With more than 2 billion active users per month, YouTube is the world’s largest video hosting platform, and also the second most popular social media platform. Plus, it’s also the second largest search engine, just behind Google. No other video sharing site comes even close, except perhaps some China-only service that is seldom (if ever) used in the West.
That being said, we should also add that YouTube is by no means the only party in town. There are other services that may not have as many videos but they take much better care of your privacy. And that, for some people (myself included), could be very important.
It is also the subject of this article – YouTube alternatives. Here’s what we’ve got…
Dailymotion
Even though it is the second largest video sharing platform, Dailymotion is still far behind YouTube. Nevertheless, it manages to get around 200 million users per month (as of early 2021).
When it comes to content moderation, it is similar to YouTube though slightly more relaxed. Guess that part has something to do with the fact that fewer people upload videos on Dailymotion and fewer access it.
There is one problem with Dailymotion – it is not faring well on the privacy front. The site is not only employing ad tracking but is also selling the user data to third parties. With your VPN turned on, you don’t have to worry about that, though.
Vimeo
Vimeo is a service made by filmmakers for filmmakers, and in that sense it doesn’t make money from selling ads. Rather, it offers a service that allows video creators to more easily distribute and even sell their content.
Beyond professional video creators, Vimeo is also used by many companies which use it to provide video demonstrations of their products and/or services.
When it comes to privacy, these days – Vimeo is like any other website, collecting all the data your browser has to offer. There was a case from a few years ago when Vimeo was accused of collecting data without user’s consent, but those days are now behind the company.
BitChute
Launched in early 2017, BitChute was launched in response to the perceived increase in censorship on mainstream video sharing platforms. Whereas YouTube has some filters (which can come in handy, we admit), BitChute removes all of them. Also unlike YouTube, it doesn’t have rather annoying ads and is instead offering alternative ways for monetization to content creators.
The problem with BitChute, however, is that the lack of any filtering could be problematic if your computer is also occasionally being used by your child. You wouldn’t want them to access it. Like at all.
The website collects all the usual details its analytics software gives them, but you can watch videos anonymously. And that’s kinda important considering all the content that is available on BitChute.
Rumble
Rumble is a Canadian video platform that was originally all about friends, family, and pets. It got into the spotlight in late 2020 when the Republican California Congressman Devin Nunes and other conservative content creators migrated to Rumble following YouTube’s increased censorship of conservative subject matter.
Similarly to BitChute, Rumble is taking a more hands-off approach to moderating content on its platform. Also like BitChute, Rumble will collect the basic information about its website visitors, except if they choose to register — then, it will ask for detailed information, like their name, gender, photo, location, etc. You don’t have to register to watch videos, though.
PeerTube
Founded by a French non-profit Framasoft – PeerTube is an open-source, ad-free, and decentralized video sharing platform. In that sense, it allows users to create their own platform (they call it “instance”) of PeerTube so that everyone can have his/her own YouTube.
It’s an interesting proposition and we have seen some cool instances as well as some that are not so cool.
The problem with this decentralized approach is that every instance could be different in terms of privacy. For example, some instances could require registration and if you really need to access some content, you will have to give them some details about yourself. Luckily, you can always invent a fake personality just to be able to watch the video you want.
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And that wraps our list. Sure enough, there are other services out there like LBRY and Wistia (similar to Vimeo), as well as privacy-friendly YouTube clients such as FreeTube and NewPipe. Between all these, you should be able to find the one that works best for you. Whichever you choose, we suggest accessing it with a VPN turned on. You never know who’s watching…