I tried Shotcut since it has been mentioned quite a few times. It seems to make basic edits quite easy and provide the features for that but it also seems to end as soon as you want to for instance animate a parameter.
There is a nice tutorial set on how to use Blender as a Video editor. It has around 27 videos which shows in details how blender can be used for video editing.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjyuVPBuorqIhlqZtoIvnAVQ3x18sNev4
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I recently switched from Blender to Shotcut. Before blender I had been using openshot and kdenlive, but found both to be a bit too unstable. Blender works really well, but it’s a mammoth piece of software and took a lot of work to figure out. Seemed overkill for my uses (cutting and editing vlog video for YouTube). So far Shotcut is doing everything I want in a NLE. For simpler things, I still use avidemux or ffmpeg. I particularly prefer ffmpeg to reduce file sizes, change encoding, change frame rate, or to make video from a series of images.
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Doing my first tries in video so I’ll save this reply for later! Thanks! 
If you need something very very simple you can try Movie Maker by Microsoft. It’s free but not open source.
kdenlive has been working fine for me, fairly simple to get the desired results so far, but I’m not doing anything overly complex.
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I appreciate all of the responses! Can we try to remember to keep it focused on Free/Open options, though?
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@Isaac sometimes Kdenlive can be unstable due to distro packaging issues, specially due to older MLT versions.
Here you can find recommended ways to install Kdenlive the correct way:
Let me know if you need any help.
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Thanks @frd. I should have also mentioned that one of the other reasons I stopped using kdenlive is that I made a choice a few years back to not use any kde based tools in an effort to keep my installation minimal. I use xubuntu, and have a fairly old laptop with small RAM that I use at home that really benefits from a small and light desktop. Shotcut works well for me as if now, so I’m happy with it for the time being.
I see, there is a snap version of Kdenlive if you don’t wanna go through all the KDE dependencies. Shotcut is a great tool but not for me yet. Also have you given Flowblade a try? It is under active development, GTK based and uses MLT (just like Shotcut and Kdenlive).
There is a kdenlive AppImage, the most minimal of installs!
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Taking this a bit further:
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To add to the list, iina (0.5) , a GUI for mpv player (0.24.0).
Mpv by itself is a fascinating, ever powerfull and vast universe to explore, iina just makes it a bit easier for those without the time. Personally I think they’re building a quite nice frontend, URL playback (through youtube-dl), playlist managing, direct acces to vid and audio EQ, crop, AR, speed, ext audio load, configurable keybindings, all important subtitles options and most common prog settings.
Anyway as a vid player is useful to any editor though it could be of interest, cheers 
Too bad it is for MacOS only…
There is at least one GUI for MPV for Linux as well.
I use smplayer with MPV.
Ha ha ha too bad, yes, those fruity basterds 
On the other hand you can run mpv (which is what i currently use) on all platforms =)
For reference to anyone interested and having in mind that some are for (my) real time editing needs, these are the (lua) scripts I have installed. Some are slightly modified and others older versions. Bold is for can’t live without you baby
- /// 8.0K auto-profiles.lua.zip /// still working it out
- 8.0K autoload.lua
- 8.0K autosub.lua (uses subliminal)
- 8.0K change-OSD-media-title.lua
- 8.0K cycle-video-rotate.lua
- ~8.0K delogo.lua~ // what are you doing here, get out!!!
- 8.0K drag-to-pan.lua.zip – activated only when needed {ø}
- 8.0K easycrop.lua.zip – different uses from crop, ø
- 8.0K encode.lua.zip – ø
- 8.0K drc-control.lua
- 8.0K equalizer.lua
- 8.0K EXCPT.zip – this is excerpt.lua, ø
- 8.0K fpsadjust.lua
- 8.0K navigator.lua
- 8.0K ontop-playback.lua
- 8.0K progress.zip – this is progressbar.lua, ø
- 8.0K reload.lua
- 8.0K slicing.lua.zip – different capabilities from excerpt, used to extract in/out marked sections
- 8.0K stats.lua
- 16K crop.lua
- 16K playlistmanager.lua – with navigator gives mpv playlist like basic interface
MPV USER SCRIPTS
User Scripts · mpv-player/mpv Wiki · GitHub - Some of the user’s scripts are OS “endemic”
Playing a video from youtube is as simple as mpv “https://youtu.be/sTTKUvWsuFo”
You can play only the audio if you wish and since this version (experimental) you can even record whatever you stream. I really enjoy the DRC (dynamic range control) script and the binaural af=lavfi=[bs2b=profile=jmeier] option as I can hear audio spacially loud on my AKGs donuts 
Now boring screengrabs to annoy everybody 
standard pseudo-gui (change-OSD-media-title => dropped frames apppear after the played %)
EQ
Stats (can be permanent or momentaneous); as this stream had no audio, no audio stats
With progressbar script
With progressbar script FS (added botton canvas)
UNREAL WISHTITS, i mean LIST
Scopes
Esay LUTs loading
Metadata parsing without reencoding
I am wondering why people love mpv. Is it any better than VLC or QtAV?
I’ve never tried QtAV but mpv has better-feeling seeking than VLC.