe to any other Adobe app including Photoshop, Illustrator.
It is worth mentioning that the all-inclusive Adobe Creative Cloud package is also available in Monthly as well as Annual subscription plans. But it is only useful if you want to use additional Adobe tools (such as Photoshop, Illustrator) too. However, you should be clear that Adobe Stock is not included in the full Creative Cloud plan.
Pros and Cons of Adobe Premiere Pro
Here I have enlisted the salient advantages and shortcomings of Adobe Premiere Pro. I have also compared the video editor program with its competitors.
Single Subscription for Two Devices
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⮩ Wondershare Filmora or ⮩ CyberLink PowerDirector or ⮩ Corel VideoStudio and ⮩ Movavi.
You can use it on two devices with same login credentials – in other words, with each subscription, you can use Premiere Pro on one additional computer, with no extra cost. Premiere Pro wins over its most competitors in this respect.
If I compare this benefit of Premiere Pro with other video editors, you can only install Corel Videostudio or PowerDirector only on one computer per license. However, Filmora cross-platform subscription is also useful for multiple devices simultaneously.
360 Video Editing
You can edit a 360-degree VR video as well as a multicam video in Adobe Premiere Pro. It can automatically detect if the clip or sequence has VR properties and automatically configures the VR viewer accordingly. Some other video editing software including the Corel VideoStudio and the CyberLink PowerDirector can also edit 360 degree virtual reality videos. Movavi video editor lacks this functionality.
External Plugins Support
It supports many external extensions and plug-ins for additional functionality including effects, codecs, titles. This is a great upside of Premiere Pro. However, keep in mind that most external plugins can be availed at additional price.
To install external plugins, select Stock & Marketplace in desktop app of Adobe Creative Cloud, then select Plugins, search for your desired plugin, click the Get button and purchase it. Like Filmora, the Premiere Pro also supports the great external effects plugins of Boris FX and NewBlueFX for additional payment.
Film Editing
Premiere Pro is used for editing many popular Hollywood's films such as the award winning “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and Hail Caesar.
Cloud Storage
Adobe offers 100 GB of cloud storage with Premiere Pro subscription, much more than what is offered by its most competitors like Corel VideoStudio, or Filmora. However, the CyberLink PowerDirector also offers 100 GB cloud storage with its Director Suite 365 plan. Check the reason why I do not prefer to use the cloud services of a video editor.
Effective Keyframing
Premiere Pro provides effective controls for keyframes. It is quite useful to control the values of audio and video motion graphics in a precise way. Keyframing is useful many video editing tasks such as manual masking or creating your custom slideshows and animations.
Movavi video editor has limited support for keyframing.
Lacks Live Streaming
Adobe Premiere Pro does not support Live Streaming functionality – It means you cannot go live on social media while using Premiere Pro.
On the other hand, by using the Screen Recorder of PowerDirector, you can directly live stream on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitch by simultaneously recording the computer screen, webcam, and microphone.
Speed Ramping
Premiere Pro provides powerful tools for speed ramping (time remapping). You can apply different speeds at various timestamps to a single clip. However, speed ramping feature of Filmora is much easier to handle – owing to the premade easy templates.
Steep Learning Curve
If you have no prior experience in video editing, you will find the Premiere Pro interface as intimidating and hard to learn as the DaVinci Resolve.
On the other hand, Movavi, Filmora, VideoStudio and PowerDirector have easy-to-learn interface. However, if you have prior experience in using other Adobe apps – such as Photoshop – then you will learn the Premiere Pro in shorter time.
Screen Recorder
It is sad that Premiere Pro lacks screen recording capability – you cannot record what is on your screen, for example to create demo or tutorial videos. Other video editing software (such as Filmora, PowerDirector, VideoStudio, Movavi) have built-in free feature of screen recorder.
For screen recording in in Premiere Pro, you can use the standalone products – the Screen Recorder of PowerDirector or Movavi Screen Recorder – to capture your computer screen, save in MP4 format and then import the screen recorded footage in Premiere Pro for further editing.
Pricing and Plans
It is the most expensive video editor – in fact over expensive. Premiere Pro lacks the perpetual license – it has no one-time purchase option. On the other hand, although the price of DaVinci Resolve Studio is slightly expensive than that of Premiere Pro annual subscription cost, but DaVinci Resolve Studio provides the lifetime license (one time purchase) and free future upgrades to next versions. Filmora also provides the option for a perpetual (lifetime) license.
The heavy and often unexpected penalty for the early cancellation of Premiere Pro is quite annoying.
Adobe Premiere Pro offers 7-days free trial, whereas most other video editing alternatives offer 30-days free trial. After the purchase, if you cancel the subscription of Premiere Pro after 14 days, Adobe does not refunds the amount.
Title Templates
If we talk about animated text titles, and lower thirds presets, Adobe Premiere has limited options as compared to what is offered by PowerDirector and Filmora – especially their beautiful 3D text option.
Motion Tracking
The motion tracking in Adobe Premiere Pro is less accurate than that in Filmora. My 99% attempts for automatic motion tracking in Filmora (AI based) are accurate whereas 99% attempts for automatic motion tracking in Premiere Pro failed. However, in one aspect, the Premiere Pro has the edge over Filmora – Premiere Pro allows to add manual keyframes from the point where automatic tracking fails but Filmora does not allow to edit the failed automatic tracking. In Filmora, you must apply manual keyframes from the start, for tracking the precise motion – in other words you can use one choice at a time, either automatic motion tracking or the manual tracking through keyframes.
Resource Demanding Software
Adobe Premiere Pro cannot be run on a computer with moderate specs. It requires powerful system, otherwise it will crash frequently. For example, The latest Premiere Pro cannot be installed on a computer with Intel 3rd generation processors. Adobe Premiere Pro also requires the minimum 1920 x 1080 pixels display resolution of the monitor. In comparison, other video editing software are lightweight which demand less system resources. See the required system specs for Premiere Pro in the next section.
Rendering Speed
Based on the Rendering Speed Test by PCMag, Wondershare Filmora is the fastest video editor software and CyberLink PowerDirector has gained the second position – it means they have faster rendering and export speeds than all other video editing software, including Adobe Premiere Pro, and DaVinci Resolve, Movavi, and VideoStudio.
Masking
The easy-to-use AI Mask feature in Filmora wins over the lengthy and manual masking in Adobe Premiere Pro. In my own experience, during complex masking in Premiere Pro, the vertex points disappear out of sudden, wasting all of your time and effort.
Cuts and Splits
You can split the audio and video clips in Premiere Pro through various methods using keyboard shortcuts. But for newbies, clip splitting or trimming is a daunting task in Premiere Pro as compared to other software – for example, in Filmora a handy blade tool is attached to the playhead which makes cutting the clip fast and easy.
Motion Animations
Premade animations are almost non-existent in Adobe Premiere Pro – I could find the only two animation effects. Although it is easy for a pro user to create custom animations in Premiere Pro but for newbies having no video editing experience default animation effects are helpful. This is the reason that I do not recommend Adobe Premiere Pro to those having no prior video editing experience. Other programs such as Filmora, PowerDirector, and VideoStudio have abundant library of free animation templates.
AI Features
Although Premiere Pro has various AI features (see detail in next section of All Features), it lacks two important AI features i.e. AI Background Removal of video, and AI Text-to-Speech for creating voiceover – both features are found in other video editing software such as Filmora, and PowerDirector. You can watch my popular video tutorial to see how time consuming is to manually remove the video background in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Adobe also provides various generative AI features through Adobe Firefly such as Text-to-Image, Generative Fill and Text-to-Template. Please note that if you buy Premiere Pro subscription, you get only 25 monthly AI credits. For additional credits, you must also buy Adobe Firefly subscription.
Split Screen
To show multiple videos on a single screen, you find easy to use readymade split screen templates in Filmora, VideoStudio, and PowerDirector.
But such built-in templates are non-existent in Premiere Pro. However, you can buy split screen (multi-screen) templates for Premiere Pro from third party sellers.
Vocal Remover
Adobe Premiere Pro lacks the feature of vocal remover – to separate instrumental music and vocals in a song. You can remove vocals in Adobe Audition with separate paid subscription.
On the other hand, AI Vocal Remover is packed inside Filmora video editor. Vocal remover is also available in PowerDirector.
Stock Assets
Free media (music, video, effects) is very limited in Adobe Premiere Pro (only 10 standard stock assets). You must separately buy a subscription of Adobe Stock. Premium stock in Filmora also requires additional payment but Filmora has abundance of free stock media. Premiere Pro has no built-in integrations with third-party stock sources such as Unsplash, Giphy, Pixabay and Pixels – but integrated in Filmora.
Rating Score by Independent Reviewers
Adobe Premiere Pro has a poor 1.2-star rating based on users reviews score on Trustpilot. However, in my personal experience, Adobe customer support is quite helpful and supportive. The Adobe team gives value to the customers as evident from their replies to the customer feedback on Trustpilot.
Please remember, although Trustpilot is most authentic reviews website, but some companies either ignore it or manipulate it. Therefore the rating score by Dozro experts about the video editing software might be more helpful, and trustworthy for you.
Latest Adobe Premiere Pro Features
New features in Adobe Premiere pro.
Detection and removal of Filler Words (for example "ums" and "uhs" in speech).
New feature of Text-Based Editing automatically deletes the unwanted pauses in transcript.
Organized all color settings under the Lumetri Color panel for easy access.
Now it can automatically tag all audios to classify them into Dialogue, Music, SFX, or Ambience and provides the relevant tools access for fast editing.
If Premiere Pro crashes unexpectedly, and when you relaunch the software, it offer you Reopen button to restore your project.
Support for HEVC and SRT formats.
All Features in Adobe Premiere Pro
Visit above linked blog post on this Dozro website, to view the remarkable features available in Adobe Premiere Pro, explained with easy examples of each feature for a beginner.
Recommended Computer Specs for Premiere Pro
Please note that following are my own recommendations, based on my years of experience in video editing. More powerful system (computer) is better for fast rendering and export of your video project in Adobe Premiere Pro, especially if you use more than three video tracks in timeline or you apply too many effects (motion, color) on a single track.
👉️ CPU Processor – I recommend at least Core i7. Whereas the minimum requirement of Premiere Pro is Intel Intel® 6th Generation but Intel 11th Gen for 4K videos. Compare prices of Intel Core i5, i7, and i9 processor on Amazon. The latest Premiere Pro version cannot be installed on Intel 3rd Generation processors (example:are Core i3-3220, Core i5-3570K ).
👉️ Graphics Processor (GPU) – You should prefer any NVIDIA RTX series with vRAM of at least 6 GB. I personally use dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 with 12 GB memory. Whereas Premiere Pro recommends 4 GB vRAM for HD and 6 GB vRAM 4K videos.
👉️ RAM Memory – at least 16 GB. The RAM of my own PC is 32 GB. Whereas Premiere Pro recommends 16 GB RAM for HD video and 32 GB RAM for 4K videos.
👉️ SSD Storage Memory – I recommend at least 512 GB SSD for editing videos of HD and and 4K resolution but an SSD with 1 TB capacity will be a better option. Check computer SSD drive prices on Amazon.
👉️ HDD Storage Memory – Your computer should also have a Hard Drive (HDD) of good storage capacity with faster speed. I use 2 TB for overall needs of storing data. Please note that Premiere Pro video editing software requires 8 GB hard drive memory for installation, but when you will download stock media elements (effects, video footage etc) from Adobe or other third parties, while using the software, it will take up additional memory space. Check price for internal HDD for laptop and desktop computer on Amazon.
👉️ System Type – x64 based PC is required by Premiere Pro. All modern computers (laptops) have 64-bit operating system. System type 32 bit can only use up to 4 GB of RAM, so not good for video editing tasks. To check it for your computer, open Settings → System → About.
👉️ Monitor – Use at least an HD display monitor with your computer but 4K display monitor is a better choice – Check 4k computer monitors on Amazon. 4K monitor will help for better editing of colors. Adobe Premiere Pro also requires the minimum 1920 x 1080 pixels display resolution.
👉️ Computer Type – Prefer a desktop computer over laptop – because it is easily customizable (for adding more storage or replacing the power unit etc) and its casing can secure a large sized GPU.
Above are the best computer specs for your best experience while using Adobe Premiere Pro video editing software. You may also check the minimum system requirements for Windows or Mac on Adobe official website. The latest Premiere Pro cannot be installed on MacOS 11.
👉️ Check top video editing laptop computers. You may also check the list of best desktop computers for video editing, recommended by Dozro.
Please note that Adobe Premiere Pro is a resource demanding software which requires a computer with powerful specs. Adobe Premiere Pro takes around three times more memory resources than what is required for Filmora. For example, Adobe Premiere Pro also requires the advanced AVX2 – whereas Filmora does not require it.
Learning Resources
Adobe Premiere Pro provides great library of learning resources on their website. Video tutorials about Premiere Pro by independent creators are easily available on YouTube. You can also explore Premiere Pro tutorials on this Dozro website.
You can also consider the personalized coaching class for learning Premiere Pro by Dozro.
Pro Tip: Adobe Student & Teacher plan of Creative Cloud is much cheaper than its regular price.
Suggest Edits
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To date, all the information in this article is accurate and up to date in the best of my knowledge.
