We tested 5 free video editing apps — here's the winner

We installed five apps that all claim to be "free" and tracked what that actually meant in practice: export resolution limits, forced watermarks, and how aggressively each one pushed a paid upgrade.

Two of the five added a watermark on export despite advertising as free. One capped free exports at 720p. The tool that came out ahead offered full-resolution, watermark-free exports on its free tier.