Individuals and businesses have different needs for video hosting. Based on whether the content is paid or free, the technologies and tools required for video hosting are further different.  In the following article, we take a list of the most popular options for online video hosting. We have tried to address the industry segment which these tools suit the most, Pros and Cons associated with them.

What Are Video Hosting Sites?

Video Hosting Sites are platforms that enable you to host your videos on your video platform. By using a video hosting site, you can easily upload videos and then embed them on your platform. These sites are widely used by eLearning, media, and other businesses to host their videos online. 

You also get several important features such as a customizable player, which allows you to brand on the player and decide what controls do you want to show. On top of it, you also get CDN which ensures that your users are able to access your content seamlessly regardless of their geographic location. Other important features can be video analytics, DRM protection among others. 

 Why Do You Need Video Hosting Sites?

Any video platform, you might have come across hosts their website on a video hosting service. They usually upload the videos on the video hosting servers and then embed them on their own platform. 

But then, you might be wondering why do they host it on another platform and not their own server?

The answer is simple, video files are large in size. Hosting them on your own server would end up slowing your website a lot. You would’ve come across a website with lots of images which takes forever to load. Now imagine this with several videos, a webpage would end up getting load forever. 

There are several other reasons why you should not to self-host videos and go for video hosting sites. 

Server and CDN setup, Scaling, Automation for streaming

When hosting videos on static web pages, each time the webpage loads the video is loaded as well. Handling 100s of users loading your video player each minute would require multiple cores of servers and Content Delivery Network implementation. The video hosting infrastructure should have the capacity to serve users at peak times when there are maximum users on the page.
It is a lot different doing these for static sites & video stuff. 

Protecting Videos from Download and Piracy

If you choose to self-host videos, you would most likely be providing a direct video URL from your video hosting server to the site. This can make your video vulnerable to download from a lot of free downloaders and plugins such as IDM and Download Helper. These plugins are widely available on the web, which leads to a loss of revenue from content owing to video piracy. 

Encoding for multiple devices & Bitrates

When self-hosting videos, you would need to transcode and encode your videos in several different quality and formats so that it can run on different devices. Encoding is again a server + CPU-intensive process. A different file is needed when viewing a video on a phone and when viewing the video on your PC or HD television. You would need to transcode videos for desktop, iOS, and Android separately. Also, encoding is required for different bitrates, so that your viewers can watch your videos across all devices smoothly and seamlessly. 

Video Player – Controls, Adaptive, Customization

Video.js is a JavaScript and CSS library that is used as an HTML5 video player. Using the Video.js library requires a great level of coding. For this reason it is recommended that you opt for a secure online video platform (OVP) over coding from scratch. Apart from the initial setup, additional customizations required are adding desired colors, themes, bitrates, sizes and adaptation to aspect ratio. This customization is required to allow video playback across multiple devices and browsers.

Costs of Large development team & Time to launch Video business

If you are willing to set up your own video infrastructure in-house, it is important that you look at the bottom line of costs and time of development. This includes spending on the development team, at which point you would need to understand the salary costs of developers. Besides, in-house development would take months to launch, in which period you would need to bring together a team for setting up the video infrastructure and understanding the hosting requirements. Besides the one-time setup costs, you would need a dedicated team to troubleshoot problems. \

Top 7 Video Hosting Sites in 2021

A summary table is included at the start with more details on each company following up after the table.

Company	Industries	Advantages	Disadvantages
Youtube	All segments	Free and good streaming experience without buffering.	Poor monetization & Easy piracy of content
Dailymotion	Free movies and entertainment	Free. Content restrictions are not strict	Streaming experience maybe not be the best. Poor monetization & Easy piracy .
VdoCipher	Paid videos – Courses or Movies/Media	Highest Security from video piracy via DRM encryption, Affordable Pricing & Easiest Integrations	Not recommended for free promotional videos. Good for premium content.
Vimeo	Free content – Movies, Marketing videos	Affordable and business friendly as compared to youtube	Easy piracy of content & not detailed customizations
Wistia	Free Content- Marketing & Product Videos	Analytics & CTA for marketing content	Easy piracy of content & price is expensive
Vidyard	Free Content – Marketing & Product Videos	Analytics & CTA for marketing content	Expensive price and piracy
Kaltura	Enterprise videos – Marketing & Media	Detailed enterprise solutions	Expensive & not easiest to start with.

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1. Youtube

Youtube is the most popular of all video hosting options.  Widely used for promotional videos and entertainment content, it is the foremost choice for new content creators. If piracy and earning direct revenues is not a major though for you, youtube is a free and scalable solution for a market outreach.

2. Dailymotion

Dailymotion started as a video hosting platform parallel to youtube but eventually lagged behind owing to the massive google’s scale and innovation in the video infrastructure. It is still one of the major platforms to promote your video content. Some of the content producers might find youtube content policies and restrictions too harsh, dailymotion is a good alternative for such video producers. 

3. Vdocipher

If you are a business owner who is looking to sell premium videos on website or app, say online courses or movies or web series or tutorials at a subscription or pay-per-view price , then VdoCipher is the ideal video hosting solution for you.  Main features are Hollywood grade DRM encryption security and user specific dynamic watermarking feature to prevent video download and screen-capture. These all features in tandem works wonder for video protection, ensuring that your video can not be pirated in any manner. Plans are affordable for all size of businesses, whether it is a small business or a large enterprise. 

4. Vimeo

Whether you are a business looking to host videos on your own site or an individual looking to promote content on a global platform, vimeo provides options for both. Its main advantages are decent level of customisability over youtube and affordable plans within reach of most of businesses. 

5. Wistia

Wistia has made a name in field of marketing and product videos owing to its detailed in-video analytics and CTA features. Though there are other providers doing the same but wistia has been longest in this field and provides good aesthetics. If you are looking to use videos as an option to convert customers on your site, wistia should be a good option.

But a user should keep in mind that wistia videos are non-secure as they are not DRM encrypted. So it is not a good solution for course and movie business looking to sell videos online;

6. Vidyard

Vidyard is similar to Wistia in features but more catered in solution and pricing to enterprises. It is not so affordable, but if you are looking to engage your clients with sales and marketing videos; you can have a look at Vidyard. 

7. Kaltura

Kaltura is the heavily funded VC video hosting startup providing multitude of solution to enterprises. It is not small-medium business friendly but offers an array of solutin for media , marketing and education businesses looking to monetize online videos. 

 

Free 30 Day full version trial for secure video hosting at VdoCipher.com 

Video Hosting FAQ Summary

What is the best video hosting site?

Top 7 video hosting sites including free and paid services are - Youtube, Vimeo, Wistia, VdoCipher, Dailymotion, Brightvideo, Kaltura. While Youtube and Vimeo are good for general video hosting, other services provide a more detailed and custom solutions for education, media, and marketing needs.

Where can I host my videos for free?

Youtube and Dailymotion are the popular free video hosting sites. Other companies like Vimeo, VdoCipher, Wistia also offer free video hosting but limited to a certain amount and period.

Where can I host videos besides YouTube?

Besides Youtube, you can host videos on Vimeo, Wistia, VdoCipher, Dailymotion, Brightvideo, Kaltura. While Youtube and Vimeo are good for general video hosting, other services provide a more detailed and custom solutions for education, media and marketing needs.

Where can I host videos securely which can not be downloaded ?

What is the most popular video sharing platform?

Youtube is the most popular video-sharing platform followed by likes of Tiktok, Whatsapp, Dailymotion. While youtube acts as a single platform that operates on web and app, Tiktok is an app-only video sharing platform.

What is the largest video sharing website?

Youtube is the most popular video-sharing platform followed by likes of Tiktok, Whatsapp, Dailymotion. While youtube acts as a single platform that operates on web and app, Tiktok is an app-only video sharing platform.

What video hosting servers should I use to serve videos ?

Popular top tier Servers to host and stream content include Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Akamai. You can also instead use video hosting platforms like Vimeo and VdoCipher which manage the hosting internally themselves using top tier servers.

What are good video hosting platforms for online courses?

Top video hosting platforms for online courses are - VdoCipher, Vimeo, Panopto, Kaltura, Wistia, Youtube and Brightcove. Each has a separate key advantage like video security from piracy, detailed analytics, custom enterprise solutions etc.