What's the GIMP of video editing?

blender has by far the worst UI of all video editors and it's bloated as fuck and very prone to crashing

I've used it for years and never seen a single crash, I don't have a windows build though. The alternatives (libres) like kdenlive and openshot/shotcut all use the same MLT core library which is notorious for being unstable as fuck, either way you're SOL.

I think there was a CLI video editor that used MLT too.

i will concede that MLT is a piece of shit, but as a video editor, i find flowblade superior personally, especially with it's g'mic integration

Blender.
Blender will ultimately end up being the ultimate tool for 2D and 3D art, static of animated or realtime.

Blender is a good choice if you simply must use Linux, if not it's absolute crap

ffmpeg is more like the imagemagick of video recording. OBS is an appropriate analog for GIMP.

When was the last time you used blender? 2009?

it never crashes fgt blame your os