With more and more brands harnessing the potential of video content, it’s important to think about the best place to host your customer-facing business videos.

Here’s the good news: video hosting options are plentiful, with many simple, powerful solutions available.

YouTube is the biggest video hosting website in the world, with 1.57 billion active users each month and the second most popular search engine. But does this make it the best choice for your company videos?

Let’s look at a few options, to help you decide on the best place to host your business videos.

Video hosting option no. 1: YouTube

YouTube is the biggest global player when it comes to video hosting.

YouTube accounts are free by default and the provider won’t display adverts on standard accounts; there are, however, two exceptions to this: if you host content that you don’t own (using a copyright-protected song in the background of a video, for example) or if you opt to monetise your videos.

Adverts aren’t ideal on a corporate channel, but as long as you only use original content and don’t monetise your account, they’ll stay away.

Pros of using YouTube

  • Your videos will play on every device and the resolution will be optimised to fit viewer device and broadband speed
  • It is home to the majority of videos on the internet with the highest number of active users
  • You don’t need to worry about bandwidth usage on your own website
  • You can easily add cards, end plates with links to other videos, playlists, and hyperlinks to your website
  • There is the option to monetise content
  • It is free to use.

Cons of using YouTube

  • You cannot customise the YouTube player when you embed it on your website
  • Some workplaces block employees from watching YouTube
  • A wide user base can result in unrelated, negative and sometimes offensive comments, plus general spam. The comment function can be disabled to combat this
  • Adverts play on some videos
  • Customer support can be difficult to contact.

Video hosting option no. 2: Vimeo

Vimeo provides smooth and near faultless playback that means your content is delivered uninterrupted. You can also customise the player to match your branding.

There is a free option, but it is only for personal use. There is a range of subscriptions available, from £6 to £70 per month depending on which services you require.

Vimeo’s income is generated by user subscriptions, which means they don’t place advertising on your videos.

Pros of using Vimeo

  • Smooth playback
  • No adverts
  • Customisable player
  • Analytics
  • More serious viewer comments and less “trolling” than YouTube
  • More privacy options than YouTube
  • Add you own logo (in some paid for accounts)
  • Live streaming (in paid for accounts)
  • E-mail capture cards (in paid for accounts)

Cons of using Vimeo

  • Commercial users need to pay for a Vimeo account
  • Some packages have limits on storage and uploads
  • Vimeo has a much smaller user base than YouTube

YouTube versus Vimeo: the verdict

For a free, powerful video hosting platform with great search optimisation and a large number of users, YouTube is the best option.

If privacy, no adverts, superior personalised branding capabilities and excellent customer support are priorities, Vimeo is likely to be a better option for hosting your business videos.

Video hosting option no. 3: Hosting videos yourself

There is another option: self-hosting.

You might be surprised to find out that the web package with which you host your website might be able to take your videos too!

While this might seem like a good option, there are a few considerations. You must ensure you have a web server with sufficient specifications and bandwidth to deal with streaming, a suitable video player (probably HTML5) and a good knowledge of web coding to embed the video player on your website. If you’re still on board with the idea of self-hosting, we recommend you trial it somewhere non-critical.

Unlike a photo, it is not always ideal to host videos directly on your website. There are many reasons why this is a bad idea, but perhaps the most compelling is that it just doesn’t work that well. Video files tend to be large, which will quickly eat up your server bandwidth and storage space. That means potential glitches and errors when people try to view them, as well as potential compatibility and quality problems for people using different browsers or mobile devices.

Pros of self-hosting videos

  • You have full control of your video streaming
  • Could help generate more traffic directly to your website.

Cons of self-hosting videos

  • Difficult to set up
  • Potential playback and compatibility issues
  • Possibly uncapped bandwidth costs

The best place to host your business videos: the conclusion

We’d advise sticking to one of the mainstream hosting providers. After all, a video that doesn’t play is worse than no video at all.

YouTube, Vimeo and other video hosting platforms put some serious cash into ensuring they provide an almost instantaneous, reliable and professional service, so take advantage of their hard work and spending power!

At Definition Media we use Vimeo as our preferred option because we feel it offers a great suite of features that we can really take advantage of, and the cost is minimal. But we also upload to YouTube, with slightly different titles – it can’t hurt!

Further Information

 If you are looking for more functionality, with capture cards, and more advanced analytics, look out for our forthcoming blog weighing up advanced hosting options provided by the likes of BrightCove, Wistia, and Vidyard.

We are also working on a blog on with top tips on how to get more YouTube views.

If you have any questions about hosting your videos, or if you need help making professional video content then give us a call on 01789 4166990, or e-mail [email protected]