FixMyVideos vs Stellar Repair for Video

Stellar is one of the oldest names in data recovery — the company has been around for decades and its video-repair product has a wide review footprint. If you've shortlisted Stellar Repair for Video, here's how it compares to FixMyVideos, and the situations where Stellar is the better tool.

At a glance

Where each one is strong

Stellar is a mature desktop suite. Its higher tiers bundle photo repair and deleted-media recovery, it runs offline on both Windows and Mac, and it handles a broad set of containers up to very high resolutions. If you regularly repair media and want one installed application that covers photos and video together, that bundle is a genuine advantage.

What Stellar's own materials and third-party reviews are consistent about: the free trial only previews a fraction of the file and won't let you export without buying first, the Advanced Repair mode wants a reference sample from the same device, and like most container-repair tools it can struggle when the damage reaches the raw frame data rather than just the index.

FixMyVideos is narrower on purpose. We don't repair photos and we don't recover deleted files — we rebuild corrupted video containers, and we let you confirm the result with a real preview before any money changes hands.

The free-trial difference

This is the part that trips people up. With Stellar's demo you can scan a file and watch a short preview, but to actually save the repaired video you buy a license first — so you're committing money before you have a finished file in hand.

FixMyVideos inverts that. The diagnostic and a 5-second preview of the recovered footage are free; you pay (€5–€29 by size) only after you've seen that the recovery worked. If we can't produce a usable preview, you're not charged.

When Stellar Repair for Video is the better choice

• You want a desktop app you install once and run offline, without uploading footage.
• You need to repair photos as well as video, or recover deleted media (Stellar's Premium tier).
• You repair files regularly and a yearly license is cheaper than per-file pricing over time.
• You're already inside Stellar's ecosystem from its disk-recovery tools.

When FixMyVideos is the better choice

• You have one or a few broken videos and don't want to buy a yearly license.
• The corruption is structural — truncated recording, missing/empty MOOV, card removed mid-write.
• You want to see the recovered footage before paying.
• Your file is large (4 GB–50 GB) or you're on a machine where you'd rather not install software.
• You don't have a reference clip from the same camera and settings.

What you do

1. Upload your corrupted file. In the browser, up to 50 GB.
2. About a minute later you get a free 5-second preview of the recovered video.
3. If it looks right, pay and download. If not, adjust settings or escalate to manual review. No charge until you have a working preview.

FAQ

Is Stellar Repair for Video free? No — the demo previews part of the file but you need a paid license to save the repaired video. The genuinely free routes are command-line tools (FFmpeg, untrunc). FixMyVideos charges per file, but the diagnostic and preview are free and you only pay if the recovery is shown to work.

Does FixMyVideos need a reference / sample file like Stellar's Advanced Repair? No. We read codec parameters from the first valid frame in your file. A reference clip is optional and only helps for a few formats such as R3D and BRAW.

Stellar couldn't fix my file — will FixMyVideos? It depends on whether the damage is in the container or in the raw frames. If the frames are intact and only the index is broken, a structural rebuild has a strong chance. The free preview tells you within about a minute, before you pay.

Do you repair photos or recover deleted files like Stellar? No. We focus only on corrupted video containers. If you need photo repair or deleted-media recovery, Stellar's higher tiers are built for that.

Is my footage safe if I upload it? Files go to an EU server, are auto-deleted within 48 hours, and are never shared or used to train any model. Privacy policy.

Related

• FixMyVideos vs Wondershare Repairit
• FixMyVideos vs FFmpeg & Shutter Encoder
• How our recovery engine works

Upload your file for a free preview →