People like to watch videos online.
That's why video streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are so popular.
It's why YouTube, Facebook Live, and Twitter continue to reach massive audiences.
Even the gaming and esports industry has found a home on services such as Twitch and Mixer.
Most of these platforms are similar in that they attract and cater to specific audiences, and Vimeo is no different.
Vimeo is the video platform for artists, advertisers, and general creative types.
If you consider yourself a member of any one of those groups, Vimeo is a top bet for sharing and consuming high-quality video content, though it is not without drawbacks, namely its pricey paid tiers and disappointing web portal.
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Vimeo as a Platform
Vimeo is best suited for people who prioritize high-quality content over whatever happens to be trending.
Short films, animation, informative pieces, and in-depth journalism are all at home here.
The consistent quality of Vimeo's offerings is a breath of fresh air after wading through YouTube's sea of hit-or-miss content, though you are unlikely to find the latest viral videos on Vimeo.
In short, Vimeo is akin to a private art gallery compared with YouTube's public convention-like experience.
Sure, the former is pricier and less attended, but its works are usually of higher quality.
There's nothing to prevent you from uploading the same content on YouTube and Vimeo, but you will be more successful if you respect the difference in audiences.
From a technical standpoint, both YouTube and Vimeo recommend similar encoding and compression standards.
For the highest quality uploads, you should read over their respective guides closely.
Still, there are many potential upsides to Vimeo's smaller audience, mainly that your video has fewer competitors.
At times YouTube can feel saturated with content and your video can just go unnoticed if you don't already have a popular channel.
Price Plans
Anyone can watch videos on Vimeo without throttling, but you need to sign up for a Basic account if you plan to upload any content.
This free account lets you upload up to 500MB of data per week (up to 5GB total) and includes basic privacy options, statistics, and customer support.
Vimeo Plus costs $12 per month ($7 per month if billed annually); it lets you upload 5GB worth of content per week and up to 250GB of content per year.
It improves on the basic account by adding priority video conversion, advanced privacy features, custom stats, priority support, video customizations, and social distribution tools.
Vimeo's $20 per month Pro plan lets you upload 20GB per week and up to 1TB of content per year.
Vimeo Pro expands on the Plus subscription, with more privacy, statistics, support, and customization options.
On top of that, it throws in extra video tools (such as time-coded notes, secure sharing, and version history), and lets you collaborate with up to three other people.
The Vimeo Business account costs $50 per month, does not impose any weekly upload limits, and grants you and your team 5TB of storage.
This plan upgrades priority support, adds Google Analytics integration, and supports up to 10 team members.
The top-of-the-line plan, Vimeo Premium ($75 per month), offers all the functionality of the Business tier, but notably adds unlimited live streaming in 1080p and bumps up the archive storage limit to 7TB.
You need a Pro, Business, or Premium plan if you intend to charge for videos via Vimeo On Demand.
After you sign up for the right plan, all you need to do is upload your video along with a trailer, determine if you want it to be available for purchase or to rent (or both), and then decide on a price.
After taxes and fees, you take home about 90 percent of the total revenue.
YouTube, by comparison, is completely free and only limits the number of videos you can upload to 100 videos per day or 50 per day if you already have over 2,000 videos uploaded.
For the sake of your sanity, please don't challenge yourself to hit those limits; no one person or organization is that compelling.
The default account setting does limit you to 15-minute uploads, but once you verify your account, that increases to 128 GB or 12 hours' worth of footage (whichever is less).
To make money on YouTube, you first need to meet the eligibility requirements for its Partner Program.
Specifically, your channel must reach 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months and gain 1,000 subscribers for consideration.
If YouTube approves your channel, you then need to connect an AdSense account and configure your preferences before you actually see any income.
Web Interface
Vimeo's web interface is functional but feels disorganized.
It uses long menu lists in some places, often with redundant options that appear elsewhere on the screen.
There's a ton of whitespace, inconsistent color highlights, and no real focal point on most screens, which just makes it difficult to focus.
Vimeo's dashboard looks dull overall, especially considering that it is a platform aimed at creativity.
Even a dark mode would be a huge improvement.
YouTube's Creator Studio has a more consistent and intuitive design.
Across the top header bar, Vimeo shows the Manage videos, Watch, On Demand, and Upgrade options.
The profile menu on the right-hand side lets you quickly navigate to your uploads or messages.
The Account Settings section offers a ton of control, but the page itself is sprawling.
Vimeo needs to work on better organizing this section.
You can fill out basic profile information, set notification preferences, and manage payments here.
The Do More tab towards the bottom provides quick links to other actions, such as uploading or organizing your videos, viewing stats, and upgrading your account.
The center console is divided into three tabs, My Feed, My Videos, and Trending.
My Feed displays popular videos from any categories, groups, or people you follow.
The Trending videos section is similarly focused on content discovery, but it highlights currently popular videos on the platform or those chosen by Vimeo staff.
The My Videos section lets you view and sort all your video uploads.
On the public side of things, Vimeo's video player is cleaner than YouTube's, thanks in no small part to the absence of vitriolic commenters and the (sometimes random) list of recommended videos.
The player's large buttons and sleek black and blue color scheme, consistent elements, and large default size really make a difference.
Additionally, I appreciate how the entire top half of the screen is dedicated to the video itself and nothing else.
If you click the Manage Videos menu option, Vimeo takes you to your dashboard.
You can upload videos or sort any of your previous uploads by title, privacy status (more on that later), or date added.
The left rail is divided into separate sections for All Videos, Workspace (project folders), and Showcase (albums).
The bottom shows your weekly and total storage limits.
Vimeo's Albums are a new feature.
Albums are embeddable collections of your videos that you can share with others.
You can use Albums as a way to present a group of related videos to fans or clients, for example.
To get started, just hit the plus button next to the Albums menu item.
For each Album, you can add a name, description, and pick a privacy level (public or password-protected).
The Customization tab allows you to alter the layout of the Album.
Free users are limited to the default design, but paid members have additional visual frameworks, a dark mode option, and can add a custom logo.
All users can change the accent color.
After completing the basic setup, you need to add your video content.
The easiest way to add videos is to drag them into an Album from the Dashboard.
To reorder items (for example, if showing the progression of a project over time), just drag videos into the desired order.
Vimeo makes it easy to share and embed your albums across the web with dedicated buttons for each.
These Album pages look really elegant and are a much more visually pleasing take on playlists than YouTube's equivalent feature.
Vimeo makes it easy to upload videos.
You can select a file from your desktop or connect it to a cloud service, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive.
Vimeo makes it clear that you should only upload videos that you own and that are allowed per Vimeo's guidelines.
For the highest-quality uploads, it's wise to make sure video plays nicely with all of Vimeo's upload standards and guidelines.
Notably, Vimeo supports video resolutions up to 8K (with HDR) as well as 360-degree content.
Once Vimeo processes your file, you can add a title, description, and tags, as well as specify the language and the content rating (All Audiences or Mature).
You can also make your video private, only let certain people access it, or make it available to the public.
The options to a hide a video from Vimeo and allow only people with a private link to access it both require a premium account.
The next screen expands on these basic settings.
The Privacy section here, for example, lets you restrict who can comment on your video and where it can be embedded.
Additional options include a Video file section where you can upload new versions of a video, and an Advanced pane, which lets you set a custom URL or add a Creative Commons license.
Vimeo even shows tips and suggestions in some sections.
For instance, it generated a message to let me know that horizontally filmed videos look nicer on Vimeo (I filmed a quick scene vertically; don't kill me) and that my recording used mono audio (it recommends recording and exporting videos with stereo audio).
After you set everything to your personal preference (you can change these settings at any time), your video is ready for the wider world, or just the people with whom you share it.
What to Watch
As a consumer of video on Vimeo, you aren't likely to find the internet's latest trending video or quick-hit content that unfortunately catapulted YouTubers into the limelight.
Instead, its content tends to be more polished and substantial.
Videos are organized across a series of categories including Animation, Comedy, Experimental, Food, Music, Narrative, and Travel.
Each one of those top-level topics is divided even further into subcategories.
For example, within the Travel section, you can select individual continents or even Space!—my personal favorite.
Alternatively, you can follow specific accounts, if you find a group or user that appeals to you.
Vimeo does offer some original (paid) content via the On Demand tab, but this range of indie movies and features is unlikely to attract mass audiences.
At one point, Vimeo had plans to take on the video streaming giants, such as Netflix and Hulu, with its own original content, but it abandoned those plans last year in an effort to renew its focus on creators.
Vimeo's Mobile Apps
Vimeo offers mobile apps for both Android and iOS, so you can watch and upload videos on the go.
I installed the Vimeo app on both a Google Pixel running Android 8.1 and an iPhone 8 with iOS 11.
Most of what follows relates to the Android version of the app, but the two versions are largely similar; I point out the ways the iOS version differs at the end.
Visually, the app uses a blue-and-white color combination and organizes elements into a bottom-level menu with icons for Feed, Explore, Library, Profile, and Upload.
The Feed shows a collection of videos from categories and channels that you follow.
It's infinitely scrollable and you can like, download, and share videos directly from this screen.
Explore lets you find new videos to watch.
You can dive deeper into the broader categories listed on your own or check out the Staff Picks.
Library is where you organize everything you want to watch.
Its sections include Offline videos, a Watch Later list, Purchases (premium On Demand content), and Channels (both those you follow and the ones you run).
For reference, it took about 20 seconds to download a 5-minute video in HD quality over Daxdi's Wi-Fi network, which gets download speeds of 50 Mbps.
The next tab over, Profile, shows all your video uploads and basic account information such as your followers, people you follow, and the content you favorited.
Click on a video and you can change the title, update privacy settings, or view any comments and likes.
The app settings are also hidden in this section, though I wish Vimeo made them more prominent.
This section lets you view your account limits, make changes to your membership, as well as control upload and download preferences.
The last icon, Upload, pulls content from your phone's camera roll.
To test uploads, I took a quick video with my phone.
Sure enough, the video popped up in the Upload section a few seconds later.
In the past, I had some problems with this feature, notably that Vimeo did not detect some of the older videos on my device.
I wish Vimeo made it possible to select specific files, rather than just uploading everything.
Also, if there's a limit to how far back Vimeo can search, the app should clearly disclose that timeframe.
On iOS, the app functions identically, though there are some differences.
For example, the navigation menu moves to the bottom of the screen and takes on a dark gray background color.
The upload icon has a blue background to make it stand out, but the menu design just looks clunky overall.
Vimeo's iOS app does let you minimize videos to a thumbnail size as you browse other content though, which the Android version doesn't allow.
Vimeo Is for Creators
Individuals and industries from all over the world rely on video content of some kind; success depends on finding the right platform and audience.
Some people and corporations may fit right in with YouTube's viral, ad-driven model, but those with a more creative angle or higher quality productions may find themselves more at home on Vimeo.
Vimeo has an excellent video player and solid mobile apps for discovering the best content, but it is held back by a cluttered web interface and restrictive price models.
However, the Vimeo staff have a better handle on the community and the platform's focus, which makes for a more...
