Instagram Launches its Highly Anticipated Video Editing App, Edits
After teasing it at the start of the year and dropping a few sneak peeks along the way, Instagram’s video editing app Edits has officially launched and is available to download on iOS and Android.
After downloading, users can sign in using their Instagram account.
Inside the App: What Edits Can Do Today
At launch, Edits offers video creation and organizational tools, grouped into three main areas:
Ideas – A place for creators to jot down video concepts or add notes to saved Reels.
Inspiration – Browse trending Reels, remix audio, and save it for later.
Projects – Manage and organize multiple video projects in one hub.
There’s also a built-in camera that lets creators film up to 10 minutes of content. They can publish directly to Instagram and Facebook and third-party apps without watermarks and with improved video quality.
Plus, core Reel tools like touch-up, green screen, timer, music, and countdown are all easily accessible in the app.
When publishing to Meta platforms, creators also get built-in insights. These insights include new engagement metrics like Skip Rate, Like Rate, Comment Rate, and Save Rate. Creators can also see the sources of their views — from the feed to the Reels tab, Stories, and Profile. These are also available for existing Reels content.
Notably, Edits has been shaped by direct feedback from a group of creators who were granted early access.
Coming Soon: AI Tools, Collaboration, and More Customization
The roadmap includes several features already in development:
Keyframes – Animate clip position, rotation, and scale with precision.
Modify – Use AI to transform the style or vibe of your videos.
Collaboration – Share drafts with creators, friends, or brand partners for feedback.
More customization – Think fonts, text animations, filters, SFX, and music, including royalty-free options.
Why It Matters
Instagram is launching Edits at a particularly interesting time. For years, CapCut has been the go-to editing app for many creators, but recent uncertainty around ByteDance apps in the U.S., including TikTok and CapCut, has many searching for alternatives.
Pricing is a key factor. While CapCut has ramped up monetization, particularly with paid features and higher subscription costs, creators have shown resistance. Edits, however, is free for now, although some AI-powered features may eventually fall behind a paywall.
In the long run, Edits can differentiate itself by focusing specifically on creators and mobile-first video editing. Meanwhile, CapCut and other editing tools have increasingly shifted towards supporting brand and agency workflows.
The addition of deeper insights for existing Reels and Reels published to Instagram from Edits is also something that will be appealing to cretors. As some of those insights don’t exist in the IOnstagram app, creatos that do use Edits will get more granular data around their videos, which can help them identify performance trends and better understand what is resonating with their audiences.
The Bigger Picture
The launch of Edits also reflects a broader trend of social media platforms launching standalone apps to further their initiatives.
Meta launched Threads to compete with X (formerly Twitter), ByteDance introduced Lemon8 to rival Instagram and Pinterest, and Pinterest launched Shuffles to cater to Gen Z and expand shopping features. Shuffles also led to the launch of one of Pinterest’s most popular features, Collages.
With Edits, Instagram is supporting one of its key priorities: providing creators with best-in-class creative tools to help them produce more and potentially better Reels. It also gives Instagram a "sandbox" to test new features without cluttering the main app, using Edits as a way to understand which tools are most relevant to creators before rolling them out more broadly. And with the introduction of paywalled features, Meta has an opportunity to generate revenue beyond its traditional advertising model.
