Is YouTube or a non-youtube website better to host your video in 2020? We’re breaking down our favorite video sites and hosting techniques to help you get your amazing footage out in front of the world.
If you don’t want to read this, you’re more than welcome to watch the video marketing minute we have posted above. In that video, we’ve shortened our take on hosting services down to just 3 minutes of information. Pretty incredible if you ask us.
THE CLASSIC VIDEO HOSTING OPTION: YOUTUBE
YouTube is undoubtedly the most popular of all the video sites, and for good reason. YouTube is fast, easy to use, has unlimited bandwidth, and offers easy embedding on your websites. YouTube also features a flawless mobile experience. That can’t be said for every platform out there.
YouTube also acts as a social network of a sort. So, if your product is social by nature, like a podcast or an instructional series, then YouTube is likely the service for you.
WANT VIDEO HOSTING WITH PROFESSIONAL FEATURES? TRY VIMEO
Vimeo is a video site that mirrors YouTube in many ways. It offers the same feature set that YouTube does with a more professional spin.
Unlike YouTube’s social focus, Vimeo is ad free and aimed at professionals. With small monthly payments, you gain in-video review tools to speed up your workflow and a built-in portfolio display option. You won’t have as much of a chance to have a video go viral in Vimeo as you would on YouTube, but you’re gaining a ton of practical functions.
Personally, we prefer to use Vimeo for our portfolio and video hosting. The interface is clean and we absolutely love the review options.
KEEP MOVING WITH DAILYMOTION
If you want to host your videos somewhere beside YouTube and Vimeo is too expensive, try DailyMotion. Daily Motion allows large videos (4GBs and 60 mins) to be uploaded and it operates as a social platform with monetization options much like YouTube does. With 112 million visitors a month, Daily Motion is no slouch.
Daily Motion also has less restrictive copyright policies than other video sites, so if you’re feeling risky, then DailyMotion is for you. (Please remember to get the rights to your music and footage. DailyMotion does not issue copyright strikes as frequently as YouTube does, but that’s not a free pass.)
IF YOU VALUE PRIVACY, TRY WISTIA
Do you require security from your video website above all else and you don’t have enough technical knowledge for cloud or local hosting?
Go to Wistia. One of the features that Wistia prides themselves on is the addition of extra security layers to prevent the download of their users’ videos. In addition to security, Wistia also offers several robust video customization options. You can start your account with three videos for free or pay a small price for more.
The Wistia video website service can be best thought of as a higher security Vimeo alternative.
FEELING TECHY? TRY MICROSOFT AZURE
We’re moving off of hosting specific sites now and onto the more manual side of things. Sometimes, YouTube and it’s alternatives just don’t offer what we’re looking for.
Using a cloud hosting service like Azure has many benefits. It scales with your business, has unlimited options for video upload and is more secure than Wistia. Additionally, because your video isn’t tied to any one site, it’s always secure and never at the risk of being taken down.
Azure takes things a step further as well. They allow you to store some files locally and some online, depending on your needs.
To make cloud hosting options work, you have to be willing to code or to hire someone to code for you. So, despite the advantages of Azure, cloud hosting isn’t for everyone.
WHAT’S BETTER THAN AMAZON? TRY AWS
Next we have AWS. AWS isn’t just a cloud storage service, it’s a full IT toolkit. If hosting video is just a bonus to your business, then this is your answer.
AWS’s huge suite of features does require your data to be stored in the cloud. In our book that means it loses some points to Azure. However, it’s email host services, web development focused features, and more make up for almost any drawbacks that cloud-only hosting might’ve caused. Using AWS instead of any of the other video websites is slightly easier than using Microsoft Azure as well.
Because your data is required to be simultaneously in one place and many places (i.e. the cloud and in the clouds many servers) then security is a cinch. AWS is far and away the most secure option that you can choose from out of the cloud hosting options, depending on how you set your privacy.
YOUTUBE WEBSITES AND CLOUD HOSTING AREN’T THE ANSWER? TRY LOCAL HOSTING.
What if you want your videos to be secure to the point of impregnable and to buffer blazingly fast?
Try local hosting. Local hosting isn’t the most techy task, but it does involve a decent amount of web knowledge. With this knowledge, you gain a couple things.
By creating your own pseudo video site, your video playback will be smoother. Because your video isn’t streaming, then the playback speed depends on the speed of your local hard drive. The faster the drive, the better your users experience will be.
You gain unlimited control over your site’s video player. Depending on how much technical knowledge you have, you can make your video player do anything you want it to do using code or plug ins. For many, this is an enticing benefit.
Finally, your video won’t be region locked by YouTube, Vimeo, or another cloud solution. If you’re a global company and you have the know how, local hosting might be your ideal solution.
Be aware that your hosting capabilities are directly tied to the hardware you can afford.
WHICH METHOD IS RIGHT FOR YOU?
Well, most of the time we expect you’ll be going for the big two – YouTube or Vimeo. Still, we believe it’s important that you know your options.
Whatever type of YouTube website you decide to host on, we encourage you to reach out to us! We’ll help you create the videos that you’ll be hosting in your shiny, new hosting solutions.