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Adobe After Effects vs Sony Vegas

Adobe After Effects allows you to create stunning motion graphics and visual effects. For animation and creative compositing, it is promoted as being an industry-standard product. The visual effects are of a professional quality that is suitable for TV, web, film, and other video applications.

Sony Vegas markets itself as being a new level of creative freedom in video editing. It is simple to use, features intuitive tools, and endless design options. You can optimize your footage quickly and easily by using S-Log gamma curve encoding or take advantage of XAVC support and proxy workflows to take charge of your post-production needs.

In the Adobe After Effects vs Sony Vegas debate, it is important to recognize that each platform offers a different type of service. After Effects is for motion graphics and special effects. Vegas is more of a video editing program that offers limited effects inclusion.

A better comparison is between Adobe Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas Pro.

What Is Adobe After Effects?

Adobe After Effects is a motion graphics editing and compositing platform with the capability of producing advanced visual effects. Complex motion graphic designs can be created as well, using graphics, still images, video, or similar components. What it doesn’t provide is a good audio editing experience, but that is because its emphasis is on video.

It will help you to fix blurry shots, stabilize footage that shakes, and bring 2D characters to life.

It offers a color grading option as well, but not to the same extent that Vegas is able to offer. After Effects is meant for general image manipulation and is unsuitable for editing purposes.

What Is Sony Vegas?

Sony Vegas is a non-linear editing system. It allows you to manipulate or combine video clips, audio, and still images into a completed product. Editing video, doing color grading, or adding filters is just part of the experience when using this platform. What it doesn’t provide is a good compositing experience. Special effects, animations, motion graphics, and compositing effects are better in After Effects.

What Vegas does offer is the strength of its non-linear editing applications. It can be used for assembling video clips, editing those clips, color correction, and grading. You can also do F/X masking with Bezier drawing tools and do color matching. The 3D adjustment filter allows you to correct video misalignments and have precise control over your Z-depth.

There is an expanded editing mode that makes trimming super simple. Your neighboring frames are visible within your timeline and can be trimmed with the mouse. You can also establish hierarchical relationships with your timeline events during the editing process. Multi-camera editing is also available.

What Is the Pricing for Adobe After Effects vs Sony Vegas?

Adobe After Effects is part of the Creative Cloud experience. Individual, business, and educational pricing structures are available for this program.

  • Individuals: Single app pricing is $19.99 per month on an annual contract. All Creative Cloud apps are available for as low as $49.99 per month. Individuals can also subscribe to an All Apps and Adobe Stock tier for $79.98 per month on an annual plan.
  • Businesses: Your brand can get After Effects for $29.99 per license, per month. An All Apps plan is available for $69.99 per license, per month. The subscription provides 24/7 technical support, a team website, and up to 100GB of collaboration storage.
  • Educational: Students and teachers can access After Effects through an All Apps subscription that is $19.99 per month on an annual plan. Schools and universities can have a named-user license for $14.99 per month. Per device licenses are also available for as little as $155.88 per year.

Sony Vegas offers three tiers for their professional video editing and disc authoring platform.

  • Vegas Pro Edit is $399.
  • Vegas Pro is $599.
  • Vegas Pro Suite is $799.

For individuals who are looking for more of a personal software program for their digital videos and photos, then the Movie Studio series is a cheaper option to think about. For $49.99, you can import video or digital photos, drag and drop video clips and digital phots into your timeline for quick editing, and then add titles, music, and scrolling credits.

Movie Studio Platinum is $79.99 and adds multi-cam production and transition effects. Movie Studio Suite is $139.99 and provides disc authoring and direct uploads to Vimeo, Facebook, or YouTube.

After Effects is the platform to use for creative effects. Vegas is the platform to use for creative editing. Both are excellent at what they provide.

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