16 Best Video Hosting Sites for Business & Portfolios (Feb. 2024)

Videos are seemingly everywhere online, with the best video hosting sites clamoring for their closeups and seeking to make it big.

Online marketers are increasingly using videos to promote brands and disseminate information, as the medium is among the most engaging methods of interacting with consumers. In fact, Cisco forecasted that online videos would make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022. However, the large file sizes and bandwidth requirements make video content delivery more difficult than typical web hosting.

We took a deep dive into the various hosting providers and publishing platforms available to determine which are the best options to meet a variety of content goals. Whether you’re looking to supplement a few blog posts with an embedded video player or make videos a significant part of your business, take a look at the companies that are ready to make you a star. Lights, camera… action!

According to Forrester, one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words when it comes to performance in social media and search results. Because of the value video presents to brands, along with the added computing power needed to correctly host the files, many specialized services have popped up. Options include dedicated streaming services, video sharing sites, video-specific hosting platforms, and traditional web hosts that offer support for video.

Because most new video publishers are individual professionals and small businesses, the last category is particularly appealing. Depending on how you plan to use video, many website owners can simply ask their hosting plan to pull double duty. Taking a generalist approach will be the most cost-effective and user-friendly route for most (light) video content goals since you won’t have to sign up for, learn, integrate, and pay for a whole other service.

Popular hosting and site builder platform Wix.com now offers Wix Video, an app that lets you upload a YouTube video (or Vimeo or Facebook, etc.), create your own video channels, engage your visitors, and monetize your video content. What’s more — you can get started with Wix as your video hosting solution for a $0.00 monthly starting rate!

Depending on the quality of videos you’re looking to produce, you may need to invest a rather large amount of money in equipment and editing software — and that’s OK. If you’re looking for your new video content to drive sales and customer conversions, professional-grade quality is key. By identifying the most affordable (but still qualified) hosting providers, however, small-scale publishers may be able to save some money during the distribution side of the video production process.

With the budget-minded hosts we recommend below, you’ll be able to use the same server space and processing power for both your videos and your portfolio. Housing your videos on your website gives you more control over the player displaying your video, along with other formatting and display elements. You’ll want to keep an eye out for unlimited storage and bandwidth, and high-performance solid-state drives are a plus. Most of these hosts will help you design and launch your site, as well as provide speed-boosting services such as a content delivery network or caching tools.

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Not all shared hosting plans are going to be suitable for video hosting. Long-form videos, feature-length movies, raw video files, and those filmed in high definition or with large resolutions will quickly chew through your allocated server resources and bog down your website’s performance — or even get you in trouble with your hosting provider.

If there’s even a shred of doubt about whether you’ll have enough room or power to host your videos, you should go straight into looking at cloud or VPS plans. The virtualized environments cover a much larger section of a server or network and can more easily and seamlessly scale bigger to cover your needs. Even better, you can find upgraded services for very reasonable rates with just a little bit of research.

When shopping for affordable cloud or VPS hosting, however, be sure to pay attention to your server administration options. Usually at the cheaper end of the spectrum, providers understand you may not have the experience to manage security patches and operating system updates from the command-line interface and will include cPanel or another visual control panel. But you’ll definitely want to make sure the prices aren’t low because they stripped out all but the most essential features.

However, several of our favorite VPS hosts go to the other extreme. In addition to affordable rates, user-friendly tools, and managed services, the hosts listed below implement cloud-based technologies into its virtual private servers to introduce even more scalability, performance, security, and redundancy.

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Like it or not, a significant part of the internet and online traffic focuses on adult content. Contrary to popular belief, however, adult or mature content extends beyond sexually explicit words, images, and videos to also include tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and firearms. Estimates for how much pornography is online ranges from roughly 4% to 35%, depending on who is doing the research. According to internet accountability and monitoring service Covenant Eyes, 1 in 5 mobile searches are for porn, and viewers around the world spend more than $3,000 per second to access the mature content online.

However, many companies avoid hosting adult content because of the perceived brand associations or moral implications of allowing what some consider unsavory media, as well as complying with the dozens of laws regulating the distribution, purchase, and possession of pornography. Instead of scouring hosts’ terms of service and acceptable use documents to see which companies allow adult videos, check out some of these recommended options below:

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Just as eCommerce stores have different hosting needs from bloggers, sometimes the best hosting comes from specialized services that serve a specific purpose. Although we prefer self-hosted video options that enable users to seamlessly integrate their work into their websites, several sites focus solely on delivering videos to the masses.

Streaming services and video sharing websites will take care of all the technical aspects and optimizations of video hosting, but you’ll typically have to abide by a few restrictions such as subject matter, format, or codecs. These services all offer free accounts, but you may want to consider paying for the premium services.

11. YouTube

The grand poobah of online video, YouTube is the second most popular search engine behind none other than Google — its parent company. YouTube videos are incredibly easy to embed into most websites, and video publishers can go a long way without spending any money. In fact, you can earn extra revenue by displaying ads with your videos (but beware of annoying your viewers with an overly aggressive approach).

Early employees of PayPal created and launched YouTube in 2005, drawing influence and inspiration from the difficulty of finding online clips of Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl and a tsunami in the Indian Ocean that same year. Now, YouTube attracts an insane amount of traffic, especially with younger audiences. In the US, people 18 and older spend more time watching YouTube in an average month than they do any television network.

12. Vimeo

If YouTube is the platform of choice for beginners, Vimeo represents a small step toward professional, enterprise-grade video hosting. The basic, free membership allocates 500MB per week of upload space, up to 5GB of total account storage. Vimeo users can enjoy a remarkably fast, embeddable player, along with simple analytics and privacy controls.

Where the platform truly shines, however, is in the paid packages that introduce collaboration, 4K and HDR support, and an ad-free experience, as well as increased customization, live streaming, support, and marketing opportunities. Interestingly, Vimeo was founded a year before YouTube and was the first platform to support high-definition videos.

13. Wistia

Helping companies the likes of MailChimp, Squarespace, and Zendesk succeed with online video, Wistia is geared for small and medium businesses. Premium plans are fairly expensive but come loaded with powerful features. The free package limits users to only three videos that display on a branded player, but infrequent video publishers will appreciate the privacy controls, lead generation tools, marketing integrations, and in-depth advanced analytics of the video platform.

Wistia shows its dedication to user-friendly video production and publishing experiences with Soapbox, a Chrome extension that enables anyone to record, edit, share, and analyze presentation videos using just your computer’s built-in camera. (Fun aside: We dare you to find a company with a more entertaining page showing its employees)

14. Brightcove

Approaching more enterprise-grade hosting, Brightcove is an industry veteran that launched even before YouTube. The company provides a wide array of tools to help organizations use videos for marketing, monetization, and even internal communication and training.

Services range from video-oriented cloud hosting, marketing and publishing tools, rich video analytics, an HTML5 player, live streaming functionality, targeting advertising, over-the-top media services, and transcoding. Several Fortune 500 companies trust Brightcove, including Ford, Conde Nast, GoDaddy, and GM. Prices are not listed on Brightcove’s website, but potential customers can enjoy a 30-day free trial.

15. Flowplayer

Fresh after releasing a revamped player the company says is 10 times smaller than those of competitors and still 10 times more powerful, Flowplayer consistently pushes the boundaries of what can be done with video hosting technology. The European company (which also has offices in New York City and Mexico) serves the likes of IBM, Disney, Mercedes-Benz, Universal, MIT, NASA, and HBO.

Pricing ranges from $25 to $500 per month, and users can try the platform for free for 14 days. Alternatively, you can download a branded player for free. Plans come with at least 50GB of storage, support for high-definition, API access, and real-time analytics.

16. SproutVideo

As the name might imply, SproutVideo is an environmentally conscious video hosting and publishing platform. The company donates a portion of its annual new-account proceeds to the National Forest Foundation every Earth Day to save and rebuild forests damaged by wildfires, natural disasters, and disease.

Companies, including GE, FedEx, WeWork, and Fender, all grow with Sprout Video, and the company’s 30-day free trial does not require new users to enter any payment information. SproutVideo emphasizes security, offering multiple privacy settings such as password protection, login protection, and IP restrictions.

The best video hosting sites are all vying for the title of most popular in the world. However, YouTube is currently the clear leader, with an average of 1.9 billion monthly active users as of February 2022. This far outpaces its nearest competitors, including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Vimeo.

There are a number of free video hosting sites available, including YouTube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion. However, it’s important to note that free video hosting sites generally have more limited features than paid sites. For example, you may not be able to upload videos in high definition, or you may have to watch ads before or during your videos. For a video platform with uninterrupted streaming capabilities and detailed analytics to assess user engagement, cough up the $10 to $20 per month for a paid plan.

Over the years, other video hosting service providers and platforms have emerged to fulfill marketing tool needs for mid-sized to enterprise businesses. For example, Hippo Video is a free video editor that enables B2B client users to quickly create and share videos. Facebook Live is an alternative live streaming platform that’s gained massive traction as a content creator’s quick-and-free marketing tool. And video marketing sites, such as Biteable and Coursify, empower marketers to quickly create an online course or share training videos with staff.

In short, video streaming is viewing video content online. Typically, when we say “video streaming service,” we mean sites for consuming video content, rather than publishing and hosting a video file. Popular streaming services include Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, and Amazon Prime Video, all of which offer paid plans. The lesser-known Facebook Watch is a free video-on-demand streaming service that emerged in 2017.

In contrast, a video hosting platform, often referred to has a video sharing platform, allows a content creator to upload, host, and share videos. Popular video hosting platforms include YouTube and Vimeo. In these cases, the terms “video hosting platform” and “video sharing platform” are essentially synonymous — and different from a hosting platform with video support. Capeesh?

Keep in mind: Most general web hosting platforms feature plans that cater to video hosting needs, including website builders with an embeddable video player, unlimited bandwidth, and ample storage allowances to host video and other large media files. However, not all web hosting plans will stand up to viewers’ needs.

Make sure your web hosting plan has ample storage, memory, and bandwidth available, along with helpful support and options to scale to a larger plan if needed. Fortunately, HostGator excels at all of the above. The company enables customers to get started quickly and easily with a variety of site-building tools and applications. Resources are either unlimited or unmetered, and the company says it’s extremely rare for customers managing a personal or small business website to exceed its usage policies.

If you want to host private videos, you’ll need to sign up for a paid video hosting service. Paid services offer a number of features that free services don’t, including the ability to password-protect your videos and choose who can view them. Some popular paid video hosting services include Vimeo Pro and Wistia.

YouTube has long been a popular option for video hosting — but it doesn’t need to be the path you choose. Plenty of alternatives exist for both individual writers and videographers, as well as Fortune 500 companies. Whether you pay for a premium third-party service, upgrade your web hosting plan, or simply try to make self-hosted videos work with your current setup, be sure to optimize your users’ experience.

Although hosting videos on your website can be somewhat challenging, it’s the only solution that allows you to maintain complete ownership of your creation. You have total control over how your video is shown and who sees it. You avoid an added cost and don’t have to subject your work to being covered with advertising because you can’t afford the ad-free experience. Plus, self-hosted videos can be a boost for your website’s SEO. Instead of contributing to YouTube’s rankings, why not lift your own?