The 10 best YouTube al­tern­at­ives at a glance

Daily­mo­tion is a video portal from France and is currently one of the best YouTube al­tern­at­ives, es­pe­cially in its home country where user numbers are high. It’s the same situation in many other countries, where Daily­mo­tion finds itself in second place, just behind YouTube. The company estimates its worldwide number of users to be over 250 million, with 3.5 billion videos played on Daily­mo­tion each month.

Daily­mo­tion scores with its upload spe­cific­a­tions: video files can be up to 2GB in size and up to 60 minutes in length (re­stric­tions do not apply to advanced users). Numerous video and audio formats are supported, so that uploaders can choose between, for example, .mov, .mpeg4, .mp4, .avi, and .wmv files. Users are re­com­men­ded to use H.264 / AVC as a video codec, and AAC at a frame rate of 25 FPY as an audio codec. A res­ol­u­tion of up to 3,840 x 2,160 (4K) is possible. This makes the portal par­tic­u­larly suitable for demanding uploaders: large files are just as welcome as image quality.

The layout is clear and intuitive. Embedding and sharing videos on external platforms is also very simple: just one click and the HTML code is auto­mat­ic­ally generated.

In 2016, US company Steemit launched the same-named social media and blogging platform which allows for the de­cent­ral­ised sharing of content of different formats on the basis of block­chain. Video uploads are made via YouTube al­tern­at­ive DTube, which is part of the Steemit network. DTube is based on the IPFS protocol that enables a dis­trib­uted storage of the uploaded videos on the various computers involved in the block­chain - unlike YouTube which stores all data on Google's servers.

The pro­duc­tion of new blocks for the Steem block­chain is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the DTube “leaders” (currently 15 parties), who are de­term­ined by all users through a voting process. All re­gistered users, who can receive rewards in the form of crypto currency for the video upload and for liking, and com­ment­ing, have five votes. A big advantage over YouTube and many other video platforms is that DTube is entirely ad-free.

Vimeo is a US video service that launched in 2004 and spe­cial­ises in artist­ic­ally ambitious videos. It’s not sur­pris­ing then, that the service was founded by film­makers and directors, who wanted to provide a dis­tri­bu­tion platform for their work. For example, lots of im­press­ive short videos, doc­u­ment­ar­ies, and even music videos can be found on this platform. If you’re in­ter­ested in in­de­pend­ent pro­duc­tion, Vimeo offers one of the highest quality YouTube al­tern­at­ives. Websites using this platform include marriott.com, gap.com, and thewir­e­cut­ter.com.

Vimeo claims to be an exchange platform for creative minds, which is reflected on the website: here you can see top stories and curated videos, presented like an in­ter­act­ive gallery. Ac­cord­ingly, the service offers its users a generous framework for video uploads, which are top-quality. The basic version is free and allows 500 MB to be uploaded per week. With ‘Vimeo Plus’ the amount increases to 5 GB per week, and 20 GB per week with ‘Vimeo Pro’, where you can also publish short films in 4K ultra-HD res­ol­u­tion. When it comes to uploading, there are hardly any lim­it­a­tions, at least not with pro­fes­sion­al accounts. Only the image data is auto­mat­ic­ally reduced if a video exceeds 60 FPS during uploading.

The Pro version allows you to add three team members to your account, customise the player, and sell content by video on demand. 90% of trans­ac­tion costs are paid to the creator. There is also an extensive package with various tools, analysis programs, and a com­pletely ad­vert­ise­ment-free user interface. Com­mer­cial providers get up to 5 TB (terabytes) of storage space with ‘Vimeo Business’ with no weekly re­stric­tion. Up to ten team members can use marketing and workflow tools with this kind of account. A new live-streaming function can be activated in the Pro version (inclusive of 7TB storage space).

A YouTube al­tern­at­ive that is es­pe­cially popular with gamers is Twitch, a live streaming portal that ori­gin­ally con­cen­trated on video games and e-sports. Twitch.tv went online as a beta version on June 6, 2011 and had already attracted 45 million viewers per month on ap­prox­im­ately 6 million channels. In 2014, Amazon acquired the company for USD 970 (GBP 705) million, and since 2016, Amazon Prime customers can make the most of “Twitch Prime”. This service offers free games and sub­scrip­tions, game loots, and ad-free streaming. Since 2015, the video portal has organised an annual con­ven­tion called TwitchCon, which takes place in select US and European cities. San Diego and Amsterdam have been des­ig­nated for 2022.

In essence, Twitch has a very similar concept to YouTube: the content is free for everyone. By re­gis­ter­ing free via email or Facebook, users can access ad­di­tion­al features, such as adding friends, the chat function, or the following of certain channels – this all adds to the strong social aspect of the service. All re­gistered users can stream all content. For those not playing via Play­Sta­tion or Xbox, all you need is the ap­pro­pri­ate software such as the Open Broad­caster software. In 2016, the IRL function was unveiled, which allows users to share moments from their own lives and discuss them with other users. An affinity for gaming is not necessary – user-generated content is the main component of Twitch, alongside pro­fes­sion­al streams of large e-sport events.

Sony and Universal Music, the brands behind Vevo have labelled the video platform the largest music platform worldwide. However, this dis­tinc­tion isn’t tech­nic­ally correct as of 2018. Streaming of music videos via the website or the native Vevo app is no longer supported. Around 26 million monthly Vevo content requests are being made via third-party services such as YouTube, Apple TV, LG Channels or Roku for which Vevo functions as a content dis­trib­ut­or. Artists such as Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Taylor Swift or Camila Cabello are using the service.

Trav­el­ling back in time to 2008 is im­possible? With VidLii, you’ll instantly feel like you've stepped back in time. The video portal is re­min­is­cent of the early days of YouTube, both in terms of func­tion­al­ity and ap­pear­ance. Visiting VidLii it becomes clear why the site was created: to feature amateur clips and re­cord­ings. One won’t find pro­fes­sion­ally edited videos here. VidLii evokes the playful and ex­per­i­ment­al spirit of Web 2.0 that made YouTube popular. Almost every con­ceiv­able category is rep­res­en­ted – from cars to tech­no­logy, from news to en­ter­tain­ment. There is also a category for music, but it doesn’t feature any current music clips.

Odysee launched globally in September 2020. Much like DTube, this YouTube al­tern­at­ive is based on block­chain tech­no­logy and includes the use of crypto­cur­ren­cies. Content creators and those who recruit other users can earn so-called “LBRY Credits”. LBRY is also the name of the protocol that is used to build the block­chain. If you don’t want to use the content network via the browser, you can install the LBRY apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, or iOS.

Instagram is a social media app known for sharing photos, but users can also post videos. Instagram Video is a dedicated area for sharing videos. It combines Instagram’s own TV channel IGTV and feed videos since October 2021. Here, users can upload their video content via the app or on the web and comment or like content shared by other users. The re­com­men­ded video format is MP4, while video length can be a minimum of fifteen seconds and a maximum of one hour.

One feature that makes Instagram Video stand out from other YouTube al­tern­at­ives is the option to design or decorate video content with filters and emojis. Fur­ther­more, featured locations and Instagram users can be tagged in a video. Mobile phones rejoice: thanks to mobile op­tim­isa­tion, Instagram Video enables clip views on mobile phones in portrait and full-screen mode.

Wistia is a video hosting platform founded in 2006 that has made it its mission to support companies in the creation and dis­tri­bu­tion of videos. Video marketing is now an in­dis­pens­able tool for building and in­creas­ing brand awareness. Videos created with the help of Wistia are not only char­ac­ter­ised by fast loading times, but are also search engine optimised. It is therefore not sur­pris­ing that the video platform is used by smaller companies and well-known brands such as Starbucks and Tiffany.

In addition, Wistia publishes its own series and podcasts, some in col­lab­or­a­tion with freel­an­cers. These include the doc­u­ment­ary “One, Ten, One Hundred,” which won a Webby Award in 2019 that features a video pro­duc­tion agency taking on the challenge of creating three com­mer­cials, each with a different budget.

US-based software company Bright­cove helps or­gan­isa­tions publish and optimise broadcast-quality video content. Bright­cove’s video com­mu­nic­a­tions platform is called Video Cloud. Here users can upload their videos and access API and SDK tools and real-time video analytics. Other offerings, such as the Video Marketing Suite, are designed spe­cific­ally for customers who wish to use their video content for marketing purposes. Their services range from search engine op­tim­isa­tion to in­ter­act­ive video content.