ADOBE PREMIERE PRO VS DAVINCI RESOLVE 16. IS TIME TO LEAVE ADOBE?

Adobe has been the editing king for a long time now.  But in recent years it has been getting a lot of competitors who either provide the same features as Premiere or sometimes better than Premiere.  

This is the comparison between Adobe Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve 16 and finally deciding which one to use in the end.

PERFORMANCE & STABILITY:

Performance has always been a big priority for anyone that is using software for kind of creative work and the same goes for these 2 Softwares. Adobe Premiere Pro depends more on CPU and less on the GPU which allows it to run on computers that don't have a very powerful GPU easily whereas Resolve 16 mostly depends on the computers GPU and a little bit of the CPU. 

When it comes to Performance both the software perform perfectly fine at the task that is given to them. But when it comes to stability that is a whole different story Adobe Premiere Pro crashes a lot especially during some crucial times, Adobe has made some updates to ensure stability and it is noticeable and better than before, whereas Davinci Resolve 16 is a very stable software and rarely crashes. Resolve has only crashed one time while I was using it. But sometimes it shows this weird error that says you are out of GPU memory even though there is plenty of memory left. 

PRICE:

When using a software that is this professional price is always a major factor for each consumer and here Davinci Resolve shines the most as it offers an entirely free version with a large number of features that are available in the paid version and also a One-Time Payment option for $299 and this gets in a total of 3 Softwares that are built directly into Resolve i.e. Fairlight for sound design and control and Fusion for any 2D/3D animation work(All three Softwares are available both in the free as well as the paid version).

Whereas Adobe charges a monthly or a yearly fee for Premiere Pro which could either be for one software or you could buy the entire Creative Cloud subscription depending upon your requirements. The prices for an individual app are $33.99 p/m and for the entire creative cloud, the pack is &79.99 p/m. But if you buy a single software unlike resolve you would not be able to do any kind of 2D/3D animation right within Premiere Pro as for that you require Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro does have a powerful sound editor, but it has its limitations and to overcome them you would have to use Adobe Audition. Adobe does provide a 7-day free trial to all new users in order to show them what they will be paying for.

FEATURES & CUSTAMIZABILITY:

Another important component is the User Interface that is offered by the application and both Premiere Pro and Resolve 16 provide a very intuitive design that makes it easy to learn for new editors and even makes it easy to adapt if you were using some other editing software. The only noticeable difference is that in Adobe Premiere Pro you can adjust the windows to your liking by putting them anywhere you want but in resolve, the location of the windows is fixed and cannot be reassigned.

Both Adobe and Davinci offer a large number of features from sound design to color correction or a large number of effects from their respective effects panels. But one is better than the other like Resolve has a more powerful color correction panel than Premiere Pro, I am not saying that the Lumetri Color panel in Premiere Pro is bad by any means but the way Resolve 16 does color is just better. There are a little bit more transitions and effects in Premiere Pro compared to Resolve 16 also there is a feature in Premiere Pro that allows the user to see their video at a lower resolution in case there is a frame drop at its full resolution which I was not able to find in Resolve 16 until I went deep into the settings.

But resolve has Audio design and 2D/3D animation creator baked right into the software which is not the case in Adobe, you have to buy separate software for it i.e. Adobe Audition for audio and Adobe After Effects for 2D/3D animation. 

CLOUD INTEGRATION:

If you buy all the apps that are provided by Adobe you could take advantage of there could integration between all their applications and how they work with each other like if you are editing a video in Premiere Pro and you want to add some transitions using After Effects you can do that any edit you make in After effects will directly affect the video in Premiere Pro same goes for photos using Photoshop and sound using Audition.

Davinci Resolve does not have any type of cloud integration since all its applications and features are in one place.

RENDER TIME:

When an editor completes their work the next big task is to make sure that both the computer and the software are optimized enough to provide the fastest render speed and have the right CODEC so that the video takes less space on your computer and could be sent to the person/place where it was intended to go to on time.

Both the Softwares are very well optimized for the same and have a large variety of CODEC including H.625/HEVC which is currently the best CODEC for videos. Since Davinci Resolve 16 uses the GPU more than the CPU. Thus, it renders the video a little faster than Premiere Pro. 

CONCLUSION:

In the end, I would still prefer Adobe Premiere Pro over Davinci Resolve 16 due to its cloud integration and how the application has more applications to complete various tasks while editing the video. But, the way Premiere Pro allows me to customize my windows anywhere I want and to change the resolution of the video directly without diving deep into the settings and ensure smooth playback makes it an easy choice for me.

Davinci Resolve is not at all a bad option it is a very beautiful piece of software that is plenty powerful to get your work done and seeing the price differences and how Resolve has a free version that provides almost all the features like the paid one I can see people leaning towards it more.

To try both the software you could download a 7-days free trial from Adobe's official website and the free version of Resolve 16 from Blackmagic Designs official website and decide for yourself which do you like better; Premiere Pro or Davinci Resolve 16. Thereby, deciding either to pay for Adobe or Resolve.