The market for video content has grown exponentially over the past two years. Education to entertainment- people are watching video content more than ever, and thanks to that, streaming businesses are seeing a rise in their business graphs. As stated in a recent report by Statista, the global video streaming market is expected to reach US $115.920 billion by 2026 while the revenue in this industry is expected to grow at 10.35% CAGR during 2021 to 2026. No wonder that more people are opting for video streaming business to utilize the growth scope. Owing to this, there is a surging demand for competent video hosting platforms. While there are plenty of options to host your videos, it can be quite confusing at times.
There are many factors that determine which video hosting platform can be a good fit for your video streaming business. In this blog we have listed out the best video hosting platforms in 2021. Let’s have a look!
Why Do You Need Video Hosting?
Accessible To Your Targeted Audience
Video hosting platforms provide a centralized location for storing and distributing video content. This ensures that your videos are easily accessible to your target audience regardless of their location or device.
Complete Customization
Video hosting services like Muvi Flex offer options for customizing the appearance of your video player to align with your brand identity. This helps in maintaining brand consistency across all your digital platforms.
Analytics and Insights
These platforms often come with robust analytics tools that provide valuable insights into viewer engagement metrics such as views, watch time, and audience demographics. These insights help you understand your audience better and tailor your content accordingly.
Monetization
For businesses and media distributors looking to monetize their video content, video hosting platforms often offer various monetization options such as ad integration, subscription models, pay-per-view, or sponsorship opportunities.
Security
Video hosting platforms typically provide security features such as password protection, domain restrictions, and content encryption to safeguard your videos from unauthorized access or piracy. This helps protect your intellectual property rights and ensures that your content is distributed securely.
Streaming Optimization
Video hosting platforms optimize video streaming to deliver high-quality playback with minimal buffering, ensuring a seamless viewing experience for your audience regardless of their internet connection speed.
Pros and Cons of Free Video Hosting Platforms
Pros
- The primary advantage of free video hosting platforms is that they don’t require any upfront payment. This makes them ideal for individuals or businesses with limited budgets.
- Popular free video hosting platforms have large user bases, which can increase the visibility of your videos and help you reach a broader audience.
- Many free video hosting platforms provide basic analytics tools.
Cons
- Free video hosting platforms may not offer robust security measures compared to paid options. This could make your videos more vulnerable to hacking, unauthorized access, or other security breaches.
- Free video hosting platforms often have limited customization options. This means you may not be able to fully brand your video player or customize the viewing experience to match your website or brand aesthetic.
- Free video hosting platforms typically provide a standard video player with limited customization capabilities. This can restrict your ability to tailor the video player to match your branding or optimize it for user experience.
- Free platforms may offer basic analytics tools, but they may not provide the detailed insights you need to understand your audience’s behavior and optimize your video strategy effectively.
- Free video hosting platforms often have limitations on monetization options. This could include restrictions on displaying ads, limited access to revenue-sharing programs, or a lack of support for subscription-based models.
The Best Video Hosting Platforms in 2021- A Complete List
Muvi Flex is an all-in-one video hosting solution by Muvi that lets you upload, distribute, and manage videos. What’s more? It also lets you build responsive video solutions on your apps/websites as a part of the offering. Beginners to corporate houses, Muvi Flex provides offerings for every stage. This video hosting platform comes with comprehensible solutions accommodating your business requirements at every step.
Features
- Various video streaming formats
- Geo-blocking
- Bulk-upload
- Built-in CDN
- Video Content Management System
- Encoding and Transcoding
- Subtitles
- Playlist with HLS Output
- Built-in Multi-DRM Security
- Analytics & Reports
Pros
- Built-in CDN with 225 points of presence across the world for lag-free global delivery of your video content
- Auto transcoding with video quality optimization
- Optimum compatibility across devices
- MRSS that allows you to publish your videos on multiple third party websites
- Seamless social media integration for all major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn etc. so that you can target all the users of these platforms
- Developer friendly and offers massive-scale transcoding
- Built-in multi-DRM security that includes robust protection solutions like forensic watermarking, protection against screen recording, offline viewing protection etc.
- Analytics & reports to analyze your video content performance
- Better control over ads
Cons
- You need to manage everything from the CMS (Content Management System). However, it’s user-friendly and doesn’t need much technical knowhow.
Pricing
- Standard – US $199 /month – Unlimited Content, Unlimited Views
- Professional – US $899/month – Standard + Alie Recommendation Engine, Other Premium Features
- Enterprise – US $2899/month – Professional + Dedicated Server + Enterprise Support
YouTube is the most popular free video streaming platform with more than 2 billion logged in users. However, it is not really the best option for hosting your videos, especially if you want to do justice to your hard work and really want to build a streaming business. Let’s look at both, the positive and negative sides of hosting your videos on YouTube.
Features
- Video Hosting and Streaming
- User-generated Content
- Monetization
- Content Discovery
- Engagement and Interaction
Pros
- Large audience base
- Unlimited cloud storage at free of cost
Cons
- Significant copyright issues every now and then
- No control on the ads played
- A lot of rules and regulations to monetize your content
- Takes a long time before you can actually start earning
- Very less profit compared to the hard work put on your content
Pricing
YouTube is free and you can host, store, and manage videos for completely free!
Dailymotion is another well-known video hosting platform that has more than 300 million monthly users. Dailymotion is available worldwide in 183 languages and 43 localized versions.
Features
- Video Hosting and Streaming
- User-Generated Content
- Content Diversity
- Monetization
- Content Discovery
Pros
- Free video hosting
- Password protected and private video hosting options
- Can easily upload and manage videos
Cons
- File size limit is smaller than other platforms
- No control over the ads played
- Less competitive advantages
- Smaller audience base compared to YouTube
Pricing
- STARTER – 12,000
- PRO – 120,000
Also Read: How to Choose the Right Video Hosting Platform?
SproutVideo is a video hosting platform that provides multiple solutions such as video landing pages, video marketing suites and others. While SproutVideo offers various pricing plans, this video hosting platform is basically designed for businesses and may not be that suitable for individuals.
Features
- Customizable Video Players
- Security and Privacy
- Analytics and Insights
- Video Monetization
- Video SEO
Pros
- Live videos and broadcast sharing in customizable player
- In-built solution to capture leads and boost campaign performance
- Password & login protection
- Analytics & insights
Cons
- Limited features
- May require technical knowledge/experience to understand the additional features
Pricing
- Seed – $10 / month – Master any video strategy with a powerful suite of core features, for solo entrepreneur to enterprise C-suite.
- Sprout – $35 / month – Flexible security options for your content with restricted viewer login protection, and a customizable video website.
- Tree – $75 / month – Ideal for teams. Account activity log. Deter screen recording with watermarks. Advanced video site options.
This video hosting platform is designed for diverse businesses- SMBs to enterprises. While they provide additional services like video marketing, knowledge sharing and sales, they also have both pros and cons-
Features
- Ease of Use
- Customization Options
- Security and Privacy
- Adaptive Streaming
- Analytics and Insights
Pros
- Additional marketing tools
- Provides the option of gated content
- Performance tracking & analytical reports
- Various pricing plans starting from Startup to Agency/Enterprise
Cons
- Most of the tools, especially the additional ones are not so easy to understand and use
- Lesser competitive advantages and not so feature-packed compared to the other hosting solutions
Pricing
- Plus – $25 per month – Start your multimedia hosting journey with all the essential tools.
- Corporate – $99 per month – Boost your engagement with Interactive on-video features.
- Enterprise – $350 per month – unlimited – Accelerate your growth with advanced security and unlimited integrations.
Vidyard’s video hosting platform is mainly designed for virtual selling and provides related solutions such as easy video upload, sharing and management. \
Features
- Video Hosting and Management
- Integration
- Video Security
- Video Sharing
- Live Streaming
Pros
- Offers both single user and higher tier plans
- Unlimited upload
- No bandwidth cap
- Offers a fully customized video player
Cons
- Many tools in the premium package are not so self-explanatory or not easy to understand
- The interface organization is quite confusing
Pricing
- Free – $0 – The easiest way to start recording and sharing amazing videos.
- Pro – $19 USD/Billed annually at $228 or monthly at $29 – Level up your sales game with unlimited videos, and viewer insights.
- Plus – $59 Per person/USD/Billed annually at $708 or monthly at $89 – Improve performance with advanced features for your whole team.
- Business – Talk to Sales – Enhance your video strategy with integrations, advanced security and workflows.
Designed for businesses, educators, coaches, and marketers, Spotlightr is a video hosting suite that comes with a set of features for each of its solutions. Its free and polaris pricing plans can be a good option to get started with for small businesses. However, it also has both advantages and disadvantages.
Features
- Interactive Videos
- Customization
- Lead Generation
- Analytics and Insights
Pros
- Unlimited videos option for the paid plan
- Offers cloud and hybrid video hosting
- Best video player customization options
- Offers marketing tools
Cons
- Not a good option for the growing businesses
- Not so flexible/user friendly to edit and manage videos on this platform
- Steeper learning curve yet not so feature-rich
- Complex support documents
Pricing
- Spark – $7/month
- Aurora – $16/month
- Polaris – $40/month
- Supernova m – $125/month
Wrapping Up
When it comes to choosing a video hosting platform, there are plenty of options that you will come across. While many of them seem to be a good fit for your business, there are actually a few that can provide you with an all-in-one solution beyond just hosting your videos.
Muvi Flex, the enterprise-grade video hosting software, lets you easily host, play, stream and monetize your videos. Furthermore, it comes with unlimited exclusive feature-rich solutions starting from video advertising to multi-DRM security to optimize your streaming business potential as well as the customer experience.
Take a 14-day free trial today to learn better (no credit card needed)!
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