After all that, TikTok was offline for just hours before restoring service to U.S.-based users and telling them it was “fortunate that President Trump” will apparently work with it to keep it unbanned. But though TikTok wasn’t offline for long, competitor companies are still taking advantage to pitch their own solutions to its services—including Instagram, which announced a CapCut clone called Edits.
While platforms like Snapchat and Triller entreated TikTok’s (temporary) refugee user base by promising them a similar scrolling experience full of videos they would like, Instagram’s approach was–and continues to be–different.
Sure, it almost certainly hopes that this event will cause more people to crosspost their content to its TikTok copycat Reels, so they’ll have multi-platform reach should anything permanent ever happen to TikTok. But its main strategy seems to be appealing to content creators who use CapCut.
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The ByteDance-owned editing software has over 200 million users–including millions of content creators who use its tools even if they’re not planning to post the end product on TikTok. We see CapCut watermarks on YouTube Shorts, X, Snapchat, and, yes, Instagram Reels. It’s become the industry standard editing app, and while YouTube et al. have their own in-app editing tools, they aren’t as robust as CapCut’s.
Instagram is smart to go after the contingent of people who rely on CapCut to edit videos on their phones–especially because, while TikTok was quick to become available again, CapCut wasn’t back online for U.S. users until today, Jan. 21. That gave creators a long taste of what it would be like should CapCut go offline permanently.
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“There’s a lot going on right now, but no matter what happens, it’s our job to provide the best possible tools for creators,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a video posted to Instagram.
He described the uncreatively named Edits as “more than a video editing app.”
“It’s a full suite of creative tools,” he said. “There will be a dedicated tab for inspiration, another for keeping track of early ideas, a much higher-quality camera (which I used to record this video), all the editing tools you’d expect, the ability to share drafts with friends and other creators, and–if you decide to share your videos on Instagram–powerful insights into how those videos perform.”
It also includes green screen capabilities, something that’s become a hallmark of CapCut.
When someone on Threads quoted-retweeted (wait…what’s the word for quote-retweet on Threads?) his post and simply said, “CapCut,” Mosseri shot back, “CapCut, but more for creators than casual video makers. Not just video editing, but an inspiration tab, idea tracking, and insights built in.”
Basically, Instagram is swinging big for pro creators—and, if it can build a mobile editing suite that’s truly better than CapCut, it might get them.
For now, though, CapCut is back online, and we expect most creators will flock back to its familiar tools.
Mosseri told The Verge reporter Chris Welch that Instagram has been working on Edits “for months” (perhaps the same number of months since TikTok’s path to remaining in the U.S. began narrowing significantly). He added that it will “end up pretty different than CapCut.”
We’ll see.
Edits makes it grand debut March 13, 2025.
