Instagram is rushing a new video editing app that sure sounds a lot like CapCut

The head of Instagram Adam Mosseri took threads on Sunday with another announcement this weekendwhose timing certainly had nothing to do with it TikTok and other applications owned by ByteDance (briefly) darken: a new, free video editing app called Edits is coming. Instagram Editing will cater to people who edit videos on their phone and offer “a full set of creative tools.” This includes higher quality recordings, shareable drafts, live audio, insights into your drum performance and an ‘inspiration section’ in addition to the usual editing tools.

If all of this reminds you of CapCut, TikTok’s sister video editing app, you’re not alone. c answer in direct comparisons, Mosseri called the edits “CapCut, but more for creators than regular video creators.”

The editions are not yet available, but you can pre-order them at App Store if you’re an iOS user, and Mosseri says an Android version is “coming soon.” While he’s releasing the release sometime in February, the App Store page says March 13. And don’t expect anything overly polished when it arrives. “The first release will be incomplete, so please be patient, but I’m really excited to get this into all of your hands,” Mosseri said.

The announcement came shortly after TikTok said its app was coming back online in the US, just about 12 hours after it was suspended. CapCut has not yet returned, but is expected to follow suit. Trump said on social media that he would announce an executive order after being sworn in that would extend ByteDance’s time to decide the future of TikTok.

As Threads users call out Instagram for the timing of the message, Mosseri said the app has been in development for months, “and I think it will end up being quite different from CapCut.” On that note, he said, “Editing will have a much wider range of creative tools and probably more -small addressable audience. Consider a place to track all your ideas instead of templates. Consider clip-based or video-based AI video editing tools. Think new insights into why your videos are successful or struggling.”

One way it looks like edits may have an edge over CapCut is that the App Store page says videos won’t have a watermark when exported. Although the free version of CapCut has long added an easily removable end logo to videos during export, it recently started adding a corner watermark as well.

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