In the complex world of video production, it’s virtually impossible to discuss software without diving straight into a Renderforest review. As a reigning titan on the scene, how could we not talk about it?
So, that’s just what we’ll do! Similarly to our Animaker review, we’ll give some background on the software, describe its key features, and assign a final overall rating.
Founded in 2013, Renderforest is a multipurpose branding software suite that includes video editing, website design, logo and mockup creation, and graphic design features.
Intended as a single tool for designers and creators of all stripes, the platform, at its current version, claims over 20 million users.
Basic Renderforest Review
What are the most basic selling points of Renderforest? Why do so many designers, editors, and businesses continue to swear by it?
The Renderforest video maker, in particular (as that will be the primary focus of the review) includes:
- Animation tools. These can range from simple explainer animation videos to complex promotional advertisements.
- Comprehensive editing features. Typography packs, editing toolkits, and intro templates are a click away.
- Presentation templates and presets. Whether you’re preparing for a corporate meeting, a college lecture, or a simple infographic, Renderforest gives you the option of presenting information quickly and conveniently.
Breaking Down the Price Tiers
So, is Renderforest free? Well, yes…but, mostly no! See, Renderforest offers multiple tiers, each one costing a higher monthly subscription than the last, but also including more features.
To explain what we mean, let’s walk through the available Renderforest pricing plans:
Plan
Free
$0/month
Features
- Video template library
- Restricted stock photos and footage
- HD video creation
- 500 MB of storage
Lite
$14.99/month
Features
- A premium user website
- Additional templates and presets
- Extensive stock photo and footage
- Unlimited number of 720p videos
Pro
$29.99/month
Features
- Everything available in the Lite plan
- 30 GB of storage
- Unlimited number of 1080p videos
- Additional website maintenance tools
Business
$49.99/month
Features
- Everything available in the Pro plan
- Unlimited number of 4K videos
- Team & collaboration features
- Custom watermark support
Pros and Cons of Renderforest
While we thoroughly intend to cover the specific advantages and disadvantages of the Renderforest editor below, let’s first take a broad look at the main benefits and drawbacks of the program:
Pros
Interface design
Renderforest’s UI is sleek, modern, and incredibly newbie-welcoming.
Stability
The editor runs smoothly and efficiently; no lag or crashing to worry about.
Audio Support
Convenient audio and music features are well-integrated into the design.
Cons
Customer Support
While the support isn’t poor, there aren’t many options to contact the company.
Lack of customization
It would be nice to have a little more choice over the look and feel of the templates and presets.
Limited Community Resources
There doesn’t appear to be a clear option for chatting directly with other users.
Renderfores Review: Rating Details
Simplicity and User-friendliness
Renderforest stands out with its user-friendly and minimalistic layout, offering a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere for users. The platform is complemented by warm graphics and optional user guides that assist beginners in navigating the software. The overall design promotes a fun and welcoming user experience.
Customer Assistance
The customer support options at Renderforest are somewhat limited. While there is a contact page to reach out to various departments via email, the addition of more direct communication channels, such as live chat or phone support, would be beneficial. The current setup, though functional, could benefit from more immediate support avenues.
Security and Privacy Measures
Renderforest emphasizes user security and privacy, as highlighted in their terms of service. The platform employs robust security measures, including one-way encryption for passwords, ensuring the utmost protection of sensitive information. This approach guarantees that even the company cannot access your password, maintaining a high level of privacy.
Software Stability
During the evaluation, Renderforest exhibited smooth and stable performance, free from glitches, lag, or loading errors. The software functioned seamlessly, providing a hassle-free editing experience. Its stability ensures that users can work without fear of crashes or disruptions, fostering a painless editing process.
Customizability
Renderforest offers a variety of customization options, allowing users to modify colors, formats, and basic designs of various elements. Despite these features, the templates can sometimes feel restrictive, potentially hindering creativity rather than aiding it. A more flexible approach to template customization could enhance the user experience.
Community and Educational Resources
Renderforest provides a wealth of resources, including knowledge base articles and instructional videos, catering to both beginners and experienced users. However, the absence of a community forum or Discord server for direct discussions and community engagement is a noticeable gap. Incorporating such platforms could foster a more collaborative and interactive user community.
Product Development and Updates
The Renderforest team maintains a blog that offers insights into the software’s general state and upcoming developments. However, more detailed progress updates and version histories would be appreciated, as the current blog tends to focus more on marketing than providing concrete information on product developments.
Audio-Editing Features
Renderforest excels in the audio editing department, offering a comprehensive set of tools for audio manipulation. Users have access to stock music, voiceover recording options, text-to-voice support, and functionalities to import and adjust various audio samples. The platform meets the needs of users looking for robust audio editing capabilities, leaving no room for complaints.
Our Rating of Renderforest: Review
Here comes the real heart of our Renderforest review: What do we actually rate the editor?
Our process is simple, but effective. We’ll go down a list of criteria and rate these elements individually, and then use those components to calculate a total final score.
Let’s go!
Simplicity and User-friendliness
Renderforest is remarkable for the sheer extent of its user-friendliness.
Not only is the layout minimalistic and intuitive, but the graphics themselves are warm, welcoming, and create a fun and relaxed atmosphere for the user. Additionally, there are helpful (but, crucially, optional!) user guides to help walk beginners through the learning process.
Customer Assistance
Less stellar is the range of customer support options.
While Renderforest’s website does have a contact page, it’s a standard form to send an email to one of the company’s departments. This isn’t bad by any means, but we would have preferred the addition of another, more direct communication channel, like an instant chat or phone line.
Security and Privacy Measures
As Renderforest points out in their terms of service, they take great care to ensure security and privacy on the part of their users.
Passwords are required for sensitive information, and these security protections are one-way encrypted, meaning even the company themselves can’t view your password.
Software Stability
During our test run of the editors, we were impressed with its smoothness and overall stability.
At no point during the test was the program ever on the verge of crashing, and there was minimal-to-nonexistent lag, glitchiness, or loading errors. The program generally functioned exactly as you’d expect and want an editor to: Painlessly.
Customizability
Renderforest offers some refreshing customization options for different templates. You change the color, format, layout, and basic design of characters, backdrops, and effects in scenes and in the project as a whole.
However, the templates themselves can be a bit stifling at times and risk feeling more like a hindrance than an aid.
Community and Educational Resources
With the Renderforest Knowledge Base articles and helpful video articles, it’s difficult to make the case that the editor doesn’t offer extensive resources for beginners and experienced users alike.
One concern, though, is the lack of direct community discussion; we didn’t encounter links to a forum or Discord server on the official website.
Product Development and Updates
There’s a blog maintained by the Renderforest team, which is helpful for noting the general state of the program and upcoming changes.
We would have preferred more concrete progress announcements and version history descriptions, however; as it is, the blog is somewhat vague about these details and seems to have more of a marketing focus.
Audio-Editing Features
No complaints to be found here!
The editor includes an impressive level of support for audio editing. There’s stock music, the option to record a voiceover, text-to-voice support, and the ability to import and adjust music and other audio samples.
8 Breakthrough Features of Renderforest
So far, this Renderforest review has been missing one crucial element: The key features of the program!
While there are many (potentially hundreds) of smaller features to cover in the overall software suite, we’ll be sticking to the most essential and attractive benefits provided by the Renderforest video maker.
Let’s explore a breakdown of the 8 advantages Renderforest offers over competing products:
Feature #1: Video Production Templates
One of the most striking benefits of Renderforest is the sheer number of video templates it offers upon opening.
For social media presets, there are YouTube editing kits and Instagram story packs. Likewise, if you’re interested in type, Renderforest provides access to a diverse, wildly varied set of typography packs in its template library.
Additional templates include promotional packs for award ceremonies, an intro preset for gaming channels, and invitational templates for weddings, business events, and other gatherings.
Feature #2: Logo Design Assets
If you’re highly familiar with video editing, especially for a business, you’re likely aware of the challenges that integrating logo design into your production can pose. Luckily, Renderforest has a solution!
With the available library of logo templates, you can quickly select a style of animation and apply it to your custom logo.
Feature #3: Business & Presentation Tools
Many of us are intimately acquainted with the stressful scenario of planning and producing a video presentation, whether it’s for a college class, a professional event, or a volunteer gathering.
Can Renderforest help ease those woes?
Absolutely! Visit the library of presentation formats, and you’ll encounter design layouts for everything ranging from 3D informational animations to corporate timeline graphics. You can also find cartoon business promotional templates and typography-based layouts.
Feature #4: Slideshow Templates and Formats
Those whose video projects tend to lean in a more nostalgic, casual direction will be quite relieved to hear that Renderforest has a lot going for it in that department!
Photo slideshows for family reunions, real estate advertisement layouts, and birthday card videos are all easy to create and send to your friends, family, and colleagues with the tools found in the editor.
Feature #5: Music & Sound Integration
Audiophiles need not worry too much about Renderforest’s support for importing and editing music selections.
The program is designed with sound editing as a concern, and it shows!
Notably, there’s support for music visualization tools. For example, if the user wanted to have on-screen graphics accompanying a song, they could use a provided turntable visualization graphics to synchronize automatically with the audio.
Or, if you’re into a more “out-there” type of visual aid, you could select from pre-generated animations of tunnel loops, particle motion, or lightning graphics.
Feature #6: Animation Toolkit
Nearly every animator is filled with dreadful stories of difficult, painstaking projects. Fortunately, Renderforest has a few tricks up its sleeve to help out those inclined to animate with a hassle-free workflow.
Animation assets provided by this software include elements like a mobile app kit, cartoon birthday greetings, and sleek animated business intros.
Feature #7: Event Promotion & Invitations
Video production is often a key component of increasing attendance at events, from the very casual to the highly professional.
How can Renderforest help with this type of editing?
As part of its graphics libraries, the editor comes with a selection of promotional assets, whether it’s a Ramadan celebration reel or baby shower invitation.
Feature #8: Video Intro Presets
Introductions can make or break the success of a video project. If you can’t get the audience’s attention with a captivating hook, the whole effort might end up a lost cause!
Renderforest aims to compensate for this challenge by offering intro graphics support through presets like special logo effects, kinetic frame animations, and even sports graphics.
Comparing Popular Competitors
It probably won’t shock you to learn there are other video editors besides Renderforest out there.
But, what do they offer that this editor doesn’t and are they the better choice? Let’s find out!
Animaker
Powtoon
Built with a more educational approach in mind, Powtoon is many editors’ go-to for creating quick, visually appealing, and convenient lecture presentations and explainer videos.
Powtoon’s expansive stock library makes it a worthy contender against Renderforest, though you could argue its focus on the educational market make it a bit limited in scope compared to the latter.
Moovly
Advertising its unique strengths as a cloud-based approach to video creation, Moovly has a lot to offer: Customization, professional tools, and graphic design support, just to name a few.
On the other hand, its higher price tag and much steeper learning curve might scare away those who prefer Renderforest’s simple and beginner-friendly stance.
Support Platforms and Community Resources
What if you get stuck along the way? After all, Renderforest seems to have an awful lot of features.
Renderforest provides two main ways of getting back on track: The company Knowledge Base, and educational video tutorials.
Let’s look at both options in more detail:
Renderforest Knowledge Base
The official Knowledge Based provided by Renderforest consists of dozens of introductory and explanatory articles to help guide users through roadblocks and questions.
For example, if one needs help with a standard, interface design issue like how to use the website builder too, there is a series of articles they can read through. On the other hand, there are also articles that explain more theoretical topics, such as the fundamentals of graphic design.
Video Tutorials
Renderforest additionally provides beginner-friendly video tutorials, for those who are more inclined to a visual style of learning. Topics you can find covered in the video lessons include a basic onboarding lesson, a guide to building your own website, and a step-by-step tutorial on the video creation process.
Final Verdict
So, who is the main target user for Renderforest and is it worth investing in the editor?
Renderforest is a worthwhile venture for beginner video editors, those who have multiple types of editing projects to work with, and anyone who values convenience and a wide-ranging template library.
That said, it’s probably not ideal for animators who require a high level of customization, beginners seeking speed and reliable customer support, and designers who emphasize community interaction as part of their workflow.
With these facts in mind, to conclude our Renderforest review, we’ve decided to rate the editor a 4.4/5.
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