The 7 Best Video Hosting Solutions
Research shows that 91.4% of internet users watch video online each week and 84% of marketers report that video has helped generate leads. This makes it more important than ever for businesses to find and utilize the right tools for storing, organizing, and sharing video content.
Video hosting software tools are specifically designed to help you manage your video content, upload them to your site, and quickly distribute them online.
This article will explain the video hosting process, the best video hosting solutions on the market, and why you shouldn’t host your own video.
Choose Your Hosting Method
There are three ways to host video content, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.
1. On Your Own Web Server
If you host your own website, you can host your videos directly on your own server. The main advantage here is that you have complete control over your video content. Nobody can take it down without your permission, and you don’t have to worry about making sure you have full ownership.
If you host video on your own server, you’ll need to ensure that it has the power and bandwidth to support high-quality video. This is especially important if you plan on hosting live video or HD content.
You’ll also need to store your videos in a format that can be played by all major browsers, which means you’ll need to have the right codecs installed.
For most businesses, hosting video on their own servers is not a viable option. It’s simply too expensive and time-consuming to maintain the infrastructure needed to support high-quality video.
2. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
A CDN is a network of servers located around the world that deliver content to users based on their location. When you use a CDN to host video, your videos are stored on servers in multiple locations.
When a user tries to view one of your videos, the CDN will determine which server is closest to them and deliver the video from that location. This helps to improve the speed and quality of delivery.
CDNs are a great option for businesses that want to deliver high-quality video content to users around the world, but want to maintain total ownership of their video content. However, they can be expensive, especially if you need to store a lot of video data.
3. Third-Party Hosting Services
The third option is to use a third-party video hosting service. This approach is the best approach for the vast majority of businesses. It’s affordable, easy to set up, and can be used to host from just a couple videos to an entire library of them!
The main advantage of using a third-party service is that it takes the burden of hosting and streaming the video off of your own servers. This can save you a lot of money, especially if you have a large volume of traffic or videos.
Another advantage is that most third-party services come with built-in tools for things like player customization, video analytics, lead capture forms, and email capture.
Why You Shouldn’t Host Video on Your Own Site
There are a number of reasons why you shouldn’t host video on your own website, even if you have the capacity to do so.
The first is that investing in powerful servers and storage solutions can be very expensive, and you’ll need to pay for the bandwidth needed to stream video data. If you don’t have a large budget, this can be a major obstacle.
It’s also very time-consuming to manage videos on your own site. You’ll need to encode and upload videos, and you’ll need to keep track of which videos are published where.
This can be a lot to keep track of, especially if you’re publishing new videos on a regular basis.
Finally, hosting video on your own site can put a strain on your server resources. If you have a lot of traffic or videos, it can slow down your website and cause problems for your other visitors.
For most businesses, it’s simply not worth the hassle to host video on their own site. It’s much easier and cheaper to use a third-party service.
The Best Video Hosting Solutions
Now that we’ve explained the basics of video hosting and why you shouldn’t host video on your own site, let’s take a look at the best video hosting solutions for businesses in 2022.
Youtube
YouTube is a good option for businesses that just want to embed videos on their website’s pages. It’s very easy to set up an account, upload and manage video content, and embed the player.
YouTube is also a great option for businesses that want to reach a large audience with their videos. It’s also a good option for businesses that want to generate revenue from their videos, as YouTube offers a partner program that allows you to run ads on your videos.
The main drawback is that it lacks the customization, interactiveness, and on-page analytics of other video players. If you want to insert custom call-to-actions, or a custom color, you’ll have to look at the other options.
Wistia
Wistia is a marketing and video hosting platform that’s designed specifically for businesses. It offers a variety of features that are geared towards helping businesses use video effectively, such as player customization, video analytics, lead capture forms, and email capture.
Wistia is a great option for businesses that are interested in an all-in-one platform for producing high-quality videos and tracking viewer engagement. It’s also a good option for businesses that want more control over who can view their videos and how they can be shared.
The downside of Wistia is that it’s a bit more expensive than other video hosting platforms. It also doesn’t offer as many features for video creators, such as video editing and live streaming.
Brightcove
Brightcove is a scalable video hosting and marketing platform for businesses that want to use video for marketing purposes. It offers features like lead capture forms, and email capture. It also lets you monetize your video content.
Brightcove is best for businesses that need enterprise-friendly video content management tools. The downside of Brightcove is that its sophisticated tools can make it difficult to learn.
SproutVideo
SproutVideo is another robust video hosting platform that offers social sharing tools, forms for generating leads, and live streaming options.
Unlike Wistia and Brightcove, it has a broad range of pricing options that ensure businesses of any size can use the platform.
The downside of SproutVideo is that available storage is limited and the added functionality can be challenging for novice users to master.
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing platform that’s similar to YouTube, but it’s geared towards businesses and creative professionals. It offers features like password-protected videos and custom branding.
Vimeo is a great option for businesses that don’t want any ads or recommendations after their clips. The downside of Vimeo is that it’s not a very popular platform, so you may not reach as many people with your videos.
Dailymotion
Dailymotion is another video-sharing platform that’s similar to YouTube. It offers a variety of features, such as custom branding and video analytics. It’s available in over 30 languages and has a global audience.
Dailymotion is a good option for businesses that want a secondary platform for audience building with less competition. The downside of Dailymotion is that being a free service, it displays ads during videos.
Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform, and it offers a variety of video-related features, such as live streaming, video calls, and video ads. Facebook videos can be embedded on other websites and shared across the internet.
The upside of using Facebook for business video sharing is that you’re guaranteed to reach a large audience. The downside of Facebook is that it’s not a very professional platform, and videos can be buried in the news feed.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are a variety of video-hosting platforms available to businesses in 2022. Each platform has its own set of features and benefits. Choose the right platform for your business by considering your needs and budget.
About the Author
Based out of Vancouver, Ivan Andrianko is the owner of Rocketwheel. He’s been living and breathing all things video since 2007. When he’s not fine-tuning the team’s latest production, you can find him in his woodshop perfecting his craft, or out exploring in the Rocky Mountains.
