Best Video Hosting Platforms Guide

The demand for video hosting platforms has been ever growing in the last few years as the video content consumption among global audiences has increased immensely and brands are looking to leverage video content marketing.

Brands are adopted for video marketing solutions to create videos however the challenge has been to host the video content.

Therefore, we have created this complete video hosting guide where we have talked about best video hosting solutions and how to choose the best hosting platform for your videos

What is a Video Hosting Platform?

A video hosting platform is a solution that allows you to store, manage, and stream all your videos as and when needed. Videos are relatively heavier as compared to images or text content due to its size and server load.

Therefore, it is essential to have a video hosting platform that allows you to host all your videos and manage your content hub.

Here we have curated the list of best video hosting platforms for your

Let’s get started!

Read along, we will take you through the top five video hosting platforms for your business!

Top Five Video Hosting Platforms

With ad-free hosting, brand customization options, tools to closely monitor the performance of the videos, unlimited storage space, privacy options, and the option to embed videos in emails, StoryXpress is one of our top picks for a video hosting platform.

StoryXpress

StoryXpress is the best video hosting platform as of 2023.  From kickstarting the video creation process to managing, hosting, and sharing them, they have a solution for every situation.

Why StoryXpress?

  • The platform offers a premium, ad-free environment for its users to host their videos. With this feature, you can be assured that the viewers are not distracted by unnecessary advertisements and are focused on your video content.
  • All videos hosted on the StoryXpress platform can be showcased and played directly on the user’s website. This way you are holding on to your customers on your website and not directing your customers to another landing page.
  • StoryXpress offers unlimited storage space for its users. Upload your videos to StoryXpress and forget about issues like bandwidth, file formats, load speed, and video size.
  • StoryXpress also lets you password protect your videos. This way you can decide who gets access to your videos and make sure it does not get into the wrong hands.
  • With StoryXpress’s fast and reliable streaming option, poor internet will never be a problem again. The platform adjusts the video quality as per the viewer’s internet capacity, making it possible for everyone to engage with your brand.
  • StoryXpress is a flexible tool that lets you integrate with leading SaaS platforms such as Slack, Freshdesk, Calendly, Moosend, and many more.

Cons of Using StoryXpress

In the free plan, you can only record videos that are 10 minutes long only. However, for the paid plans, you can record as long a video as you want.

StoryXpress Private Video hosting pricing

There are four plans that StoryXpress offers:

  • Free - $0
  • Lite - $8/ month
  • Pro - $79/month

Each paid plan offers a 14-day free trial, to help the user decide which plan works the best for their teams and business goals.

Dacast

Bent towards enterprises, this video hosting platform caters to brands that require a plethora of professional tools, security options, and video monetization options. While the platform is pretty intuitive and easy to navigate, it does have quite a learning curve for its users in the beginning.

The robust hosting solution designed for broadcasters, business professionals, and enterprises offers top-tier Content Delivery Network (CDN) at extremely reasonable prices. The advanced video hosting service also offers its users an intuitive Content Management System (CMS) and video management tools, that help them create automated workflows by using Dacast’s video APIs.

When it comes to video hosting service, Dacast’s transcoding services allow you to create different renditions without the need for any technical knowledge, and their video hosting for mobile streaming are two of their most-used features.

Why Dacast?

  • Dacast offers bulk upload features or allows its users to upload large files with file transfer protocol (FTP). This saves the user a huge deal of time.
  • With Dacast’s video hosting platform, you can pre-schedule your video content to give your customers a tv-like experience, where there is always some upcoming content available for them to view.
  • Dacast also offers the option to allow viewers to view their favorite category of content, through a tool called, ‘chapter markers’. This helps them navigate through the world of videos published by your business and only focus on the content of their interest.
  • Built-in paywalls and various monetization options like pay per view and subscription models allow users to generate revenue from their video content.

Cons of Using Dacast

  • As claimed by the Dacast website itself, there is quite a learning curve that new users will have to go through to make use of the platform initially.
  • While Dacast does give you an analytics report, it does so on a very surface level. It does not offer details like, providing an id for users so that we can know if they watched/didn’t watch the video, how long did they see it, which parts of the video did they skip or watch on repeat, and much more.

Pro Tip: All of the above analytics details and much more are provided by StoryXpress. Do reach out to us for more details.

  • Dacast’s pricing is on the steeper end when compared to other video hosting platforms. Unlike StoryXpress’s unlimited free plan, they do not offer any free plans and even their starter pricing plan costs $39/month.
  • Dacast’s customers in the past have felt that the loading speed of the platform is slow and not something they expect after the steep prices they are paying for the platform.

Dacast Cloud-Based Video Hosting Platforms Pricing

There are four pricing plans that Dacast offers:

  • Starter - $39/month
  • Event - $63/month
  • Scale - $188/ month
  • Custom - The Dacast’s team requests all large enterprises with high volume needs, to contact their team directly for a specific quote.

Vimeo

Vimeo boasts itself to be the benchmark for the industry standard of video hosting. With a storage offering of up to 7TB, a host of customization tools, zero advertisements, and security features for your videos, you now know why Vimeo has made it to our top five list.

Two very impressive features of this hosting platform are, the integrations they offer with popular creative tools and a feature that allows its customers to edit/replace a video, without changing the URL or the previous statistic.

This way you can update older videos with new content and still not lose the existing engagement in the form of likes, shares, and comments.

Why Vimeo?

  • The platform provides an ad-free environment for its customers to host its videos.
  • Various video customization tools like, speed controls, color changes, logo additions, and much more are available for Vimeo users.
  • It’s a cost-effective option, the pricing plans start at $7/month.

Cons of Using Vimeo

  • If you are using a free account with Vimeo, then the upload limits are extremely low, customer support is slow and there are extremely limited privacy control and customization options. You are hence pushed to take up a paid plan.
  • A major part of video marketing is the customization of thumbnails because that is the first thing that a viewer will see. Vimeo does not offer options of A/B testing of thumbnails or creating GIF thumbnails.

Pro Tip: StoryXpress understands the importance of creating custom thumbnails for a successful video and offers options for creating GIF thumbnails. It also promotes its users to perform A/B testing for thumbnails to make sure you serve your audience exactly what they like.

Vimeo Video hosting Pricing

There are five pricing plans that Vimeo offers:

  • Vimeo Basic - $0/month
  • Plus - $7/month
  • Pro - $20/month
  • Business - $50/month
  • Medium - $75/month
  • Enterprise - The Vimeo team creates a specific tailor-made price quote for large enterprise users whose needs are more diverse than the plans mentioned above.

Vidyard

A video hosting platform for businesses across industries, Vidyard allows its users to create, record, upload, and host videos on their platform.

Majorly used by the sales, marketing, and business teams of organizations, this platform allows its users to share video content in an ad-free environment and convert viewers into potential customers by using features like custom video/animated GIF thumbnails, high-quality streaming, video analytics, and much more.

The platform also offers its users features like CRM integrations, individual viewer analytics, embedded video call-to-actions, and customizable video landing pages.

Vidyard aims to sell itself as more than just a video hosting platform.

Why Vidyard?

  • Even the free version of the platform allows users to host videos on their platform.
  • There is no limit on the video uploading that Vidyard allows for its users.
  • Users can use embed codes to upload up to 100 videos on websites, blogs, landing pages, and more.
  • Social media sharing and analytics reports are shared with users of all pricing plans.

Cons of Using Vidyard

  • The free version of the tool does not offer essential features like video security options, access to an analytics dashboard, white label services, and much more. Hence pushing customers to opt for paid plans that are pretty high priced.
  • The platform is extremely steep in terms of pricing when compared to the features they offer. Also, they do not offer any free trials on their paid plans.

Pro tip: StoryXpress offers not just a free version of the tool, but also a 14 day free trial of all of their paid plans. The paid plans start at a mere cost of $8/month.

Vidyard On-Demand Video Hosting Platforms Pricing

There are four pricing plans that Vidyard offers:

  • Free - $0/month
  • Pro - $15/ month
  • Teams - $300/month
  • Business - $1250/month

Read More: Best Vidyard Alternatives For You

Wistia

To provide the fastest and the best quality videos with zero ads or recommendations, Wistia is built with the sole purpose to support the sales, marketing, and customer support teams of enterprises via videos.

With options of integrations with popular CRMs, in-depth analytics, custom video player, and video SEO to increase traffic, Wistia is out to compete with any video hosting platform.

Some of the key features that have led Wistia to grab a spot on our top five list are engagement graphs, heat maps, embedded call-to-action in videos, white-labeled services, and various options for creating custom thumbnails.

Why Wistia?

  • Provides an ad-free environment for users to host their videos.
  • Wistia’s video player can be customized 100%. Hence, allowing brands to create videos as per their organization’s guidelines.
  • Wistia’s in-built video SEO tools allow your videos to be more discoverable and gain higher engagement rates among your current and potential audience.
  • Wistia offers email-based UTM tracking. This allows users to analyze their customers' viewing behavior and tweak their video marketing strategy accordingly.
  • When it comes to hosting an ‘on-site’ video, Wistia has aced the game with their video customization offerings that help you drive traffic, increase engagement rates and take the conversion rates a couple of notches up.

Cons of Using Wistia

  • Wistia is an exceptionally expensive platform. At $99/month, it allows users to embed only 10 videos or podcasts. This is steep when compared to its competitors who offer similar features at less than half the cost.

Wistia On-Demand Video Hosting Platform Pricing

There are three pricing plans that Wistia offers:

  • Free - $0/month
  • Pro - $99/month
  • Advanced - They request potential customers to reach out to the team for a pricing quote.

Read more: The Perfect Wistia Alternatives

YouTube : Free Video hosting platform

We can easily say without a doubt that YouTube is one of the most popular video streaming platforms. It is the largest video sharing platform in the world with 2 billion users globally and they are ever-increasing.

It’s no doubt that YouTube is immensely popular but that doesn’t mean that it is the best video hosting platform out there.

It is a free video hosting platform for all those who are looking to get started with their video creation and sharing solutions. Moreover, the audience is also massive so the opportunities are great for reaching a larger audience.

The key part is that there’s no limit to the number of videos or data storage and it also offers the option to earn ad revenue on the hosted videos.

Video Upload Guidelines and Specifications of YouTube

  • Minimum dimension: 240p (426 x 240).
  • Maximum dimension:  4K (3840 x 2160).
  • Aspect ratio: 16:9 (automatically adds black frame for 4:3 videos).
  • Max file size: 128 GB.
  • Max video length: 12 hours.
  • Total file storage: Unlimited.
  • Accepted video formats: .MOV, .MPEG4, MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, and WebM.

Cons

  • Basic embedding options.
  • Ads will play automatically, even on commercial content embedded on your website.
  • Recommended videos appear at the end of every video
  • No download options without a third-party service.
  • Potential copyright issues when following fair use rules.

Facebook

Facebook is a mainly the most popular social media platform with over 2 billion users globally but it does offer the option to upload and host video on your account.

The good part however is that it offers unlimited video hosting and direct sharing for both businesses and the users. The platform is free of cost and offers exposure to a massive audience.

Cons

  • Ads automatically play on all videos.
  • Very basic branded embedded player options.
  • Lower video quality cap than other options.

The embedded player options for Facebook are minimal. It’s only available in static, without autoplay or looping.

Self-hosted Videos Versus a Video Hosting Platform

Imagine this. You just created a video and are super excited to share it with the world via your website. You quickly create a WordPress post and start uploading the video to the media library.

You realize it’s taking time to upload, but you give yourself reasons like - it’s a long video, it is way more than 100MB, and so on. Hence, the time taken is justified by you!

Fast forward to when the file is uploaded, you hit the Publish button, and now the real story starts!

You start receiving comments like:

“The video stops playing after a few seconds”

“Unable to play the video, despite hitting the play button”

“ The video isn’t playing on my mobile”

After all these comments, you decide to go back and check this for yourself, this time the website takes forever to load!

Wondering why this is happening?

While the reasons this is happening are so many, let us have a look at the top five:

Server Bandwidth

Typically video files are large. If even a dozen people try to watch your video at the same time, your server is bound to stop functioning, since the bandwidth used will exceed the limit allocated by your provider.

Third-party video hosting sites use their bandwidth to make sure your videos play smoothly and your Bare metal server bandwidth is free for faster streaming.

File Size and Storage

While keeping up with the ‘Acceptable Use Policy’, many hosting providers allocate 50MB or less space. This will prohibit you from uploading any video file that exceeds a couple of minutes.

Also, if you are self-hosting your videos, this would mean you also need to create backups. Due to the space shortage, the number of backups allowed will also be limited, resulting in the risk of having your website crashed or hacked.

Third-party video hosting websites are designed to hold large files securely. It indeed is a no-brainer to have them hold and manage your large video files.

Slow Load Time

When you self-host your videos, the viewer’s device takes time to download the video and then stream it on their device. Also, after the waiting period, if the viewer has bad internet, you in all probability will lose a potential customer.

A survey revealed that a one-minute lag results in a loss of $1.6 billion in sales. No one would want that! A third-party video hosting website has the bandwidth and size to meet these needs with absolute ease.

Multiple File Formats

If you are self-hosting your videos, you must upload each file in a minimum of three formats - .mp4, .ogv, .webm, to make sure that all major browsers can play your video.

However, this not only results in taking up a lot of time but also uses a minimum of three times the server space for the same video. Now that isn’t a smart move. Right?

Coding Skills

Despite WordPress’ built-in video capabilities or third-party plugins, a tad bit of coding skills will be required to communicate with the video player on which video formats need to be created.

With a hosting platform, these details are completely outsourced and taken care of.

To avoid all of the above issues and many more that come with self-hosting, most businesses opt for free video hosting platforms that offer not just the advantages of a third-party video hosting sites but also, give the owners 100% control over their content.

Why is YouTube Not the Best Option to Host Videos?

Now that we have agreed that a third-party video hosting platform is the best choice to host your videos, the next question that comes up is, which platform is the best.

Most people would blurt out saying YouTube since it is free, popular, and easy to use.

However, there are so many reasons why YouTube isn’t the best choice for B2B companies. Some of them being:

Not an Ad-free Space

The ads can drive your customers up the wall. When it comes to corporate training, executive communications, leadership seminars, etc, the last thing you want to see is a YouTube ad, moreover about a completely irrelevant topic.

This not only is highly distracting but also leaves a bad taste in the customer’s mouth. While looking for a hosting platform, making sure that the platform offers ad-free video hosting is a complete must.

Branding and Customization

YouTube offers extremely limited branding and customization options for your videos. Hence the probability of your customer creating a bond with your brand is negligible.

While looking for a hosting platform, always try to look for a platform that offers white label services and lets you host videos on your website.

Video Analytics

While YouTube does offer video analytics, it lacks user-level data. Also, it does not give you enough knowledge about the engagement with the videos.

The analytics are on a very surface level. Choosing a platform that offers detailed video analytics like knowing the browsers your users use the most, engagement graphs, heat maps, and more will help you ace your video strategy plan.

Privacy and Security

A quick search on YouTube for the terms ‘Internal Meetings’ shows up shocking results. Only going to prove the point that, when you post something on YouTube the option of keeping that video private or for a certain team is lost.

The chance of the video reaching the public is always a possibility. Always look for private video hosting platforms that not only state their privacy policy upfront but also make sure that your data never reaches the wrong hands.

Customer Support

If you run into a technical issue with your video on YouTube, there are no account managers and nobody you can call to sort out the issue. The email support too takes forever.

If you are new to the video business, one of the most important things is the need for a strong customer support team and that is lacking with YouTube. Make sure that the platform you pick offers customer support so that you can get around solving problems real quick.

If you are a B2B business owner, then the chances that you will be okay with the above-mentioned risks are extremely bleak.

And, that’s a wrap!

Hosting your videos on a third-party platform is the smartest move to make since it frees up a lot of resources on your server and results in the best video viewing experience for your customers.

With StoryXpress, being an end-to-end video platform, hosting videos for enterprises of all sizes is a game the team has aced. The platform also offers a free 14 day trial for all their plans to help users experience the features necessary for meeting their business goals.

Reach out to us and together let’s take your videos to the level you dream of!

Frequently Asked Questions About Video Hosting Platforms

Q: How to choose a video hosting platform?

Consider factors like pricing, features, storage and bandwidth limits, security, and customer support. Try out a few options and pick one that fits your specific needs. StoryXpress offers a variety of plans with competitive pricing and robust features like unlimited hosting and customization options.

Q: How to host a video?

First, choose a video hosting platform and create an account. Then, upload your video file to the platform, and copy the embed code to embed the video on your website or share the video link with your audience. StoryXpress offers an intuitive dashboard for easy video uploading and sharing, with customizable players and branding options.

Q: How to host videos privately?

Use a video hosting platform that offers password protection, domain restriction, or other privacy options. Only share the video link or embed code with authorized viewers. StoryXpress offers password protection and domain restriction options to ensure your videos are viewed only by authorized parties.

Q: What are 5 types of video hosting?

Cloud-based video hosting, self-hosted video hosting, social media video hosting, video conferencing hosting, and live streaming hosting. StoryXpress is a cloud-based video hosting platform that offers a variety of features for businesses and individuals to create and share videos.

Q: Why is video hosting important?

Video hosting allows you to store and share your videos with your target audience, and provides features like analytics and customization options to enhance your video marketing strategy. StoryXpress offers analytics to track video performance, and customization options like branding and video player customization and call to action buttons to improve viewer engagement.

Q: How to host videos on your website?

Upload your video to a video hosting platform and copy the embed code provided by the video hosting platform. Then, paste the embed code into the HTML code of your website where you want the video to appear. StoryXpress offers customizable embed codes that can be easily integrated into any website or blog.

Q: Where to host videos?

There are many video hosting platforms available, including StoryXpress, Vidyard, Wistia, YouTube, Vimeo, and more.

Q: What is a video-sharing platform?

A video-sharing platform is a website that  allows users to upload, share, and view videos with others. StoryXpress is a video hosting and sharing platform that offers a variety of features like upload, share, host, custom video player and custom branding options for businesses and individuals to create and share videos.