Are you looking for an online video platform (OVP) to take your business to the next level? Or maybe you’re considering switching to a new one in the coming year?
The global OVP market is predicted to reach $1.6 billion by 2027, driving over 80% of all internet traffic.
With so many options, you might find it confusing to figure out which one is right for your business. Publishers, broadcasters, e-learning brands, sports leagues, fitness companies… Everyone needs different things from an OVP.
So, we’re going to walk you through 19 different platforms. We’ll cover the unique features of each one, along with the pros and cons. But first, let’s cover the basics.
An online video platform (OVP) allows you to upload live and recorded video content on a website—you can then embed these videos in a library, website, mobile application, or even a smart TV app. The platform hosts the content on your behalf so you don’t have to build your own data centers or infrastructure.
In addition to hosting, OVPs often provide live streaming software and HTML5 video players that allow your audience to watch your content on virtually any device.
OVPs provide out-of-the-box features to help you build an all-in-one video solution. Most will let you live stream and host video-on-demand content, and some come with built-in monetization options and data rights management (DRM) protection.
OVPs also do the difficult job of encoding and transcoding your video uploads to a variety of formats. This transcoding process ensures customers can watch your content regardless of device, browser, or bandwidth limitations.
OVPs allow you to transform how you publish, manage, and monetize videos. A dynamic OVP will allow you to:
An online video platform allows you to upload live and recorded content on a website. The platform hosts the content on your behalf so you don’t have to build your own data centers or infrastructure.
In addition to hosting, OVPs often provide live streaming software and HTML5 video players that allow end-users to consume your content on virtually any device. The best video platforms also help you secure, manage, and monetize your videos, providing content delivery and integrations with content management systems and other software.
A video hosting platform only provides hosting, whereas an OVP combines other services with hosting. Examples include live streaming software, HTML5 video players, security features, and monetization options.
You’ll find dozens of online video platforms (see below) on the market, but not every solution is the right fit for your business.
Some prioritize business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales content, while others focus on education or entertainment. Some provide all the built-in functionality you need, while others require you to integrate with other software to accomplish your video needs.
Below, we’ve outlined the core criteria you should consider before investing in an online video platform:
What types of video content do you plan on hosting? Who’s your audience? Do you want to use video for brand awareness, sales, lead generation, entertainment, sports, or education?
Answers to these questions will quickly narrow down your online video platform options. Most platforms are purpose-built for specific industries and use cases, providing out-of-the-box features and functionality tailor-made for your business.
How many videos do you plan on hosting? How long will these videos be? Some platforms are built to host videos at scale, while others are intended for smaller purposes.
If you plan on hosting hundreds or thousands of videos and streaming them to a global audience, you need an OVP that’s up to the task. You’ll also want to think about the encoding and transcoding options available. Will your provider automatically transcode your videos into the playback formats you need, and how long does the uploading process take on your end?
Advanced online video platforms integrate with dozens of other applications to seamlessly connect your stack. Consider the tools you’d like to connect to your OVP:
Next, consider where you want customers to access your videos. Do you want to build video content into your company’s website or mobile application, or do you plan on providing an OTT app on smart TVs?
Find an online video platform that gives you options for integrating your tech stack. Plugins are nice, but you ideally want powerful APIs and SDKs to quickly and easily build video functionality wherever you need it.
Many modern-day solutions are starting to provide live-streaming functionality, but live-streaming features still vary widely. Here are a few things to consider:
You need a content delivery network (CDN) you can trust to stream videos to your audience. A single CDN solution will be your cheapest option, but these are susceptible to outages, downtime, and performance issues.
Ideally, find an online video platform with a multi-CDN approach. A multi-CDN combines several CDNs under an extensive global network, and this expands your geographic availability, accelerates transfer speeds, balances loads, and provides backups in case a CDN network goes down.
For example, JW Player’s multi-CDN solution provides network points of presence (POPs) in 130+ countries, ensuring reliable performance with 99.99% global delivery uptime.
Do you want a full white-labeled video streaming product, or are you satisfied with another platform’s branding? Some players will let you customize everything from the player buttons to the colors and logos, while others simply provide a minimal-designed HTML5 player.
Customization plays a bigger role when you plan on adding video to your mobile applications and website. Having an off-brand video player can sometimes kill the design of a page and lead to a second-rate customer experience.
If you plan on monetizing your video content, consider the methodology you’d like to use. Do you want to monetize your live-streamed video, or do you just plan to make money from your on-demand content?
Here are a few VOD monetization models to consider:
Find an online video platform that lets you monetize video how you’d like, whether that’s on a website, mobile app, or OTT platform.
Analytics gives you the insights you need to make important business decisions. Monitor your content to learn what’s performing the best (and the worst), when viewers tune in, and where viewers tend to drop out to inform your future production strategy.
Find a solution that provides real-time metrics so that you can be in the know when it matters. For example, when a video goes viral, you don’t have time to wait for your statistics to update 24 hours later—you need immediate insights so that you can capitalize on the opportunity.
Every time someone illegally accesses or distributes your content, you lose money. If video content is your business’s lifeblood, you can’t afford for it to be compromised. You need an online video platform that protects your content during uploading, storage, and streaming.
Choose an online video platform with robust data rights management. You should be able to protect your content during live streams and on-demand viewing—offline or online. Your solution should provide 24/7 monitoring to safeguard your content and ensure high-quality streaming.
Pricing will always need to be a top consideration. You can find plenty of enterprise-quality online video platforms on the market, but they all demand enterprise-level budgets. You need an affordable solution with pricing tailored to your business’s size and needs.
An online video platform is less of an expense and more of an investment. The right solution will help you make (and keep) more revenue from every view, so it’s worth finding the right provider rather than pinching pennies and looking for the cheapest solution.
Now we’ll get into the different options for online video platforms so you can decide which one is best for you.
There’s a lot to consider when choosing a video platform —from speed to scalability and integration. JWP is the industry’s most feature-rich video platform, offering a full-service, hosted solution including an open API, seamless integration, management, and analytics.
Plus, JWP is super easy to use. Sara Livengood, Product Manager at Refinery 29 puts it this way: “We’re seeing great returns (with JWP). It was really easy to implement and just a quick check of a box.”
With JWP:
Our Open API provides you with the building blocks to easily integrate and customize JW Player to fully fit your needs.
With other video platforms:
Our competition’s limited APIs mean that extending their player functionality requires an additional, expensive development package that comes with a significant upsell.
With JWP:
JWP supports every ad monetization technology on the market, including VPAID 2.0 and Google IMA. Did we mention that we’re also a Google Certified Publishing Partner?
Plus, increase subscribers and conversions with flexible subscription models including AVOD, SVOD, and TVOD.
Download our free eBook “Best Monetization Strategies for Live Broadcasters” to learn more about monetizing your video content!
With other video platforms:
Our competitors are lagging behind in supporting industry standards and this ultimately results in lower ad revenue for publishers.
With JWP:
JWP takes into account viewer devices, bandwidths, and viewing conditions to deliver consistent and rich playback.
With other video platforms:
Expect slow and clunky playback from our competitors who discount viewing experience in favor of fancy bells and whistles.
With JWP:
Our player-driven architecture ensures out-of-the-box performance for all features.
With other video platforms:
Unlike JWP, their publishing features require complicated integrations that interrupt your workflow.
With a strong developer community and documentation, JWP empowers you to create awesome user experiences.
Features
Pros
Cons
As one of the first platforms to make online video streaming popular, YouTube is probably the most well-known OVP on the market. The Google-owned platform is free to use and one of the best options for consumer-created content.
YouTube can have some downsides for businesses though. There are limitations on monetization, for example, and you don’t retain full ownership of your content. But if you’re just getting started with video production, YouTube is a good way to dip your toes in the water.
Features
Pros
Cons
Twitch has kept its spot among the leading live streaming platforms for years. Although primarily focused on gaming content, it expands to encompass a variety of interests. It’s a hub for gamers, esports enthusiasts, and creators to broadcast their gameplay, interact with their community, and build careers.
Features
Pros
Cons
On the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of security, you have Panopto — a platform designed for internal video sharing and secure live streaming. Panopto is widely used by organizations in the education space and integrates smoothly with many Learning Management Systems (LMS).
Features
Pros
Cons
Founded in 2004, Brightcove is an online video platform designed for enterprise video. It’s focused on helping customers monetize videos, motivate employees, and increase sales.
Features
Pros
Cons
Also launched in 2004, Vimeo got its start as a niche video platform for film and digital media. The platform has grown substantially though, and it’s now probably the second most popular video platform after YouTube.
Vimeo acquired Livestream in 2017 and pivoted more towards the B2B space. Around the same time, the company also pivoted away from being a video-viewing destination (similar to YouTube) into being a distribution solution for video content creators.
Features
Pros
Cons
Wistia’s video platform is designed primarily for marketing teams. Its suite of video marketing tools allows users to create, host, market, and analyze the impact of video.
Features
Pros
Cons
IBM Watson Media is a scalable, cloud-based OVP that offers end-to-end solutions for live events or on-demand content. It’s often used for enterprise-level employee communications, virtual conferences and events, commercial promotion, government proceedings, and concerts or entertainment.
Features
Pros
Cons
Kaltura’s open source video management solution is best known for its applications in the education space, including virtual meetings, classrooms and webinars, town halls, and more.
The majority of Kaltura’s clients are higher education, education management, or e-learning organizations.
Features
Pros
Cons
Vidyard is an online video platform that’s designed primarily for sales and marketing teams. It allows sales reps to easily record and upload videos for potential clients using unique features like ready-to-record video templates.
What’s more, you can share videos from platforms such as LinkedIn to reach an even larger audience.
Features
Pros
Cons
Flowplayer offers a lightweight, fast-loading solution for media houses, broadcasters, publishers, event owners, and OTT platforms. The company was recently acquired by Wowza, paving the way for new features and capabilities like expanded analytics and enhanced player configurability.
Features
Pros
Cons
Muvi is an online video platform focused on OTT streaming. It’s designed to help broadcasters set up a fully managed, white-label streaming platform like Netflix or Hulu. And it doesn’t require any coding or development to produce TV-quality streams.
Features
Pros
Cons
If you’re looking for a video platform focused on internal communications only, Qumu could be one to consider. The Qumu platform offers solutions for capturing and sharing secure videos within your organization. It’s often used for executive webcasting and corporate communications, striving to “provide a more efficient and effective way to share knowledge”.
Features
Pros
Cons
Dacast’s OVP offers a cloud-based live streaming and OTT video streaming solution across all devices. Dacast broadcasters include small- to medium-sized companies, enterprise businesses, media companies, TV stations, religious networks, sports leagues, and municipal organizations.
Features
Pros
Cons
Hippo Video is another OVP that’s designed specifically for sales and marketing teams. It also offers special solutions for sales teams in real estate, tech, healthcare, insurance, tourism, and a few other industries.
Features
Pros
Cons
Cincopa was founded in 2006 with the mission of providing businesses with advanced capabilities to market, teach, and engage through video, images and audio. Cincopa’s platform is focused mostly on hosting. It’s best suited for large organizations that need a solution for storing and managing videos, photos, audio, and other types of files.
Features
Pros
Cons
If your videos are behind a paywall and security is your number one concern, Vdocipher is worth a look. This OVP offers secure video hosting for e-learning, media, and LMS platforms, incorporating unique features like watermarking to prevent illegal downloads and screen captures.
Features
Pros
Cons
Zype is a cloud-based SaaS platform focused on OTT streaming. Its API-first platform is designed to help you manage, distribute, and monetize your video across the entire OTT ecosystem.
Features
Pros
Cons
Just founded in 2018, Brid.TV is a fast-growing OVP focused on speed and monetization. The platform offers an HTML5 player, a high-spec video platform, and a content management system. The company has offices in Los Angeles and Belgrade.
Features
Pros
Cons
VPlayed by Contus was founded in 2008 as a web design company. Today, VPlayed is
an OTT streaming solution that enables broadcasters, media professionals, online tutors, and content owners to launch a white-label video streaming platform.
Features
Pros
Cons
Trust JW Player to satisfy all of your video content needs. We provide a complete video solution with all the out-of-the-box functionality you need to deliver top-notch video experience at scale.
Live streaming? Check. Monetization features? Check. Robust APIs and SDKs? Check.
You focus on building your business and growing your income—leave the video details to us.
Book a meeting with our sales team today to see how JWP can transform video content for your business.