vimeo.com
I think people generally think of YouTube first when they're thinking about streaming sites. It's easily the most popular and widely used site, and it was one of the first to develop a sort of stranglehold over the market. With hundreds of millions of users and user-generated videos, it's hard to beat this social video sharing platform.
However, there are many aspects of YouTube that a growing number of people around the world have begun to find intolerable. If you've ever spent any amount of time on YouTube, then you know how lousy it is with ads. There are ads that play before nearly every video, most of which can't be skipped. Plus, some videos (especially those on monetized channels) have ads built-in, in increments throughout the video stream.
Many YouTube users have abandoned the site altogether because it can be frustrating to have several ads throughout the course of a single video.
Since YouTube began placing ads over their content, they have gradually increased the number of advertisements that users see and decreased the amount of control they have over which ones they can or cannot see. Today, I would estimate that a good third of your video watching time spent on YouTube is spent watching advertisements.
Which is one of the reasons that there is a growing demand for alternatives to YouTube? The fact that YouTube is constantly trying to push its premium services on users literally every time that they visit the site and embedding surveys into videos, along with the growing annoyance caused by these things, has made users look for alternatives. This is why competitor sites have arisen in hopes of stealing away some of YouTube's hundreds of millions of users.
There are some central differences between Vimeo and YouTube. For one, you have to pay to use Vimeo; this is a big differentiator compared to YouTube, which is completely ad-free. Additionally, Vimeo attracts a more niche audience than YouTube â this might be a good thing for some people, but it likely won't be the case for everyone. So, is Vimeo a viable alternative to YouTube? Well, let's take a look and decide!
History
In November 2004, Jake Lodwick and Zach Klein founded Vimeo. Lodwick is said to have come up with the name - a play on words created by combining ?video? and ?me.? Vimeo, conveniently (or creatively) enough is also an anagram of the word ?movie.? Thus, with a catchy name and a dream of providing the world with ad-free video streaming, Vimeo was born.
In July of 2008, Vimeo began taking more control over the content that was hosted on their site. At first, they allowed anyone to post any kind of video content they desired (save for pornographic content). However, in 2013, they began taking more control over the videos and how they were viewed by restricting some videos to certain countries and preventing them from being shared on other sites.
In July of 2008, the video hosting website, YouTube, announced that they would no longer be hosting gaming videos. They cited several reasons for this decision, but the crux of the issue seemed to be surrounding how long these sorts of videos tended to be and how much server space they were consuming. In September of that same year, every single gaming video was purged from the site. As Vimeo grew in popularity and as server space became more valuable, however, the ban was lifted. As of October 2014, gaming videos are again allowed on YouTube.
Many interesting things happened in 2014 for Vimeo. One of the most important was their addition of HD videos, which made them the first streaming service to offer that quality. In December, they also introduced 4K video support, which has led to many other sites following their lead and adding 4K capabilities. Today, thanks to what Vimeo has done, nearly every site you can use to watch videos offers 4K streaming.
Their next big move was one that they were, admittedly, a little late to the game on. By 2017 most sites allowed users to upload live video feeds. However, it wasn't until September of that year that Vimeo introduced its live streaming platform, acquiring the company LiveStream in order to do so. As a result, Vimeo does have some of the highest-quality live streaming of any website, even if it took a little longer to get there.
Design
In addition, the site loads much more quickly than YouTube - it's really incredible just how much faster it is!
I really like Vimeo's website design better than YouTube's. It is so much neater and the font sizes and thumbnails are smaller. The delineations between the video player, description, comments, and suggested videos are clearer. The site loads faster than YouTube too.
I really like the new look of Vimeo. It's more visually appealing and places the emphasis on the videos you are watching, which is how it should be. The layout is much cleaner and more organized than YouTube, in my opinion.
Content
So, this might be the first area where Vimeo falls short of YouTube; as far as numbers of videos are concerned (and, therefore, a variety of videos available), Vimeo pales in comparison. This is due to the much smaller community of active users on Vimeo compared to YouTube.
Although Vimeo only has 170 million users, it pales in comparison to YouTube's 2 billion monthly active users. This is evidenced by the quality of Vimeo's content, which falls short of that found on YouTube.
That being said, Vimeo tends to favor quality over quantity. So, even though the numbers of videos and users are comparatively minuscule, the streaming quality and supportive nature of the userbase is what makes up for it.
Compared to YouTube, Vimeo offers 4K videos with better picture quality and faster playback speeds. Additionally, the Vimeo community is more supportive and helpful, providing critical feedback and praise where it is deserved.
Desktop and Mobile Experience
I already described how the traditional web browser site is gorgeous. But, I think the app could be improved slightly- it's not nearly as organized or logically laid out as the site is, and browsing can be a little bit cumbersome at times. It's not the worst video streaming app, not by any means, but there is certainly a bit of a learning curve before you will become fully comfortable using it.
Pricing and Plans
If you have some creative ideas and want to upload videos with ads, the $5/month plan provides more features. The $10/month plan allows for unlimited streams and downloads, as well as the ability to add ads onto your videos. And for those who want even more features, the $15/month plan offers premium accounts that allow for even more features such as added channels, custom thumbnail sizes, and more.
If you're just looking to stream videos without ads, the free version will suffice. If you have some creative ideas and want to upload videos with ads, the $5/month plan provides more features. The $10/month plan allows for unlimited streams and downloads, as well as the ability to add ads onto your videos. And for those who want even more features, the $15/month plan offers premium accounts that allow for different types of extra features like added channels, custom thumbnail sizes, and more.
However, if you plan to use Vimeo to create content, some of the following plans will probably be worth your consideration.
Vimeo Plus is a subscription service that costs $7 per month and gives users 5GB of storage space per week.
Vimeo Pro is a monthly subscription service that gives you 20GB of storage space in each week.
Vimeo Business is a $50 per month subscription service that offers no weekly limits and 5TB of storage.
Finally, Vimeo Pro is $75/month and that gets you the following: no limits, 7TB of total storage, and HD live streaming.
Suggestions that I Have for Vimeo
My suggestion would be that Vimeo make their app easier to use, by redesigning it so that it is more intuitive and easy to create and edit videos.
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