YouTube is the ultimate video platform for modern users to watch free videos online. Being the second largest search engine after Google, over 100 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Despite its popularity, YouTube is not the only video-sharing website that exists on the web. The video-sharing platform has its own disadvantages like excessive ads, strict monetization policies, data collection issues, and more.
For the same reason, users are looking for alternate video streaming and video sharing services. Though YouTube doesn’t have any strong competitors yet, there are many alternate video platforms with high-quality video libraries. If you are someone who wants to create a YouTube-like website, you can gain inspiration from the features offered by alternative video-sharing websites.
Let’s look at the 5 best alternatives to YouTube in 2021 for the people who want to explore new viewing experiences.
- Dailymotion
Dailymotion is a popular video-sharing website like YouTube, which is basically a French video-sharing technology platform. It has a similar interface just like that of YouTube and is available globally in 183 languages. Having 300+ million users every month, it is an excellent video platform to share and watch content. Like any other video platform, Dailymotion also has its own set of policies, but the copyright policies are not as scary as that of YouTube.
The platform offers more flexibility for content creators, which makes it the best alternative to YouTube. Dailymotion also allows creators to monetize their videos via advertisements or paywall. Hence, viewers can watch some videos ad-free while some display ads. Beginner-level users can upload content of up to 2GB size and 60 mints duration. Whereas, for advanced-level users, the platform offers more flexibility in terms of content uploading.
- Metacafe
Metacafe is one of the oldest video-sharing websites that was launched even before YouTube went live. Established in 2003, Metacafe currently focuses on short-form videos in various categories like Movies, music, video games, TV, and sports. When it started, it was similar to YouTube and Dailymotion, but later on, it turned into a short video entertainment platform hosting community-based content. The site is supported by advertisement and closely works with brands in the entertainment, automotive, electronic, consumer goods, food and beverage industries.
With over 40 million viewers, the platform hosts clickbait content with crafty titles and thumbnails. For users looking to create videos over a complex subject professionally, the platform is not the best bet. Whereas, for users who are looking for short, entertaining clips under 90 seconds made by regular users, Metacafe makes a great alternative to YouTube. Although Metacafe doesn’t excel its competitors when it comes to viewership, it is excellent to enjoy short, rich content videos.
- Vimeo
If you are searching for a video platform suitable for photography professionals, movie makers, cinematographers, or emerging artists, Vimeo is the best alternative to YouTube. The video platform encourages professional artists in various fields to publish and display their work. If you plan to create a video-sharing website, you can use a YouTube clone to create your own video platform customized to suit a niche audience like Vimeo.
You can watch classic short videos, experimental short films, music clips, and interesting snapshots in Vimeo’s HD library. When it comes to guidelines for content creators to upload content, Vimeo has strict guidelines as it accepts only 4k ultra HD visuals. Being an ad-free model, it makes money from the donations made by users and from the paywalls for certain types of videos.
A neat interface with properly designed categories helps with easy search and provides a better viewing experience. One of the cons of the video platform is that it allows content creators to upload only 500MB every week, and they have to pay to expand the upload limit.
- IGTV
IGTV, from the house of Facebook is Instagram’s answer to YouTube to view videos that are up to an hour-long. The new video platform has been created especially to be viewed on smartphones. IGTV makes a better alternative to YouTube to display good quality videos to a larger audience on a budget. The platform has recently come up with new features to help content creators and brands to monetize their videos. Video creators can also make money with IGTV ads, just like on YouTube. So if influencers are looking to use this addition on their platform, then they may want to check out the best site to buy Instagram likes to help them raise their profile and potentially bring up their traffic to their page, hopefully resulting in more engagement.
Videos must be in MP4 format and at least a minute long. The maximum duration of a video can be 60 minutes when uploaded from the web and is limited to 15 minutes when uploaded from mobile devices. IGTV videos must be created outside of the platform and then uploaded to the site later on. Even though not as detailed as Instagram’s analytics, IGTV also offers significant insights to learn about the performance of your videos.
- Veoh
When looking for a YouTube alternative in 2021, Veoh is another website you will bump into. It is a popular video website that allows users to search and view studio content, host videos from independent productions and user-generated content.
The video platform became popular among users for allowing content creators to reach new heights of fame quickly. Veoh is a great video platform to view longer videos as it allows creators to upload videos of unlimited duration. Moreover, when it comes to background music for your videos, you may be able to acquire the right music from platforms like Shockwave-Sound – Premium Curated Stock Music, which should also be accepted across these video platforms. With a lean interface and several helpful features like adding contacts, direct chat system, creating groups, Veoh makes a great alternative to YouTube. The presence of social features allows users to share the videos among friends easily to increase the popularity of their content exponentially.
Conclusion
When we think of video platforms, the first name that comes to our mind is YouTube. Yes, it is one of the most popular video websites globally, but the video sites mentioned in this blog are also great alternatives with a good video library. Although there isn’t one site that can replace YouTube in 2021, content creators and viewers can choose from the alternate choices according to their requirements. If you want to replicate the success of YouTube by creating a similar video sharing script , broaden your scope beyond YouTube and try offering unique experiences to your audience.