Best Video Hosting Sites in 2024: Includes Both Free and Paid Options

92% of the digital population watch online videos. And 91% of the businesses worldwide use videos for marketing, training, branding, and so many other things. So, in 2024, video is one of the most crucial weapons for faster business growth. 

Whether it’s an eLearning business or an MNC trying to market its products and services, videos have helped them all. But how do you ensure smooth video experiences for your viewers? How to store, manage and distribute videos efficiently, so that they can reach people living in any part of the globe without buffering? 

This is where a good cloud video hosting site can help businesses! They store your videos on the cloud, encode and transcode them, and distribute them via CDN across the globe. 

And if you are using one of the top video hosting platforms, they will even encrypt your content using multi-DRM keys, so that your videos remain protected from piracy.  

But there are just too many video hosting options available nowadays, that it is difficult to choose from. That is why, our in-house video hosting experts have taken an unbiased approach in reviewing the top paid and free video hosting sites. 

In this blog, we will tell you about the best video hosting sites that came out on top at the end of this review. But before that, let’s understand video hosting a bit more!

What is Video Hosting?

Video hosting basically refers to the online storage and delivery of your video content. 

There is a misconception that video hosting platforms are only involved in storage of videos. But in reality, video hosting involves two things:

• Storage: This is the most prominent function. The video files are stored on servers that are specifically designed to handle large amounts of data and stream content efficiently.
• Delivery: When a user wants to watch a video, the hosting platform distributes and delivers the content to their device.

Video hosting is performed by video hosting sites or platforms. Some of the key features of the best video hosting sites include:

• Scalability: They can handle large volumes of traffic and storage, ensuring that the videos keep  playing smoothly even with peak traffic. 
• Accessibility: Anyone can access the videos from anywhere with an internet connection.
• Embedding: You can easily embed these videos into your websites or blogs. 
• Analytics: Video hosting sites and platforms often provide analytics tools that track viewership, engagement, and other metrics. It helps you understand your audience better.

Can You Host Videos For Free? 

Yes, ofcourse! There are many free video hosting sites. YouTube being one of the most prominent ones. Dailymotion also offers free video hosting. 

These free hosting sites let you store your videos over the cloud for free, and your viewers can watch the videos anytime they want. 

But are they good enough for business use? That’s the question you need to think about. Free video hosting sites have their own pros and cons. Let’s have a look at them. 

Pros of Free Video Hosting 

• The biggest benefit is that obviously it’s free. So you don’t need to pay anything. It helps you manage your budget better. 
• Most of these free hosting sites are also public platforms, for example YouTube. So you gain access to a huge audience base. 

But they also have a long list of Cons. 

Cons of Free Video Hosting

• They are not secured. Since they are public platforms, anyone can access these videos. And they can even record them, make smaller video clips out of them, and distribute them wherever and however they want. 
• They are not private. If you host your internal product training videos over YouTube and expect that only your employees can access them, that’s never gonna happen! Anyone can access these videos. 
• They offer limited customization options. You can’t customize your video player to add logos automatically. You can’t add your other brand identities. 
• They offer limited customer support. Most of these free video hosting sites will put up a support page on the Internet. But when you need real help, and can’t find the solution in their support doc, they won’t offer any additional support to solve your issue.

Why Do You Need Paid Enterprise-Grade Video Hosting Sites? 

You might be thinking, you can do nice video distribution with a self-created server. Or at least use a free video hosting site like YouTube. So why would you pay for video hosting? 

Well, there are considerable reasons why you should NEVER self-host professional videos. Or never use a free video hosting site either. 

If you go for self-hosting, you might face multiple issues like limitations on your server’s bandwidth. You will face issues storing large video files due to lack of encoding. 

But the biggest threat will be privacy and security. The hackers can steal your data and sell it to video pirates. Also, anyone can access and copy your content due to lack of DRM.

Multi-DRM encryption is essential for the overall security of online video content. However, it will be extremely difficult to implement multi-DRM on your self-created video hosting server. Also, most of the free hosting sites do not offer multi-DRM encryption. 

Also, you would need a CDN in the first place, otherwise, your videos will be slower for viewers watching from the other side of the globe. 

Hence, to avoid all such complications, choosing a professional secure video hosting site is the best way out.  

Benefits of Paid Enterprise Video Hosting

Enterprise-grade paid video hosting sites offer built-in multi-DRM and CDN to ensure secure and buffer-free delivery of your videos. You can also customize their player to add your own logo and other brand identities. 

You can easily embed your videos in all your websites and apps. You can even insert ads to monetize your videos. Most importantly, you can share your videos privately only with your employees and internal teams if you intend to do so. 

12 Best Video Hosting Sites in 2024 – Free, Freemium, & Paid

It’s now time to walk you through our list of top 12 video hosting sites in 2024, handpicked by our experts! This list includes, free, freemium, as well as paid video hosting options. 

1. Muvi Flex – Paid with Free Trial

We are proud to say that Muvi Flex is one of the best and most secure paid video hosting sites out there in the market. Its signature of quality lies in its comprehensive features and all-round performance. 

You get high-quality video hosting with built-in encoding and support for up to 4K video quality. Built-in CDN ensures extremely low latency. Your own branded HTML5 video player and advanced user analytics help make your bond with your viewers even stronger. 

And most importantly, multi-DRM, geo-blocking, anti-screengrab, and forensic watermarking ensure comprehensive security for your videos. 

Features

Muvi Flex is packed with best-in-the-industry features that cover everything from video CMS to content security and monetization. Here is the list of its top features:

• Video / Audio CMS
• Social Media Sharing
• Video Players for multiple OS environments
• Multiple Video Streaming Formats
• Geo-Blocking
• MRSS Feeds
• Built-in CDN
• Bulk Upload
• Subtitles
• Playlists with HLS Output
• Built-in Multi-DRM Security

Pros

• This platform is packed with all the latest and trending features, which makes it one of the most feature-rich video hosting sites.  
• You get a FREE Trial period of 14 days, and you do not have to enter your credit card details to avail of it. 
• Muvi Flex has its own WordPress Plugin that makes embedding videos over websites even easier. 

Cons

Enterprise plan is a bit costly. 

Pricing

• Their Standard plan costs US$ 199 per month.
• For their Professional plan, you will pay US$ 899 per month. 
• Their Enterprise plan, which is their most expensive plan, will cost you US$ 2899 per month. 

2. Vimeo – Paid

Vimeo has been in the video hosting industry for years now. They host high-quality videos, and support 4K, 8K HDR, and Dolby Vision. They have a no-ad policy, so ads will never be placed on your videos. Your brand logo and brand colors will be used on your videos so that your viewers can associate them with your brand. 

Features

Vimeo majorly focuses on video quality, player, and analytics. Here are its top features:

• Security and Permissions Control
• Update Your Live Videos Without Changing URLs
• Video Analytics
• HTML5 Video Player
• SEO Optimization

Pros

• It is a highly scalable and reliable platform.
• It is a good choice if you want to host 8K videos.  

Cons

• If you want ad-based monetization, this is simply not your platform. 
• They can do better in terms of security features. 
• The lower plan is limited to 60 videos.

Pricing

• Their Starter plan starts at US$ 20 per seat per month. 
• Their Standard plan starts at US$ 33 per seat per month.
• Their Advanced plan started at US$ 108 per seat per month. 

3. Wistia – Paid

Wistia is a paid video hosting site that offers ad-free video hosting. They make sure that your videos will not have any ads or video recommendations. They offer adaptive streaming and support multiple bitrates including 4K. 

Features

Wistia offers built-in content delivery network and secure video hosting. Here are its key features:

• CDN
• Embed Videos
• SEO-friendly videos
• Secured hosting

Pros 

• The platform focuses on fast video delivery and instant playback. 
• The consumers will enjoy buffer-free streaming at any internet speed. 

Cons

• Not too many features. 
• If you want to insert ads, this video hosting platform is not for you. 

Pricing

• The Plus plan will cost you US$ 24 per month. 
• The Pro plan will be offered at US$ 99 per month. 
• The Advanced plan will cost you US$ 399 per month. 

4. Vidyard – Freemium 

Vidyard is a Canadian video hosting platform that lets you create and distribute videos. Its main objective is to help you gain leads from your videos. That is why it offers very detailed analytics that help you analyze the performance of your videos. However, you cannot insert ads into your videos, and hence cannot generate direct revenues. 

Features

Vidyard offers premium video hosting with ad-free viewing. Here are some of it’s key features:

• Ad-free video hosting
• Uploader widget
• Up to 4K streaming quality
• Viewer’s analytics
• Vidyard Rooms

Formats Supported

• MP4
• WEBM
• MKV
• MOV

Pros 

• You can generate new videos using Vidyard, which is an added advantage. 
• You can upload external videos too, and customize them as per your needs. 
• You can even embed your videos into emails. 

Cons

• Limited support for video file formats is their biggest disadvantage. 
• They won’t inform you of new features properly. 
• They can also do better in onboarding. 
• Integrations are limited. 

Pricing

Apart from the free plan, Vidyard also offers the following advanced plans:

• Its Pro plan starts at US$ 29 per month.
• You need to pay US$ 89 for its Plus plan. 

5. YouTube – Free Video Hosting

YouTube was launched way back in 2005, as a simple online video hosting platform. But over the years, it has seen tremendous growth in both users and features, making it what it is today. 

With over 2 billion active users, YouTube reportedly sees over 500 hours of video content being uploaded every single minute. That is crazy! As a free video hosting site, it offers immense visibility to your videos with an amazingly large audience base. But it lacks privacy and customizations. 

Features

Key features of YouTube include:

• Multiple monetization options including add insertion and membership fees. 
• Easy video-sharing options.
• Easily insert videos into websites and apps.
• Complete ownership of the content. 
• Copyright infringement protection. 
• Multiple encoding profiles including HD and 4K.
• Quality real-time video analytics.
• Live streaming, VOD, and short videos are supported. 

Formats Supported

Pros 

• You can host videos for free, without compromising on the copyrights. 
• They support almost all video formats.
• They allow multiple video bitrates and Adaptive Bitrate Streaming, hence ensuring lower buffering for users with lower internet bandwidth. 

Cons

• Their monetization terms and conditions might be tricky, and you may have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for monetization. 
• Their algorithm keeps checking for copyrighted content. Though their algorithms are quite robust, still, they might still tell you to remove certain parts from your content that you might not have actually copied. 
• Once you get copyright strikes in a certain number of your videos, they might disallow you forever. 
• You cannot monetize any content that matches even a second of any other content available on YouTube. 
• No branding or customization is possible. 

6. Dacast – Paid

Dacast offers video hosting solutions using which you can host and live stream multiple videos at a time, create channels of video content, and embed them on your web pages. They also offer private video hosting services. 

Features

Dacast primarily focuses of the following features:

• Content Management System
• Private Video Hosting
• Live stream videos

Pros 

• Dacast is a multi-utility platform.
• They have been in this industry for years. 

Cons

The platform might seem a bit complicated for beginners. 

Pricing

• Their Started plan will cost you US$ 39 per month. 
• Their Event plan will cost you US$ 63 per month. 
• Their Scale plan will cost you US$ 165 per month. 

7. Kaltura – Paid

Kaltura is a cloud video hosting platform that specializes in educational video hosting. It offers very good security features, along with advanced video scheduling and editing capabilities. They offer webinar solutions too, along with cloud hosting. 

Features

Kaltura offers the following major features:

• Video Content Management
• Player APIs and SDKs
• LMS for Educational Videos and Live Classrooms
• Virtual Event Platform
• Online Community Portal

Pros 

• It is one of the best options for educational video hosting. 
• It offers LMS live capabilities to ease the online educational video hosting process.
• Offers very good security features.  

Cons

Its features might not be suitable for many other industries. 

Pricing

It offers varied pricing for varied industries and use cases. The lower-priced plans start from around US$ 19 per month. 

8. Facebook – Free Video Hosting

Facebook is a multi-purpose social media platform. But, it can be a very good option for free video hosting too! In fact, many social media influencers use it regularly to share their video content with their followers. 

Features

Some of the top features of Facebook include:

• Easy video sharing over social media. 
• Monetization is possible via ad insertion.
• Live streaming and VOD supported. 

Formats Supported

• MP4
• MPEG4
• MOV
• AVI
• FLV
• WMV
• MKV
• 3GPP

And many more…

Pros

• A massive reach helps target a large number of viewers. 
• It is of tremendous help to marketers looking for cheaper ways of social media marketing.  

Cons

• Videos often get compressed and hence their quality might suffer a bit. 
• Ads automatically get inserted into videos even if you don’t want them in your video. 

9. Dailymotion – Free 

Dailymotion is a video-sharing platform owned by French Technology company Vivendi. It might surprise you when we tell it, but it was among the first few platforms to support HD-quality videos. For the users, it is a bit like YouTube, as it allows the creators to create their own channels and then upload videos on their channels. 

Features

Dailymotion does not offer many advanced features. Its key features include:

• Activity Dashboard
• Audience Analytics
• Alerts and Notifications
• Audience Engagement Tools
• Ad Insertion

Formats Supported

• 3GP 
• AVI 
• DV 
• FLV 
• MOV 
• MP4 
• MPEG 
• WMV

Pros

• Advanced video hosting, sharing, and management.  
• Their extensive audience report helps you gain useful insights about your viewers. 
• The videos can be customized as per use.  

Cons

• The videos sometimes take too long to load. 
• Their customer support is lagging behind. 

10. SproutVideo – Paid

SproutVideo is a popular video hosting platform, particularly known for its user-friendly interface and robust customization options. 

It also offers a range of tools and services designed to help businesses, like custom playlists and lead capture analytics. 

Features

Here are some key features of SproutVideo:

• Customizable Player
• Analytics
• Video SEO
• Live Streaming
• Video Marketing Automation

Supported Video Formats

• MP4
• MOV
• WMV
• AVI
• FLV

Pros

• The platform is easy to navigate and use, even for those without technical expertise.
• It offers a comprehensive set of tools for video management, distribution, and analytics.
• It provides helpful assistance and troubleshooting.

Cons

The cheaper plans offer limited features and storage, making it suitable for smaller businesses or personal use.

Pricing

SproutVideo offers the following pricing plans:

• Its Seed plan starts at US$ 10 per month. 
• You need to pay US$ 35 for its Sprout plan. 
• Its Tree plan will cost you  US$ 75 per month. 
• Its Forest plan starts at US$ 295 per month. 

11. Vadoo.tv – Free

Vadoo.tv lets you upload videos, record videos, and manage and share video content with a few clicks. This solution is suitable for multiple industry verticals, including marketers, teachers, artists, and professionals. 

Features

Key features of Vadoo.tv include:

• Host, Manage, and Share full HD videos
• Videos can be delivered without any ads
• Customizable Video Player
• Video Chat Bubble
• Request Videos

Formats Supported

• AVI
• GIF
• M4V
• MP4
• MPG
• TikTok Video

Pros

• You get your own branded player with HD video quality. 
• Encryption and security features help ensure the safety of your content.  

Cons

• You get only 1 GB of storage in the FREE plan. 
• Also, the number of videos is restricted to 10 in the FREE plan. 

12. Spotlightr – Paid

Spotlightr is a secure video hosting platform specifically catering to course-based videos on WordPress and Kajabi. Basically, it allows you to embed a secured and branded video over your website, where your students enrolled in your courses can access and download them. 

Features

Spotlightr offers the following key features:

• Secure video hosting
• Customizable player
• Video embed option
• Performance analytics
• Video marketing tools

Supported Video Formats

• MP4
• MOV
• AVI
• WMV
• FLV
• WebM

Pros

• You can easily add your brand colors to the video player. 
• IT can easily integrate with multiple third-party tools. 

Cons

It is specifically designed for either educators or marketers. So, if you are not any one of them, then this platform is not for you!

Pricing

Spotlightr offers the following pricing plans:

• Its Light plan starts at US$ 13 per month. 
• You need to pay US$ 21 for its Plus plan. 
• Its Premium plan will cost you  US$ 55 per month. 
• Its Scale plan starts at US$ 163 per month. 

Comparing the Best Free Video Hosting Sites

When it comes to free video hosting, not much can be expected to be honest. But still, some of these sites are extremely popular. YouTube and Facebook have been in this business for years now. So, let’s compare the top free video hosting sites based on their video storage and quality features, to figure out the reason for their popularity.  

On analyzing the table given above, you will realize that most of these videos have limitations in one way or the other. For example, Facebook and Dailymotion support limited file size and video length. While Vidyard allows a limited number of videos in the free plan. 

To Sum Up

Free video hosting sites are good for beginners who are just trying out some video hosting. YouTube, Facebook, and Dailymotion are some of the best free video hosting sites. But if you are looking for professional video hosting platforms, you might have to choose from paid video hosting sites like Muvi Flex, Vimeo, and Wistia. 

Among the paid video hosting solutions, Muvi Flex is the most feature-rich and extensively secured video hosting solution. It is one of the best video hosting sites that offers high-quality video hosting with up to 4K video quality. You can upload videos in any format as Muvi Flex offers built-in encoding.

The videos get loaded faster without latency due to their extensive CDN network. Built-in multi-DRM architecture prevents any form of video piracy attempts. So, why wait? Sign up with Muvi Flex to start your 14-day free trial today!