From customizable video players that match your business’ brand to analytics powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, there are a number of ever-evolving video hosting services out there.
So which one should you choose?
Here are the 15 best video hosting services available in 2020, ordered from lowest to highest in price (click to jump):
1. YouTube
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, with more than one billion hours of video watched daily. Free unlimited video hosting services.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: individual users, all businesses except large eCommerce businesses
Pros: cost, good for search engine discoverability, low latency across the globe
Cons: little-to-no customer support, non-customizable video player
2. Vimeo
Vimeo was the first to support high-definition video back in 2007, and they now offer video hosting services, sharing, and streaming video hosting in not just HD but 4K as well. Starts at free.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: small-midsize businesses, individuals
Pros: cost, ad-free, easy to control access for location-specific targeting, collaboration tools for team-editing
Cons: limited video player customizations available
3. Wistia
Wistia provides software for creating, managing, and sharing videos for business. With a highly-customizable video player, detailed analytics, and a free video creation tool, Wistia is one of the best video hosting services for business, and is used by more than 500,000 businesses worldwide. Starts at free.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: small-medium businesses
Pros: cost, easy to use, good-looking and fully-customizable video player, detailed analytics, fast-evolving product, you can video thumbnails and calls-to-actions, integrations with a wide variety of partners.
Cons: Not ideal for social-sharing, pricing changes frequently
4. JWplayer
JWplayer offers a powerful video player used for embedding videos into web pages. It’s used by many news organizations and for self-hosted web videos. Starts at free.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: medium-large businesses
Pros: cost, easy to embed and customize, player stays up-to date with latest video technologies
Cons: video hosting service not included (need to host on your own servers), little-to-no customer support
5. Swarmify
Swarmify is video hosting service that aims to eliminate traffic leaking back to YouTube, reduce bounce rates, and keep visitor attention on your brand. Starts at free.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: eCommerce businesses
Pros: cost, fast-loading player, video hosting service provided to all customers, prevents ads, unlimited bandwidth, helpful customer support
Cons: set up can be tricky (requires some basic coding)
6. Hippovideo
Hippovideo enables you to host videos, customize a HTML 5 player, generate leads, close sales, support using videos, record video testimonials and more. Starts at free.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: small-midsize businesses, individual users
Pros: cost, easy-to-use, ability to create videos inside the platform, good customer support, native social sharing, Google Chrome extension offered
Cons: can be buggy software, limited customization options, requires internet access to use
7. VideoLan VLC
VideoLan’s VLC is a free and open-source video player that plays most multimedia files and various streaming protocols. Starts at free.
Analytics: No
Best for: individual users
Pros: cost, easy-to-use, supports many types of video formats
Cons: basic appearance (not easy to customize), video hosting not offered
8. DaCast
DaCast is a video hosting service for business, with a focus on live video streaming. The platform includes video players, paywall integration and on demand video. Starts at $19/month.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: small-midsize companies looking to offer both live and on demand video content
Pros: good customer service, easy setup, simple user dashboard, reasonably priced for professional broadcasting
Cons: sometimes has speed issues, multiple currencies not supported, complex workflow for large video files, not an all-in-one solution for live streaming
9. SproutVideo
SproutVideo is a video hosting and sharing platform that includes video players in their service. Starts at $59.99/month.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: all businesses, individual users
Pros: cost, good SEO and marketing integrations, supports most common video formats, user friendly, plenty of online tutorials
Cons: not built to handle longer videos and larger files
10. Uscreen
Uscreen is an online video service that allows customers to offer their own Netflix-like experience. Starts at $99/month.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: midsize businesses looking to monetize online video content
Pros: good customer service, end-to-end video streaming platform, no coding required
Cons: sometimes has stability issues, limited templates to choose from, difficult to integrate with marketing platforms
11. Brightcove
Brightcove is online video hosting service for business, that offers video players, live streaming and more. Starts at $199/month.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: medium-large businesses
Pros: good for native social sharing (YouTube, Twitter, etc), good for protected sharing
Cons: video playback can be slow, searching for your videos can be difficult, little-to-no customer support
12. Muvi
Muvi is an online video platform that allows content owners to launch Audio/Video streaming platforms and offer them globally. Starts at $199/month.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: small-midsize businesses looking to monetize online video content
Pros: good customer service, end-to-end video streaming platform, no coding required
Cons: sometimes has stability issues, limited templates to choose from, difficult to integrate with marketing platforms
13. Vzaar
Vzaar is a video hosting service for business. With a focus on publishing and eLearning businesses, the company provides video players, video hosting, analytics and more. Starts at $209/month.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: eLearning businesses, online video newbies
Pros: great customer support, stable and fast platform
Cons: software user experience can be difficult to understand, limited player customizations available
14. Vidyard
Vidyard is another online video platform that offers video players, video hosting services and analytics. Average monthly cost is $1,500.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: small-midsized businesses
Pros: stable platform, good option for companies looking to host videos but is not comfortable using Vimeo or YouTube, nice discount for education-related companies
Cons: little-to-no customer support, difficult to learn for online video newbies
15. Kaltura
Kaltura’s video platform provides out-of-the-box video webcasting, lecture capture, video player and more. The company also provides Video-Platform-as-a-Service. Starts at $0.17/GB of video.
Analytics: Yes
Best for: medium-large businesses
Pros: stable platform, good option for companies looking to host videos but is not comfortable using Vimeo or YouTube, nice discount for education-related companies
Cons: little-to-no customer support, difficult to learn for online video newbies
Conclusion
Finding the best video hosting service for your business largely depends on your needs, technical abilities and resources available.
Check out our blog to learn more about video marketing, and to get a free consultation for your video project contact us here.
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