There is no doubt that YouTube is one of the best video sites in the world. And it is by far the most popular. But there are some fantastic YouTube alternatives available online that you might like to try. So we’ve put together a list of the best YouTube alternatives out there.
Even if you visit YouTube regularly, Vimeo is worth adding to your rotation of video sites. The site was the first on the web to support high-definition video, and while it includes a selection of user-generated videos, it places more emphasis on high-quality content.
Vimeo also offers some TV series and supports 360-degree videos.
The site has an easy to navigate search feature that organizes videos by category and channel. Not sure what to watch? A regularly updated selection of Vimeo staff picks can help point you in the right direction.
VideosHub is a video site that specializes in short-form video content, much like YouTube in its early days.
VideosHub content includes highlights from the world’s best surfers, quick and accurate product reviews, and tips for completing a difficult level in your favorite video game.
One of VideosHub’s strengths is its simplicity. Its navigation interface is quite simple, with a menu bar that links to Most viewed videos Those who want to dig deeper can use the panel on the left, which features a more extensive list of video categories.
Dailymotion is another video website like YouTube. It launched in March 2005, just a month after its more famous rival.
Today, Dailymotion is probably the most similar competitor to YouTube, with over 300 million monthly users. according to CSI magazine. There are millions of videos uploaded by both professional and amateur editors. Videos on the home page are organized by category, with featured videos, news, sports, entertainment, and music dominating.
Dailymotion allows you to create your own account. The more videos you watch, the more personalized the site’s recommendations become.
Utreon is relatively new to the world of online video platforms, having been founded in late 2019.
Its big selling point is the lack of rules and regulations. That’s not to say it’s free for everyone, but the restrictions are much less onerous than those on YouTube. If you’re having a hard time finding videos you want to watch on YouTube due to genre, Utreon is worth a look.
If you’re a video producer, you don’t even need to reload your existing video library; Utreon can pull all your YouTube videos and complete them on your Utreon profile.
The Internet Archive is a web-based library of all kinds of free content, including books, music, software, and of course, movies.
Just as you might associate a physical library with research, one of the strengths of The Internet Archive’s video content is its vast collection of historical content. While it also has newer content, some of its best videos are older and obscure news reports, TV series, and movies that are usually hard to find on other sites.
Like many other sites, users can also upload videos to The Internet Archive. When uploading videos, H.264 is the common video encoding format used.
Crackle is an online streaming site that features original shows for the web, as well as Hollywood movies and TV series from various networks. Overall, you will find that Crackle is also one of the best free video streaming services that you should try.
Some of Crackle’s original content has been critically acclaimed, including the web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, starring Jerry Seinfeld. It also has a solid selection of well-known TV shows.
To watch more TV series, check out our article on the best sites to watch TV over the web.
Owned by Amazon, Twitch is the best live streaming platform on the web, with more than 140 million users, according to Sage of demandand millions of featured streamers.
On Twitch, creators post live streams where they can do just about anything. Gaming is undoubtedly the most popular streaming category on Twitch, with a huge list of specific options to choose from, such as Minecraft, League of Legends, and Overwatch.
But if gaming isn’t your thing, there are also IRL (in real life) and creative categories where you can watch people draw, make small talk, sing, and even cook.
Notably, Twitch has streamed several live music videos from festivals and concerts. International DJ Steve Aoki streamed an entire set from Ibiza in 2014. At the time of writing, Twitch is the official streaming partner of the Ultra Music Festival in Miami.
On Twitch, you can follow the streamers you love for free or subscribe to their channel for a monthly fee to support your streaming company. You can also earn channel points for the time you spend watching particular broadcasts.
The Open Video Project was developed in the Interaction Design Lab in the School of Library and Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is intended for the research community, including those working with media retrieval and digital libraries.
With that in mind, most of the videos on The Open Video Project are educational. There are plenty of videos from the NASA archives and a collection of classic TV commercials and educational films dating back to the 1950s. If you want to research historical video content, try The Open Video Project.
9GAG is a collection of all things fun and silly: funny photos, GIFs, gaming videos, memes, anime, and more.
Most of the content is fun and frivolous. Video titles include “A compilation of the best commercials starring the Star Wars crew” or “This high school love story will warm your heart and then break it before you know what happened.”
It’s the kind of thing that’s hard not to click on and then spend hours browsing. Before you visit, be warned: the site contains a number of videos that are somewhat edgy and may not be safe for work.
TED Talks is a leading video website. It features over 3,500 talks covering many topics including technology, business, design, science, and global issues. TED Talks uploads five to seven new talks every week for you to enjoy.
Some of the talks are funny, while others are emotional. Some talks are meant to explain how your brain works, while others are mainly there to entertain. The one constant with all TED Talk videos, though, is that you’re likely to glean something memorable from each one.
The TED Talks website is particularly useful if you’re short on time. Videos that appear in the menu are labeled with an easy-to-see red circle if they are less than six minutes long.
DTube, which is short for Decentralized Tube, is a video site like YouTube. However, instead of all the videos being hosted on a central server, the entire site uses the Steem blockchain and is therefore decentralized.
Users who post videos on the site earn Steem (STEEM) crypto tokens that they can transfer to their own cryptocurrency wallets or sell for cash on a cryptocurrency exchange.
One slight change in DTube is the way metrics are displayed. Instead of showing how many views each video has, the site shows how much cryptocurrency each video has earned.
Like YouTube, Facebook Watch offers a personalized list of video content for you to dig into.
There are a variety of series you can watch on Facebook Watch, such as The Real Bros of Simi Valley, Sorry for Your Loss, and Sacred Lies. It’s a bit harder to find content than on YouTube, since you don’t have endless categories to choose from. But you can follow the shows you love to keep up with new episodes.
But it’s definitely a YouTube alternative worth considering if you like spending hours scrolling through lists of easy-to-watch videos.
YouTube Alternatives Are Worth Trying
There is no doubt that YouTube is a top-tier video sharing platform with a huge variety of content to choose from. But this does not mean that it is the only option you have when it comes to watching videos online. So, check out the YouTube alternatives above to add new types of videos to your repertoire. After all, variety is always a good thing.