Best YouTube Alternatives and Competitors

Best YouTube Alternatives and Competitors

By Jomilė Nakutavičiūtė

You may think watching innocent videos won’t expose much information about you, but you’re wrong. It’s surprising how much data Google uses to understand who you are and what you like or dislike. Now is the time to take your privacy back and look for a YouTube alternative that doesn’t collect your data.

With so many websites similar to YouTube, we’ve narrowed down our list to the top 10. Here are some of the best alternatives for YouTube that we think are worth your time:

Vimeo was founded by filmmakers, so it’s no surprise that it’s a go-to platform for creative minds. Everyone from video content makers and photographers to musicians and ad agencies uses Vimeo. If however, you’re just looking for funny cat videos, this platform isn’t for you.

It has a great interface and definitely surpasses YouTube with its high quality videos (4K Ultra HD to be precise), which also can earn content creators some extra cash. Vimeo is also ad-free and has a built-in community so users can comment, follow channels, and share videos on their social media accounts. Definitely one of the better sites for uploading videos.

DTube is one of the best privacy-focused video content platforms, which is still somewhat similar to YouTube. It’s completely decentralized, meaning that DTube videos aren’t uploaded and streamed from one centralized server as they are with YouTube. All of its content is stored on blockchain. This means that it’s pretty difficult for hackers to tamper with video content, it’s unlikely that your personal data will leak, and the community controls the platform.

What’s also great about DTube is that it doesn’t serve you ads or have a recommendation algorithm, it supports free speech (the content is monitored by the community), and all content creators have the opportunity to earn cryptocurrency revenue. The interface is similar to YouTube, so die-hard YouTube fans won’t find it difficult to move to this platform. Want to upload videos without risk of tampering? Then choose DTube.

This is an archive of documentaries, movies and videos that you might not be able to find anywhere else. You can search videos by year, language, topic and subjects. You can also upload your videos as well. A good YouTube alternative for those studying.

Metacafe is a very basic video platform that is even older than YouTube. It hosts a huge number of videos, which are all up to 90s long and are of a fairly low quality, at least compared to other platforms. However, they do ensure that there are no duplicate videos on Metacafe.

It’s a great YouTube alternative for people looking for funny videos, product reviews or quick how-tos. Similar to YouTube, it categorizes videos into entertainment, sports, video games, movies, news and TV. Viewers can subscribe to channels or view different playlists, too.

9GAG is a go-to platform for social media fans and anyone who’s looking for short and funny videos. Facebook and Twitter users love this platform as it’s full of GIFs, memes, and other fun photos that they can share with their friends. The content is categorized, making it easy to find what you’re looking for.

Dailymotion attracts 112 million viewers a month and is one of the biggest YouTube competitors. Some say that it’s as close as you can get to YouTube while others call it ‘the darker and poorer’ brother of YouTube. Either way, it has a similar layout, a great interface, a search bar, and the same content categories YouTube has.

Users choose Dailymotion mainly because of its high-quality videos. Dailymotion allows users to upload content up to 4GB and with a resolution of 1080p, while YouTube tends to compress them. The only downside is that all videos are only up to 20 min long.

A great youtube alternative if you only watch music videos. Vevo offers a huge number of high-quality music videos from two labels – Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group. You can either watch the latest hits or explore other video clips, which are grouped by an artist.

Best known in the gaming community, this video hosting platform allows its users to ‘live broadcast’ their gameplay or upload the recording. It also serves as a social network where people can share their game tips and interact with other players.

TED is well known non-profit organization that hosts conferences all around the world, and one of the best free YouTube alternatives if you’re looking for knowledge. Majority of the lectures are recorded and their videos then appear on Ted’s website. As of now, it has over 3000 talks covering everything from technology and business to design and global issues. It’s a great platform if you are looking for fresh ideas or wish to learn something new.

Crackle was founded by Sony Picture Entertainment, which makes it the best place to watch original TV shows or older Hollywood movies. It offers well-known movies such as Animal House, Paranormal Activity, and Rudy. Crackle also features videos from established production houses, including Columbia Pictures, Funimation Films, Tri-star pictures and many more.

10. TruthTube

Dump YouTube and join the censor free alternative, TruthTube, a YouTube alternative.

As mainstream media dies, Truth Group and its platforms rise. Alternate independent media and alternate social media is booming. Every billion in market cap they lose is for the Truth Group to gain.

An array of Truth Group new apps designed to replace the major social media networks under the one brand the “Truth” Brand created by the “Truth Group” include TruthTweet (a Twitter alternative), TruthTok  (a Tiktok alternative), TruthTube (YouTube alternative), TruthLook.com (a censor-free search engine), TruthGram (Telegram alternative) TruthPix (Instagram alternative),  TruthMeet (zoom like conferencing), TruthApps (whats app alternative) and TruthChat (a messenger alternative), all designed to be censor-free, and with many being designed, so that a post to one, can be sent automatically to many.

Some of the Apps are launched already, such as Truthbook.social the alternative to Facebook with tens of thousands of users already posted over 100,000 posts in its short time since soft launch, with many becoming available soon.

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to stop video streaming websites from using some form of tracking. All of them collect aggregated data to ‘improve their services’ or use cookies to collect data for marketing purposes. Some also share that data with their partners and almost all of them will share your information in ‘special circumstances’ like to fight fraud or when required by law enforcement agencies.

Google does that too, so why should you bother looking for YouTube alternatives?

• You’re giving Google even more data, which adds to an even more accurate ‘user profile’. The alternatives above might serve you ads but they won’t have much more than what you’ll provide them with your profile.
• You’re getting stuck in the ‘filter bubble’. Google thinks that it knows what you want and serves you the search results that match your profile and your interests. Leaving any other information outside your ‘filter bubble’.
• Broaden your horizons. Not all the high quality videos that are available on the internet are on YouTube. If you are looking for fresh ideas for a scientific project – why not check TED? Or maybe you like old movies that can’t be found anywhere else – then check out the Internet Archive.

With YouTube now hosting movies and shows, its biggest competitors are Netflix, Hulu, and Vimeo. However, with Vimeo having gathered 150 million creators and 1.24 million subscribers its still dwarfed by YouTube’s 2 billion registered users and $15 billion in advertising revenue.

Some alternatives to YouTube might not amass the same amount of users, or make nearly the same amount of profit, but they can offer you better privacy, more unique content, and a more specific community of like-minded users.

It’s never nice knowing you’re being spied on. If you want to keep your traffic hidden from prying eyes, then try using NordVPN. VPN can protect you even from secretly placed tracking software like a super cookie.