Kdenlive UI/UX is really painful and frustrating, which is really too bad
I always try and use open source solutions (I also do monthly donations for the ones that I use regularly), both for practical reasons (no tracking, general focus on making a good product, ability to get in touch with the devs) and for philosophical reasons (open source is the future, current model will eventually feel quaint like the pre-WW1 empires of Europe).
However, the future is not yet here and we have to be realistic about the strengths and weaknesses of open source solutions. There will of course be pain points and we have to be patient and constructive about them.
That being said, I feel that my experience with Kdenlive goes beyond reasonable paint points.
I am relatively tech savvy (use headless linux for a home server, comfortable with ffmpeg) and I have a modicum of experience with video (mainly encoding and upscaling with Topaz AI). Not a "high end prosumer" by any means, but also not a complete noob.
With Kdenlive I straight away failed to even input two videos on my timeline. I eventually figured it out (even LLMs weren't very helpful) and went through some needed processes, but then Kdenlive crashed. I tried to cut up the timeline into chunks to reduce the likelihood of crashes, but I wasn't able to deploy cuts on both video streams at the same points.
Decided to start from scratch. So started a new project and once again I wasn't able to input two video streams. At this point I gave up and uninstalled Kdenlive.
I understand that NL video editing is a pretty complex area, but I feel like I am target segment for an application like Kdenlive.
I don't think I should be struggling with something as basic as adding in a second video track to the timeline...
Not my intention to just rage, just some genuine, "stream of consciousness" feedback.