YouTube and Vimeo are the most popular video hosting platforms in the market.
If you’re wondering which of these two is best for you to distribute your content, then there are a number of things to consider.
Off the bat, YouTube is the most popular platform. Vimeo is more geared to professionals and offers advanced support for paid members. The content on Vimeo is generally well-produced and of higher quality.
So when it comes to Vimeo vs YouTube, read on to learn more about the differences so you can choose the best option for your business.
Communities
A business’ target audience dictates its content marketing and distribution strategy. So it is important to consider the fact that YouTube and Vimeo have different audiences.
Audience on Vimeo
Vimeo’s user base is significantly smaller with 240 million users. About 50 million of its total viewers are in the United States.
The majority of Vimeo users are creative professionals, and many of them are experienced in video production. It’s no surprise that visual artists, videographers, editors, art directors, and other professional video creators favor Vimeo, which was founded by a group of filmmakers.
With that being said, content on Vimeo is usually higher quality but gets less views compared to YouTube.The community on Vimeo is also less aggressive compared to YouTube.
Audience on YouTube
YouTube has a massive community with over 1.8 billion people watching hundreds of millions of hours of material every day. It is also very accessible and is available in over fifty languages.
So what does it mean for businesses?
Well, if you put in continuous effort, you’ll be able to find and grow an audience even if you’re a niche brand. It’s a great way to build your brand image.
As far as issues go, comment moderation can be a nuisance. YouTubers often complain about bots spamming their comment section. This could happen to you as well.
Read more: Vimeo Basic or Paid – Decide What’s Best for You
Supported formats—YouTube vs Vimeo
Video files in the following formats are supported by both Vimeo and YouTube: MOV, MP4, MKV, MPEG, WMV, FLV, AVI, MOD, RA, RAM, ASF,3GP, Ogg, and QT.
Vimeo, however, also supports a few formats that YouTube does not, including 3G2, DIVX, and DV. YouTube, on the other hand, allows you to post WebM videos, but Vimeo does not.
Vimeo offers higher quality compared to YouTube. Vimeo lets you upload HDR videos in up to 8K while YouTube supports up to 4k.
Live-streaming
When it comes to live streaming, both platforms have different requirements.
Live-streaming on Vimeo
For $55/month with the Advanced plan of Vimeo, you unlock the live-streaming and webinar hosting feature. One live event is limited to 12 hours.
Check out this video to learn about how to live stream on Vimeo:
YouTube live
Going live on YouTube is free but here are the following requirements:
- Channel should have at least 50 subscribers.
- Within the last 90 days, your channel shouldn’t have had any restrictions.
- Have a verified channel.
- Have an Android 5.0+ device.
Video players—YouTube vs Vimeo
Vimeo
Vimeo uses HTML5. Vimeo announced it in 2009 and switched to HTML5 across the web in 2014. Vimeo no longer supports Adobe Flash Player.
YouTube
Just like Vimeo, YouTube also uses an HTML5 player on the web by default. YouTube first announced HTML5 in 2010, and after test and trial made it the default video player in 2015, ditching Adobe Flash Player.
Membership and upload limits
Vimeo
Vimeo offers four different subscriptions: Starter, Standard and Advanced. Each plan has different weekly storage limitations, and the Advanced plan, as mentioned before, also includes unlimited live streaming.
Vimeo’s basic plan is free but it’s not recommended for businesses.
The platform also offers an Enterprise package. To learn more about that you’ll have to contact Vimeo’s sales team.
Storage in Vimeo’s free plan ranges from 500 MB per week to 25 GB per year. While storage in paid plans is as below:
via Vimeo
YouTube
YouTube has unlimited storage for now. Regardless, you shouldn’t use it as storage for your content. Keep a reliable backup.
Here’s what you need to know about uploading videos to YouTube
Videos that are longer than 15 minutes won’t be uploaded at first. You can, however, extend this limit by getting your account verified. After verifying your account, you can upload 12 hours of playback or a file size of 256 GB. This is very useful for people who are just starting out and don’t want to spend money.
Although YouTube has the advantage of letting its users upload an unlimited amount of videos, Vimeo takes the lead in terms of video size and length. When it comes to uploading, both of them have equally rich functionality.
Advertising—YouTube vs Vimeo
Ads on Vimeo
Ads are never placed before, after, or on top of videos or the video player on Vimeo. However, on some Vimeo pages, they do have some restricted display advertising underneath the player.
Ads on YouTube
If you use YouTube, you must be aware that it has ads all over. It is great from the perspective of a marketer but for a viewer, it may get annoying. On the free plan of YouTube, you get video ads while watching videos and are asked to wait 5 seconds before you can skip them.
Here is what ads on YouTube look like:
SEO—Vimeo vs YouTube
Vimeo
Working on Vimeo video SEO is important, but since Google favors its own platform, Vimeo content may not gain much visibility. Regardless, make sure that your title, description, and tags are all SEO-friendly.
YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the Internet, second only to its parent company Google. When you look up for videos, Google also prioritizes recommending YouTube videos.
While YouTube is SEO friendly, you should always keep in mind that you’ll want to make a video that’s targeted to a specific search query, for example, “how to resize an object in Photoshop”.
If you want to know how to find keywords for YouTube videos, check out this video:
Related: 20 Tips on How to Get More Views on YouTube
Monetization
As a business, you may not be interested in learning about monetizing your channel, but it’s worth knowing if you’re also an independent creator.
Monetization on Vimeo
Vimeo gets its revenue from creators and doesn’t rely heavily on ads so there’s no ad revenue to share with creators. It follows the Netflix model as Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo, explains in this video:
They do, however, provide Vimeo on Demand” A site for selling videos to viewers directly.
To participate in this program, users need to sign-up for a Vimeo Pro account.
Monetization on YouTube
The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) allows creators to profit from advertisements that appear in their videos on YouTube.
This is done via Google AdSense. YouTube offers a percentage of ad revenue to the creators whose content gets interrupted with ads.
But, before you can join the program, you must have at least 10,000 views on your YouTube channel.
Other revenue possibilities are also available on YouTube for video creators. For instance, publishers can use their videos to sell things, add paid reviews, join affiliate networks, ask for donations and get sponsors.
Customer Support—YouTube vs Vimeo
Both YouTube and Vimeo have help pages and FAQs in case you are facing a problem. But if your problem is not on the list, you can contact them.
Vimeo
Vimeo offers different degrees of technical help with their paid subscription plans, which might be a game-changer for businesses with little video expertise. Vimeo promises to answer email concerns within four hours of US business hours, even on their entry-level Starter package.
YouTube
YouTube provides access to a support community as well as free help documentation. Due to the large audience on YouTube, you may find yourself stuck in troubleshooting suggestions by help center, as well as a hit-or-miss community forum.
Analytics
Vimeo
View count, demographics, and interaction analytics are all available on Vimeo. To obtain access to all of their analytics features, you’ll need to be on one of their paying plans.
The Dashboard on Vimeo shows the total analytics of all your videos. You can also filter reports by date, area, device, source URL, video, and social media using the left-hand navigation menu.
Other metrics that Vimeo tracks include Video report, date report, region report, source URL report, device report, social video report, and social platform report.
The graph shown on the video report tab allows you to obtain an even more detailed summary of how your videos perform, including – views, impressions, downloads, comments, unique viewers, unique impressions, average seconds watched, total time watched, etc.
Similarly, the graph shown on the date report tab will provide your impressions, views, finishes, and average percent watched for the given day or date range you specify in the filters.
YouTube
The overview page on YouTube gives you a quick overview of the performance of your channel and videos. If you’re a part of the YouTube Partner program, the key metrics card displays your views, watch time, subscribers, and expected revenue.
You can also track typical performance, top video, real-time, latest videos performance, and stories performance on the overview page.
Other metrics that you can track on YouTube include reach, engagement, audience, revenue, and research.
The reach tab shows an insight into how your audience discovers your channel. Your impressions, impressions click-through rate, views, and unique viewers are all displayed on the key metrics card.
The engagement tab shows you an overview of how long your viewers are watching your content. The key metrics card displays your average view duration and watch time.
The audience tab provides a summary of the kind of people who are watching your videos. Returning and new viewers, unique viewers, subscribers, and total members are all displayed on the key metrics card.
Read more: Vimeo vs Wistia for Professionals
Wrap up
When it comes to Vimeo vs YouTube for businesses, you have to assess the goal and nature of your content.
If your goal is simply to use videos to grow your subscriber base and reach a wider audience, then YouTube is the way to go.
But if you’re building a website with membership features, you’ll need additional privacy and a superior viewing experience which you’ll get from Vimeo.
Additionally, Vimeo is the best option for professionals looking to improve the look and feel of their work. YouTube, on the other hand, is the place to be if you just want to share stuff with the world, no matter what it is.
And that’s a wrap. We hope this Vimeo vs YouTube article helps you decide what’s best for you.
Now all you have to do is create awesome content and hit publish. But if you need help producing videos, get in touch!.
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