7+ Best Online Video Platforms of 2023 (Ranked & Reviewed)

Here are three quick facts:

• 85% of internet users prefer video over other content types.
• YouTube is currently the second-largest search engine.
• The live video streaming industry will have a valuation of $184.27 billion by 2027.

Online Video Platforms (OVPs) offer businesses multiple benefits, from live streaming and monetization models to video marketing support.

In this article, I will discuss the most popular online video platforms based on who they’re best for, their significant features, and their pricing.

What Are The Best Video Platforms?

Here is the list of my favorite online video platforms:

1. Setplex.

Best Overall Online Video Platform.

Setplex has consistently led the IPTV/OTT panel software market with tons of expertise in the ever-changing streaming industry.

To develop a solution that works, they continue to spend heavily on R&D, giving customers a competitive advantage.

They aim to be a market leader in software development, with the best user experience and exceptional customer service and support.

They can take care of your needs, from hardware to software.

They provide everything you’ll need for a complete IPTV solution, whether on-premises or in the cloud.

With a library of optimized and consistently updated features, their solutions allow you to monetize and deliver the best user experience possible.

Features:

• With decades of expertise, developers created the system so you can be up and running within 24 hours.
• It offers a user-friendly management interface designed to be simple to use.
• The software is highly scalable on-demand due to using a microservices architecture with docker containers.
• Their middleware enables you to edit the user interfaces of your applications directly.
• API Access allows access to critical features from third-party applications on your site.

Pricing:

You’ll need to get in touch with Setplex to get a quote for your specific business.

Get started with Setplex.

2. Loom.

Best For Multiple Features.

If you’re looking for an online video platform offering comprehensive features, Loom is a great option. 

It allows users to record their screen, webcam, or both simultaneously.

It also has a built-in video editor to trim your videos down to size and add annotations.

For any distributed team, these are all great features to have and can be a great way to give feedback or provide training without everyone needing to be in the same place at the same time.

Whether for team alignment, sales, engineering, design, marketing, or any other business, Loom can help you communicate your point effectively.

Features:

• Engagement insights provide information on your videos’ performance, including how many people have viewed them.
• You can also embed links in your videos which is great for sharing a video with someone while pointing them to an external link.
• Password-protected videos ensure that only those with the password can view the video. This feature is helpful for sensitive or confidential information.
• SSO (SAML) and SCIM (Okta) provide secure authentication and Single Sign-On for enterprise users.
• Advanced content privacy gives you granular control over who can see your videos and for how long.
• Custom branding allows you to add your logo and colors to the Loom platform, which is a great way to make it feel like your own.

Pricing:

With a free version that allows up to five-minute recordings per video, this offers an excellent way for users to see if Loom is the right fit for them.

After that, the Business plan, at $12.50 per month, supports unlimited videos, unlimited recording length, unlimited creators, and more.

There’s also the Enterprise plan, which offers advanced admin and security for those companies that want to lock things down. As a custom plan, you must contact Loom for a quote.

Get started with Loom.

3. Uscreen.

Best For Monetizing Videos

Uscreen is an all-in-one online video platform that offers a complete set of features for monetizing videos. Uscreen’s OVP provides live streaming and video-on-demand (VOD) functionalities.

Using this video solution, you can completely control all your uploads and successfully monetize them.

With Uscreen, you can easily create paywalls and subscription models to generate recurring revenue from each viewer. 

The platform makes customization a cinch for marketers through multiple themes, the ability to add subtitles and captions, and even overlay GIFs.

You can also adjust the playback speed, include autoplay options, and process payments from a single dashboard.

The one significant aspect where Uscreen differs from YouTube is that it doesn’t depend on video ads for monetization.

Instead, it lets you create your own VOD service that operates on a subscription model. You can even sell individual videos on a pay-per-view basis.

Features:

Unlike many online course-creation platforms, Uscreen isn’t just for educational courses. You can create videos in any niche you like, and Uscreen will deliver the content to your target audience.

The following are some of the features that Uscreen has to offer:

• On-demand video streaming
• Subscription-based and pay-per-view monetization model
• Entirely web-based interface
• Available on mobile platforms
• 24/7 customer support
• Dedicated training resources
• Bulk uploading facility
• Direct social media sharing
• Detailed analytics and reports

Pricing:

Uscreen has a simple three-tier pricing plan that scales according to your needs. Also, the free trial ensures you can get a feel of the platform before investing.

Here’s a breakup of Uscreen’s pricing plans:

• Basic Plan at $79/month
• Growth Plan at $159/month
• Uscreen Plus Plan at custom rates

All prices mentioned above are for the yearly billing cycle.

You can also go with the monthly plans if you’re still on the fence.

See how Uscreen could be a game changer for your business.

4. Wistia.

Best For Digital Marketing

Wistia is an online video platform that primarily focuses on digital marketing.

Their expertise lies in providing a television-grade video experience that allows your business to grow its audience.

Wistia’s uniqueness is that it helps online marketers use video to increase leads and subscribers.

Using Wistia, you can create videos for remarketing purposes, target specific audience segments, and much more.

This OVP is excellent for providing personalized video experiences to customers in multiple niches. The only downside to it is that it doesn’t offer the capability for live streaming.

Also, it is a bit expensive and might not be suitable for small businesses.

Features:

Wistia’s features allow your business to make meaningful (and profitable) connections with the audience. It offers complete control for uploading and managing videos as a hosting platform.

The following is a brief list of some of the platform’s major features:

• Fast and high-quality playback experience
• Fully customizable video player
• Interactive video marketing tools
• Entirely ad-free experience
• Dedicated channels and autoplay
• Smooth integrations with platforms such as Marketo and HubSpot
• Unlimited viewers and bandwidth
• Ability to deliver global content
• Automatic SEO
• Audience tracking and A/B testing
• Completely mobile-friendly
• Advanced analytics

Pricing:

Wistia offers four plans which you can easily upgrade to at any time. The plans are listed below.

1. Plus Plan at $19/Month

• Up to three videos or podcast episodes
• Up to 250 channel subscribers
• A/B testing feature

2. Pro Plan at $99/month

• Up to ten free videos or podcast episodes
• Up to 250 channel subscribers with email notifications
• Customized video player branding

3. Advanced Plan at $319/month

• Up to 100 free videos or podcast episodes
• Multiple video and podcast channels
• Over 250 subscribers with email notifications

The advanced plan includes third-party integration abilities, priority customer support, and custom branding. You can add extra files as you need for a mere 25 cents for the paid plans.

4. Premium Plan at custom prices

Contact Wistia to learn more at their website.

5. Vimeo.

Best For Professional Content Creators

Vimeo differs from social media-based video platforms such as YouTube and Dailymotion because it’s more directed toward professionals.

This OVP started operations in 2004 and has more than 90 million professionals using its services.

Vimeo’s one advantage over other online video platforms is its flexibility.

Vimeo accepts videos of multiple bitrates, resolutions, and encodings.

The platform is entirely ad-free, which makes for a much better viewing experience.

Vimeo also allows you to embed videos from the platform onto your website.

Bundle that with unlimited bandwidth, the ability to download videos, and fully customizable settings; you’ve got a complete platform for hosting your videos.

Features:

Besides being an excellent tool for professional content creators, Vimeo is a good enough platform for anyone looking to reach audiences through live streaming.

Its simple yet powerful tools allow you to manage and share videos with a few clicks.

Here’s a list of the features that Vimeo has to offer:

• Live streaming and screen recording capabilities
• Predefined video templates
• Ads-free viewing experience
• Fully private video hosting
• Stock Footage
• Customizable HTML5 video player
• Advanced analytics
• Clutterless collaboration tools

The service can also hire a professional video creator for your project. Even if you’re not a video expert, you can easily hire the services of one directly from the platform.

Pricing:

Since Vimeo is entirely ad-free, it’s natural that it has a subscription-based revenue model. However, its pricing plans are staggered across five tiers, and you can choose the one that best suits your needs.

1. Starter Plan at $12/month

• Forever free plan
• Limited storage
• Limited support

2. Plus Plan at $20/month

• Single user plan
• Up to 250 GB uploads every year
• Unlimited bandwidth

3. Pro Plan at $65/month

• Three users
• Up to one TB of uploads per year
• Unlimited Bandwidth

4. Enterprise Plan at Custom Prices

Contact Vimeo to learn more.

All plans are annual, and every paid plan comes with a 30-day free trial. The trial ensures you don’t have to pay anything before you’re satisfied with the service.

6. Dacast.

Best For Small and Medium Businesses

Dacast is a video streaming platform that provides live hosting and on-demand options.

This OVP is entirely cloud-based and provides solutions for live streaming. It also has provisions for OTT streaming across mobile devices.

Using Dacast, your business can reach viewers worldwide through top CDNs.

The service is suitable for small and medium businesses that want to leverage video and grow their customer base.

Dacast’s powerful HTML5-based video player works across multiple devices and website technologies.

You need to embed the player on your website, and it’ll work on any device without asking the user to install any plugin.

Features:

Dacast allows you to monetize your videos and supports unlimited live channels and viewers. You can add live captions, subtitles, and geo-restricting content according to viewer location.

The following is a list of Dacast’s essential features:

• Completely ad-free experience
• API access for 3rd party player integration
• Advanced video encryption features
• Real-time video analytics
• Low-latency streaming
• Real-time messaging protocol support
• Compatible with the most popular mobile platforms
• A large number of tools for monetizing videos

Pricing:

Dacast offers flexible pricing plans that are suitable for businesses of all sizes. The platform divides pricing across four tiers and scales according to your needs. The following is a breakup of each plan, along with pricing. All prices mentioned are for yearly billing cycles.

1. Starter Plan at $39/month

• Suitable for tiny audiences
• 50GB storage
• 1080p broadcasting

2. Event Plan at $63/month

• Suitable for occasions
• 50GB storage
• Real-time analytics

3. Scale Plan at $165/month

• Suitable for growing businesses
• One TB storage
• Advanced library management

4. Custom Plans

• Includes everything in the Scale plan
• Suitable for large-scale events that demand high volumes
• Provides additional customer support

7. Brightcove.

Best For Large Businesses

Brightcove OVP helps large businesses and media companies provide HD, on-demand, and live videos to their audiences.

This enterprise video platform supports over-the-top (OTT) video, dynamic ads, and advanced analytics.

One of the best things about this enterprise video solution is that your business retains its video content’s full ownership rights, unlike YouTube.

Brightcove’s focus lies on large-scale external video distribution.

The platform integrates with other tools such as Marketo and Google Ads Manager.

Such integrations enable it to support multiple forms of marketing and deliver higher returns.

Features:

Similar to Dacast, Brightcove uses the HTML5 standard for its media player.

The use of open-source standards ensures that it can work on all proprietary as well as open-source platforms. It also offers comprehensive video analytics and REST APIs.

Here’s a list of the essential features of the platform:

• Cloud-based transcoding
• Customized video portals
• Dynamic ad insertion
• 24/7 support
• Adaptive bitrates
• Supports streaming on all devices
• Easy integration with marketing and social media tools
• No limits on file size and video length
• Compatible with multiple file formats

Pricing:

As far as pricing is concerned, Brightcove doesn’t publish its pricing plans. You need to contact them directly for customized quotations for each pricing level. Their pricing plans include the following.

1. Starter Plan

• Up to 200 videos
• Up to 100,000 plays
• Maximum of five users

2. Professional Plan

• Unlimited videos
• Over 100,000 plays
• Over ten users

3. Enterprise Plan

• Unlimited videos
• Over 100,000 plays
• User analytics

8. Vidyard.

Best For Lead Generation

Vidyard focuses on lead generation and helps your business integrate videos into its marketing strategy.

It includes all essential features and tools for video marketing solutions that enhance viewership and audience reach.

The platform focuses on helping businesses increase their outreach.

It has all of the video hosting and publishing tools to make the process easy, from video creation to video management. It also includes options for social sharing.

Another aspect of Vidyard I like is that the platform is backed by robust video analytics and provides valuable metrics that marketing teams can utilize.

It can integrate with other business tools such as Gmail, Marketo, and Salesforce.

Features:

In terms of features, Vidyard can help small, medium, and large-scale enterprises increase viewership.

You can easily create videos using the platform from the comfort of your iPhone.

It even includes a screen recording feature that might come in handy.

The following is a list of some significant features of Vidyard:

• Personalized videos
• Video playlists
• Fast and effective video uploads and editing
• Animated previews
• Completely ad-free online video hosting
• Easy video uploader widget
• SSO and password protection
• Easy video sharing and optimization
• Automatic transcripts
• CRM integrations
• Individual-level analytics

Pricing:

Vidyard’s pricing plans have four tiers: Free, Pro, Teams, and Business. Of these, the first two plans are aimed at individual creators, while the remaining two are for larger teams and businesses. The following is a breakup of each option and its cost.

1. Free Plan at $0/month

• Up to 25 videos in your library
• Easy sharing via email and social channels
• No credit card required

2. Pro Plan at $19/month

• Password protection
• Ability to reply to video comments
• CTA creation ability

4. Business Plan at Custom Prices

• Customizable CTAs
• Full video analytics
• MAP/CRM integration

9. JW Player.

Best For Adaptive Live Streaming

JW Player’s forte is its adaptive streaming capabilities based on open-source technologies.

It uses an HTML5 media player for streaming VOD content.

The online video platform offers a full-service live streaming provider in the form of JW Live.

The platform initially started operations as a standalone video player.

But its popularity propelled it to expand into video hosting.

It supports advanced features such as DRM, which means you don’t have to worry about copyright infringement on your content.

JW player provides video hosting solutions for businesses as well as individuals. Its primary focus is advertising, monetizing, and streaming the best video content.

It also includes support for OTT services and lets you access advanced analytics.

Features:

Apart from live streaming, this platform supports multi-bitrate transcoding and simulcasting to Facebook live. I particularly like its advertising features, which allow you to monetize your video files with ease.

Here’s a list of its significant features:

• VOD and Live streaming
• Entirely Cloud-based operations
• Customized video galleries
• API integration with third-party platforms
• Effortless Workflow integration
• Advertising-based monetization
• Allow users to watch videos in full HD
• Automation-based recommendation engine
• Global video outreach

Pricing:

The creators of JW Player have kept pricing plans as simple as possible. They offer a free 30-day trial period during which you can try out all product features. You also get 75GB streaming and 25GB hosting thrown in.

Once you’re sure you can use the service for your benefit, you can opt for a paid plan:

Customize a plan for yourself at custom pricing.

What Are Video Platforms?

Online video platforms are internet-based services that allow you to upload, host, and distribute live and recorded video content.

These platforms also allow businesses to monetize their video content and use it for marketing purposes.

OVPs usually have embeddable video players that allow you to add any number of videos to your website.

Since they are essentially cloud-based, you can access them from anywhere. OVPs cater to a wide range of industries, from education to entertainment.

Why Shouldn’t You Use YouTube?

That’s the obvious question that should be going through your mind, and I’ll attempt to answer it here.

YouTube is undoubtedly the service that started the video movement and is still one of the industry’s most prominent players.

But as we’ve seen, there are tons of Youtube alternatives.

Many services, such as Kaltura, Sproutvideo, and those listed here, have entered the online video market. Each of these tools caters to different sections of consumers and businesses.

They also offer unique toolsets for bettering the video creation process.

The services mentioned above offer businesses and individual creators many advantages as streaming platforms.

While YouTube is more focused on the generic consumer, paid OVPs allow you to target specific audiences for better traction.

Another advantage OVPs have over YouTube is that the monetization model doesn’t depend on ads alone.

Using these platforms, you can offer your consumers subscription-based or pay-per-view payment models.

If you’re a business that needs to create videos for internal training and communication, then privacy becomes a significant factor.

You can’t just upload videos containing confidential business information to YouTube.

OVPs offer much better security and privacy features in this respect. Also, when you’re uploading to these platforms, you retain full rights over your videos.

There’s no question of losing creative rights to your work.

All of these factors combine to make OVPs enticing options for businesses to leverage the power of video.

But if you’re still in doubt, the following section should clear them up.

Key Features Of Online Video Platforms

Here are some key features to look for when evaluating online video platforms.

Video Hosting Services

The primary purpose of an online video platform is to provide a home for your videos.

Video hosting services offer the storage and bandwidth required to upload and stream your content.

The best platforms offer unlimited storage, no file size limits, automatic transcoding, secure streaming protocols, multiple delivery formats such as RTMP or HLS, and support for 4K or higher resolution video.

Video Playback And Delivery

Once you’ve uploaded your videos onto a platform, it’s time to deliver them to where they need to go—to viewers on their desktop browsers or mobile devices.

Professional-grade video streaming requires reliable scalability combined with low latency and buffering.

An online video platform should offer smooth playback at any scale while ensuring people can watch content on any device.

Analytics And Reporting

Gaining insights into the performance of your videos is key to understanding what works.

An excellent online video platform should provide detailed analytics and reporting tools so you can review which videos are performing best, user engagement levels, and more.

This data also helps you determine where adjustments to make to optimize the viewer experience.

Security Features

When protecting your content, a reliable online video platform should provide authentication measures and encryption options.

The former ensures that viewers can only access the content with valid credentials, preventing third parties from intercepting or downloading your videos without authorization.

Some platforms offer additional features such as watermarking or digital rights management (DRM) to protect your content further.

Scalability

As the demand for your videos grows, you must have an online platform that can scale with you.

The best platforms offer a reliable global network of data centers and streaming infrastructure so you can deliver content to viewers everywhere without experiencing any buffering or latency issues.

Additionally, look for features such as live streaming capabilities, automated transcoding options, and dynamic ad insertion if applicable.

Issues with Using the Wrong Video Platforms

Using the wrong video platform can have various issues that can negatively affect an organization’s or individual’s success.

For instance, if the wrong platform is chosen, it could be missing key features that other platforms offer, such as analytics, integrations to other services, and user experience.

This could lead to decreased engagement, viewership, and overall reach for the content being presented.

Additionally, the wrong platform may be more challenging to use and manage properly, which can cause further delays in providing quality content or even potentially prevent content from being posted.

Using platforms without proper security measures can put organizations and their users at risk for data breaches and cyber-attacks.

This type of breach could lead to financial losses and damage to reputation.

A platform with secure authentication processes will protect organizations from malicious actors who might want to access sensitive information or take control of accounts.

Finally, many platforms are limited in terms of scalability, which could ultimately determine the success of an organization’s growth over time.

Suppose a platform cannot handle traffic increases or accommodate large numbers of viewers/users.

In that case, an organization will likely need to migrate its data or move to another provider altogether, which would be highly costly in terms of time and resources.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can OVPs Integrate With Social Media Channels?

Most OVPs can integrate with popular social media channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Some services can also interface with other business tools, such as Marketo and Salesforce.

2. Do OVPs Offer Video Analytics?

They do. Most popular OVPs provide insights into viewership data in the form of analytics.

Some platforms even allow more significant levels of granularity and segmentation when it comes to understanding video viewership.

3. Is It Better To Opt for a Paid Plan?

OVPs usually offer free trials during which you can try out the service.

Some providers even offer free plans for primary use, but these options will be severely limited in terms of capabilities.

It’s best to opt for a paid plan to get any platform’s full benefits and results.

Wrap Up.

With tons of video platforms available, considering the factors in this article will help you decide which OVP is right for you.

The right platform can provide immense value to your business by helping you deliver engaging and targeted content and providing powerful analytics that guides further investment decisions.

If you plan to make your business better by leveraging video, then choose from the following list:

• SetPlex: Best Overall Video Platform.
• Loom: Best For Multiple Features.
• Uscreen: Best For Monetizing Videos

Whatever your video needs, I’m sure you’ll be able to fulfill them from among the services mentioned above.