Upgrading from Vegas Pro 20 to 23 - Opinions

Max-Hind wrote on 2/9/2026, 8:56 AM

I currently have Vegas Pro 20 and have been using Vegas since PR0 13. I have skipped a few versions and had mixed experiences over the years. I have been pretty happy with 20 apart from fairly regular crashes mid edit which I have got used to. I am looking for honest opinions from users who have upgraded to 23 as I can see that there have been a lot of changes. Is there a vast improvement over previous versions and how stable is it proving to be? Can you still open previous version in v23 (for example will I still be able to open and edit v20 edits). Appreciate any feedback. As I use this for business so stability is really important for me. Also what are the best improvements in your opinion (for example is rendering faster,etc) Thanks in advance

Comments

3POINT wrote on 2/9/2026, 9:11 AM

@Max-Hind https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/vegas-pro/ :

Can you still open previous version in v23 (for example will I still be able to open and edit v20 edits).

Yes, but do not save those edits with VP23 (trial) when you intend to to reopen the project in VP20 again.

Wolfgang S. wrote on 2/9/2026, 9:28 AM

Depends on footage you use, but I would wait until another build of Vegas Pro 23 is available (see the reported bugs here in the forum).

andyrpsmith wrote on 2/10/2026, 8:36 AM

I have V20, V21, V22 and V23 on my current PC. V21 and V22 have been good improvements over V20 due to the many bug fixes and features. At this moment in time V22 is the best version, on my system it is fast and stable (I am using 4K XAVCS media which is very suited to Vegas). Other media can cause problems (as Wolfgang says) depending on your hardware capabilities. Now with V23, many issues exist with the current builds - but V23 is a work in progress with the new engine. It looks nice, it is the future of Vegas, it will have the potential to outperform V22 (but on my system does not yet). The withdrawn version build 356 is working well but lags behind V22 in both timeline performance and rendering speed. So as of now I certainly would not jump in with V23 if you need stability and reliability in delivering to customers if V20 is working OK. You did not provide any info on your hardware so it is not easy to tell how V23 will perform.

Reyfox wrote on 2/10/2026, 8:42 AM

I feel more confident with VP22 over VP23 at this moment. Yes, I've edited and finished projects in VP23, but for some reason on my computer build (see Signature below), VP22 just "feels" better.

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 2/10/2026, 10:14 AM

I get my best nvenc render performance with my multicam hevc 420 projects using vp23. Fly in the ointment for me is vp23 envelope editing clumsiness... vp20 through vp22 are much more adept at that. I started a number of my larger projects with vp22 to complete audio envelope editing then cut over to vp23 for multicam video editing and rendering. Fwiw, vp20 gave me better performance with Amd gpus than vp22 or 23 but vp23 turned the tables on that with Nvidia gpus.

walter-i. wrote on 2/10/2026, 3:36 PM

I've been using it since Vegas 11 and have used all versions up to 20. I took a break for a few years and then started using it again with version 23. For me, this is the most stable version I've ever had. No more crashes—except when nesting—this function regularly causes the PC to freeze.