When searching for a YouTube alternative, it is hard to know what company to put your hard earned money into. In recent years, Wistia and Vimeo have emerged as the top alternative video hosting sites to YouTube. Wistia is primarily a site for businesses and marketers, while Vimeo is a site known by professionals as a platform for creative content. I have previously stated many of the pros to Wistia in my article Wistia vs. YouTube, but below will state the pros and cons of both Wistia and Vimeo.
What you get with a Wistia paid plan:
- High-quality playback on all devices
- Lead generation tools
- Marketing integrations
- Unlimited videos (depending on your plan; with bandwidth discounts)
- HTTS support
- Private review pages
- No ads before, after, or on top of your videos
- Video management tools
- Unbranded player
- Video analytics
- Optional source file storage
- Full SEO visibility
- Free lessons and tutorials
What you get with a Vimeo Pro account:
- High-quality playback on desktop, mobile, tablet, and TV
- Up to 20GB of HD video storage/week, with no additional bandwidth limitations.
- Advanced privacy settings
- Private review pages
- No ads before, after, or on top of your videos
- Professional workflow and video management tools
- Fully customizable and embeddable HTML5 player
- Advanced Statistics
- VIP support
- Vimeo On Demand: sell your videos online and worldwide
- Hosted portfolio sites
- Third-party player support
- Optional source file storage
- Full SEO visibility
- Dropbox integration
- Free lessons and tutorials
- Tools to create captions and subtitles
Vimeo vs. Wistia
Pros of using Vimeo as a Wistia alternative:
- No Bandwidth caps or time limits. This is a huge Pro because your video will never be blocked because too many people have seen it.
- Password Protected Video Editing pages.
- URL restrictions which can make your video not possible to directly embed on another site without giving you credit.
- Excellent support (1-hour email responses).
- Sell your videos with Vimeo On Demand.
- A film school with video production tips.
- Ad free.
- Upload an unlimited amount of HD videos.
- Huge community.
- Clear focus on quality.
Cons of using Vimeo as a Wistia alternative:
- No HTTS support.
- Less marketing/marketer oriented.
- No video heatmaps or business focused video analytics on where in the world your video is being seen.
Wistia vs. Vimeo
Pros of using Wistia as a Vimeo alternative:
- HTTPS recognition and support.
- The statistics and analytics are much more elaborate compared to Vimeo.
- Social sharing options can be built into the the embed of the player.
- Wistia will create a video site map for you.
- Help video tutorials if you get stuck.
- Email marketing and clickable call to actions.
- The ability to edit and revise hosted videos without having to edit the embed code on our pages.
- Marketing oriented.
Cons of using Wistia as a Vimeo alternative:
- Price ($300-$3600 a year).
- Focus on less videos—Because the Free account only lets you post 3 videos a month it forces you to be more conservative with when and what you post, unless you want to pay for the full service.
Weak community and brand recognition among video professionals (producers, designers, etc.).
Conclusion Wistia vs. Vimeo
The decision between Vimeo and Wistia relies on what you wish to use your videos for and your budget. Vimeo is usually considered the better option for creative videos or if you want to sell access to your video. Wistia on the other hand is primarily directed towards marketers and businesses who want to know how effective their ads are.
Vimeo Pro at $200 a year is a much cheaper option than any of the Wistia options (besides the free account that only covers 3 videos a month). Realistically for Wistia, you are looking at paying $300-$3600 a year. If your budget can afford that then the video analytics Wistia offers such as the heatmaps are well worth it. Wistia’s analysis will improve your sales by showing you what parts of your video are keeping customers engaged and what parts are not.
No matter what video hosting site you choose, Sezion will help you automatically create personalized videos for every customer, content and occasion. How about a demo?
Are you a Vimeo or/and Wistia user? Please let us know your experience! We want to read and share your comments!
