Finding the right long-term video hosting platform takes research—YouTube is popular, but so is Vimeo. But before you get there, we suggest checking out this beginner’s guide. It explains the video hosting fundamentals, examines available options, and tells you what you must look for in a video hosting platform.
What is video hosting?
Video hosting is a service to store your videos on specialized servers to make them accessible online. Think of it as a dedicated parking garage for your videos—instead of keeping them in your personal driveway (read: your computer’s hard drive). You’re storing them in a facility designed specifically for that purpose while making it accessible to anyone with the right credentials.
How video hosting is different from web hosting?
Regular web hosting manages various file types. Video hosting, on the other hand, is optimized for streaming media. These specialized platforms are made to handle the complex technical requirements of videos: encoding files into appropriate formats, managing bandwidth demands, and ensuring smooth playback across different devices and connection speeds.
Video hosting also provides additional functionality, including video quality support and analytics to track viewer engagement. We will get there in a bit.
What are the benefits of video hosting?
Video hosting is more than a video file storage service. Understanding these benefits can help you leverage video content more effectively:
- Professional Presentation and Control – The first difference you will notice about video hosting platforms is the presentation. In social platforms like YouTube, your videos are inundated with distracting ads and competitor recommendations. You hardly have any control to prevent them from appearing in your videos. Video hosting sites give you that power to customize viewing experiences by letting you decide how your content appears to your viewers. This ensures that when a user watches your video, they know they are watching only your brand video.
- Enhanced Performance Metrics – An equipped video hosting service tells you what happens after a user starts watching your video by going beyond tracking views. It tracks engagement rates, tells you when a viewer stopped watching the video using drop-off points, visitor demographics, and conversion data. All of these insights are valuable for you to make improvements to your strategy.
- Scalable Infrastructure Management – With quality video hosting services, you don’t have to worry about the technical complexities like transcoding, adaptive bitrates, and CDN distribution. The platform takes care of that ensuring optimal playback regardless of viewer device or connection quality
- Strategic Content Protection – Advanced hosting platforms also provide customizable security options like domain restrictions and password protection. With such tight security, you know you can scale video protection without worrying about potential hazards like cyberattacks.
- Seamless Integration Capabilities – APIs and pre-built integrations with marketing tools, learning management systems, and e-commerce platforms are signature features of professional hosting platforms. The advantage is you can embed videos directly into your existing digital ecosystem without relying on too many tools. For example, a Shopify store owner can integrate their hosted videos with their store without spending hours or extra money on a third-party tool.
What features you must look for a video hosting service?
You can add or remove one or two features, but this list is a great list to start evaluating the video hosting services:
- Storage Capacity and Bandwidth Limits – Storage capacity tells you how much content you can host on the platform and how many viewers can access it simultaneously without issues.
- Video Quality and Resolution Support – Maximum supported resolution and bitrate capabilities reflects the solutions’ ability to deliver your content in high definition or even 4K
- Customization and Branding Options – Player customization flexibility, like adding your own branding is a must-have if you want a long-term video hosting solution. One platform that does a very good job in this is the Vimeo Business. It stands out with its clean, professional players that allow full white-labeling and custom end screens.
- Analytics and Performance Metrics – Compare the depth of available data beyond basic view counts so you have substantial information on the video performance. dadan is the best example here. It distinguishes itself with real-time analytics and detailed viewer engagement reports.
- Integration Capabilities – Check how compatible the solution is to work with your current tech ecosystem. The power to seamlessly embed videos in your website, email marketing platforms, or CRM streamlines workflows and makes content distribution much faster.
Best video hosting platforms
Here’s a list of 5 popular platforms that you must explore for video hosting
- YouTube
The world’s largest video hosting platform offers unlimited free uploading with extensive reach. YouTube provides monetization opportunities through ads and channel memberships, but creators sacrifice some control as content appears alongside competitor videos and platform branding. It is a good choice for you if you’re a content creator seeking maximum audience potential.
- dadan
dadan is one of the most sophisticated platforms in this list as it combines screen recording capabilities with robust hosting infrastructure. This unique combination lets you create high-quality videos, host them, and then stream them in a higher bit rate. You have complete freedom to customize the media player based on your branding, stay on top of the privacy settings, and embed the videos wherever you like.
- Vimeo
Vimeo is known for its high-quality playback experience and professional aesthetic. It caters to filmmakers, creative professionals, and businesses prioritizing visual quality. The levels of storage, bandwidth, and customization options vary according to the subscription plans. Vimeo’s customizable players give greater control over the viewing experience making it quite popular with content creators.
- Wistia
In contrast to Vimeo, Wistia is more business-focused. With one look you will know that its video hosting is designed specifically for marketing teams to generate leads and get more engagement. Wistia’s integration capabilities with CRM and marketing automation systems make it particularly valuable for tracking viewer interactions throughout the customer journey.
- Vidyard
The enterprise-level integrations make Vidyard a popular tool among enterprise companies. It’s great for sending personalized video messages, which makes it a go-to tool for the sales and marketing teams. By creating custom messages for prospects, these teams can track their engagement. In addition, its security controls, team collaboration features, and detailed viewer analytics make it ideal for B2B organizations using video throughout the customer acquisition journey.
We have covered five more tools with their pros and cons in another blog: 10 best video hosting platforms
Next steps
Using a video hosting platform is a great decision to keep your videos secure and accessible. We suggest you create a list of must-have features and rate them in terms of priority. This will give you a better direction and help you to evaluate the platforms in a more efficient way.
Why not start with dadan? It’s free, easy-to-use, and does an excellent job in video hosting.
