There is one version of Media Composer, which can be used as standalone software, or to which the user can add specific external Avid accelerators. The Avid Newscutter, aimed at newsrooms, Avid Symphony, aimed at finishing, are all Avid products that were derived from Media Composer and share similar interfacing, as were Avid Xpress Pro (discontinued in 2008) and its predecessor Avid Xpress DV, which were aimed at the lower end of the market.

Since the early 1990s, Media Composer has been the dominant non-linear editing system in the film and television industry, first on Mac and then also on Windows. Since that time, the application features have increased to allow for film editing, uncompressed standard definition (SD) video and high definition (HD) editing and finishing. It was released in 1989 on the Macintosh II as an offline editing system. It is the flagship product of Avid Technology. Media Composer, frequently referred to as 'Avid', is a type of computer software application known as a Non-linear editing system (NLE).

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