Top 10 Live Streaming Platforms for Businesses in 2020

There are several live video streaming options for personal use. However, for enterprises where security, reliability and quality are major concerns; you need to have the services of a credible live video streaming platform. For broadcasters planning to enter live video content streaming or enterprises planning to leverage live streaming for internal communication and learning; a capable OTT live streaming platform is crucial.

With the abundance of unverified information present on the internet about live streaming video platforms it might become overwhelming to pick the right option. Here, we have collated the list of top 10 best live streaming platforms with their key features to help you make a more informed decision.

DaCast

DaCast offers an end-to-end SaaS approach. The platform is known for its ease of use and offers OTT video streaming and live video streaming solutions across devices and platforms without compromising on quality. It offers China playback accessibility and advanced VOD (video on demand) features.

Key Features:

• Monetization: DaCast offers pay per view tickets and allows viewers to make online payments within the video player to gain access to live streaming content. However, it asks the commission of 9.9% + $0.40 per user payment. It also takes up to 35 days to make the payment to video broadcasters.
• White Labeling: It comes with white labeling features including the provision to change the color combination of the video player and add a branded logo on videos.
• API: It provides the API to video broadcasters to build a custom video streaming solution over the DaCast platform.
• Auto Archiving: It automatically records all the live streaming videos and makes them available instantly for later viewing after the live streaming ends.
• Third-Party Ads: It also allows broadcasters to run pre-roll ads to monetize live streaming and VOD.
• Audio Only Streaming: It provides the option to deliver audio-only streaming for viewers who don’t want to watch videos or are using the platform on low bandwidth.

Cost:

It offers both annual and monthly subscription plans. Monthly plans start at $19 and annual plans start at $125 with a three months commitment.

Phando

Phando is one of the most capable live streaming platforms that offers intuitive end to end online video management to organize, moderate and monetize VOD and live streaming videos. The live streaming and OTT video platform offers an end-to-end solution that is highly secure and efficient to ensure the reliable delivery of high-quality video content.

Key Features:

• Monetization: It offers multiple video content monetization tools including pay-per-view, paywall and subscription model. Broadcasters can also leverage custom ads to monetize videos more efficiently.
• Analytics: Phando offers real-time intelligent data of viewers to help broadcasters make a more informed decision. Leverage analytics to create content based on viewer preferences and geographies.
• Mobile and HTML5 Video Player: Phando offers seamless delivery of video content across devices including desktop, tablet and smartphone. It leverages device detection and mobile-ready encoding flavors to deliver uncompromised video quality.
• Video Transcoding: Its video transcoding feature enables broadcasters to deliver adaptive bitrate quality videos without buffering.
• Video Conferencing: Users can leverage Phando for personal or group video calls without any lags and call-drops while ensuring minimal data consumption.
• Robust Video Management: Through Phando’s intuitive user interface, broadcasters can easily organize content, edit, moderate, create playlists search media, and much more.

Cost:

Phando offers a free trial of its live video streaming service. Its paid plans start from $49 per month. It offers a discount of up to two month’s worth of subscription fees on annual billing.

IBM Cloud Video

IBM acquired UStream in 2016 and has branded it to IBM Cloud Video. It offers multiple cloud streaming and video services including storage and GPU computing. As an OTT video platform; it offers uploading, managing and delivering VOD and live streaming content.

Key Features:

• Monetization: You can monetize video streaming on IBM Cloud Video by leveraging third party services. It allows the insertion of ads in live video streaming.
• Customization: It offers a channel on which broadcasters can showcase upcoming events, previously live-streamed videos and other events. It allows integrated branding on the page.
• Live Chat: Its Live Chat feature allows viewers to engage with other viewers during the live streaming and interact with the broadcaster.
• Playlist: Broadcasters can create the playlist of videos and share it one their respective channels to ensure easy accessibility of the content.
• Copyright: Like Facebook and YouTube, IBM Cloud Service also leverages a copyright enforcement service to detect duplicate and copyrighted content instantly. This feature gives IBM the right to terminate your broadcast at any point in time for copyright issues.
• Recorded Video: Live streaming videos are automatically saved as private videos after the end of streaming that can be shared later on broadcaster’s channel.

Cost:

It offers a free trial that allows the broadcaster to stream video content to up to five viewers at the same time without ads. Its starter plan costs $99 but allows broadcast only in 720p HD.

Brightcove

Brightcove has segregated its offerings into multiple categories including Video Player, Video Marketing Suite and OTT Flow among others. It comes equipped with industry-standard HTML5 player and complete live streaming capabilities.

Key Features:

• Monetization: It doesn’t come with integrated monetization features. However, broadcasters can easily leverage third-party platforms to monetize their videos.
• Adaptive Streaming: Brightcove optimizes the bit-rate of video streaming depending on the internet speed of the viewer to deliver a buffer-free video viewing experience.
• SSAI: Also known as Server-side ad insertion technology. Broadcasters can leverage to deliver custom ads to its viewers.
• API: It comes equipped with a developer API to allows broadcasters to develop custom apps and other software around live streaming video content.
• Live Clipping: This feature allows the live streaming service providers to instantly take a snippet of video clip and post it on social media.
• Analytics: It comes with real-time analytics capabilities. Broadcaster can gain access to crucial insights including the number of plays, player loads and number of viewing minutes among others.

Cost:

Its pricing plans are not available transparently on its website. You need to contact their sales team for a custom price quote.

Livestream

The live streaming video platform has been recently acquired by Vimeo. It is quite popular among enterprises to deliver live events seamlessly in a secure manner through seamless management and centralized delivery.

Key Features:

• Monetization: Livestream offers the subscription and pay-per-view sales model. However, the access to monetization functionality is only available with the enterprise plan.
• Customization: It offers customization options by adding skins to the player and customized look of the video channel.
• Live Chat: Users can leverage the Live Chat feature to comment on the live streaming video in real-time for greater engagement.
• Password Protect: The broadcast can be protected through the password and can be played privately.
• Analytics: Livestream offers real-time analytics to help you gauge the response of videos through engagements and the number of views.
• API: It offers the developer API to enable development teams to build a third-party video streaming application.

Cost:

Its premium plan is billed annually at $75 per month. For the enterprise plan, Livestream offers customized quotes depending on your requirements.

StreamShark

StreamShark offers multiple video streaming functionalities. It offers innovative and efficient content delivery all over the world through multiple devices and platforms. It offers both a consumer-grade live streaming platform and an enterprise-grade platform to meet the specific needs of its customers.

Key Features:

• Monetization: It offers the monetization of VOD and live streaming videos through VAST and VPAID ads. However, the pay-per-view payment model is absent.
• CDN: Its live streaming CDN is capable to ensure video content delivery across the globe.
• Analytics: StreamShark offers real-time data on how viewers are engaging with the content. Its enterprise plan also offers Google Analytics support.
• Live Chat: Viewers can engage with each other by commenting on streaming videos in real-time. It also offers the feature to moderate live stream questions and comments.
• Customization: It allows the customization of the video player by changing the color scheme and the logo of the player.
• Embedding Restriction: The live streaming platform offers broadcasters the capability to restrict other websites from embedding the video and re-streaming the content.
• Single Sign On (SSO): Its SSO support enables the broadcaster to enable limited access to the video player.
• Encoder Management: It allows live streaming service providers to control and configure hardware encoders remotely across the internet and intranet for turnkey live streaming to any destination.
• 360° Live Streaming: This is one of its USPs through which broadcasters can deliver immersive 360-degree videos in 4K quality.
• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Delivery: The P2P delivery feature helps in reducing the bandwidth load on the corporate network by live streaming video content between users on the internal network.

Cost:

Its monthly plan for individuals and businesses starts at $199 per month. You need to request a quote to find out the cost of the StreamShark enterprise plan.

Vimeo Premium

Vimeo Premium all the requisite tools to easily set up and run a live streaming video platform. It already possesses well-established capabilities to deliver stunning videos all over the world. However, the platform is lacking in the end-to-end security department. Let us take a look at its key features.

Key Features:

• Monetization: It offers monetization of videos through custom ads only. There is no provision to embed the pay-per-view payment system in the live streaming platform. However, broadcasters can leverage third-party players to leverage pay-per-view for monetization.
• Analytics: Vimeo offers real-time analytics including the number of shares, plays and the number of minutes viewers watched a video. It also offers insights for videos posted on social media.
• Cloud Recording: All the live streaming videos are automatically saved on the cloud and made available for video on demand.
• Domain Restriction: It allows broadcasters to restrict websites on which the videos can’t be embedded. Users also get the option to whitelist websites on which the videos can be embedded.
• Worldwide Streaming: Except China, broadcasters can leverage Vimeo to stream videos to almost any part of the world efficiently.
• Customization: Broadcasters can customize the player by changing the logo, controls and color of the players.

Cost:

Vimeo Premium is billed annually at $75 per month per user.

Wowza

Wowza is one of the leading live video streaming platforms that offers great customer support to its clients. It flawlessly delivers HD videos, audio streams and low latency video to any type of device at multiple scales.

Key Features:

• Monetization: It offers a pay-per-view model and supports custom ads to monetize live streaming and video on demand.
• VR & 360° Streaming: Wowza offers the capability to stream 360-degree immersive videos in 4K video quality to the global audience.
• IP Camera Streaming: It allows developers to embed IP camera streams into mobile applications and websites to stream videos without the need of an encoder.
• Customization: Developers can leverage Wowza’s APIs and third-part integrations to build customized live streaming solution that meets specific requirements.
• Live Support: It offers live support during live streaming events to resolve issues and provide assistance for the setup. However, this feature is the part of Wowza’s premium support packages.
• Mobile App: Wowza offers the option to start live streaming through its highly capable mobile application. It allows capture, encode and streaming of live video over Wi-Fi, 4G, and 3G.
• Global Reach: Leverage Wowza’s CDN and video sharing website to ensure global reach of your video content.
• Adaptive Bitrate: Its adaptive bitrate feature allows broadcasters to deliver buffer-free live streaming and video on demand on slower internet connections.

Cost:

It offers a 30-days free trial. Wowza’s subscription plans start at $45 per month that are billed annually.

Panopto

Panopto offers a simple solution for live streaming and delivering video on demand efficiently. Its modern video streaming architecture offers reliable delivery of high-quality videos on desktops, smartphone and tablets. Its highly secure and customizable offering makes it one of the preferred choices.

Key Features:

• Monetization: Panopto offers another video monetization tool called InPlayer through which broadcasters can embed a secure paywall, add pay-per-view or offer subscription payment options to monetize videos.
• Waiting Room: It offers a customizable waiting room. The virtual waiting room is created to accommodate users who arrive early before the start of broadcast or live streaming.
• Analytics: It offers real-time analytics to enable broadcasters to measure the reach of their videos through the number of viewers, minutes of viewing and geography wise stats.
• Webcast on Mobile Devices: It allows the users to view live videos on the go on smartphones and tablets with its iOS and Android applications. Its HTML5 video player efficiently optimizes the video content to ensure minimal buffering and fast startup.
• Interactive Live Streaming: Panopto offers viewers to engage with other viewers through threaded discussions, comments and digital notes. Viewers can also submit questions to the broadcaster for a live Q&A session. The entire experience with live conversations is recorded to ensures users can watch it later as well.
• Live DVR Controls: DVR controls allow the viewers to pause, rewind and replay live streaming videos. Viewers can even play the live streaming video from the start.
• Secured Video Streaming: Panopto offers total control over who can watch the videos. Broadcasters can restrict access to departments or even teams. Viewers are required to log-in even while accessing the video through a direct link.

Cost:

Panopto hasn’t shared its pricing plans on the website. It offers customized quotes depending upon the requirements.

Stretch Internet

Stretch Internet is focussed on live streaming sporting events. It offers the ability to geo restrict content, add multiple events in one go and edit events round the clock. It offers a highly intuitive and simple user interface to maximize usability and efficiency.

Key Features

• Adaptive Streaming: Its algorithm offers video streaming through adaptive bitrate that allows the broadcaster to control the quality of the video depending upon the internet speed of the user.
• Compatibility: Stretch Internet’s video player is compatible with multiple devices including desktop, smartphone and tablet.
• Sports Stats: It allows the display of sports stats and scores on live streaming videos of sporting events.
• Monetization: It offers support to pre-roll ads that can be shown before the start of live streaming and pay per view ticketing. It also offers PPV feature for greater monetization opportunities. However, broadcasters need to negotiate the revenue split arrangement. In most of the cases, it offers 50:50 revenue split on PPV.
• Multiview: Stretch Internet comes with the capability to live stream videos from multiple locations at the same time. Broadcasters can leverage its multiview feature to live video in a picture-in-picture format.
• Video and Audio Clips: It allows broadcasters to collate different audio and video clips to make the content available easily for viewers.

Cost:

You need to contact the sales team of Stretch Internet to get a customized quote as per your video streaming requirement.

Above mentioned live video streaming platforms offer different functionalities and USPs to grab the attention of businesses. However, you should go for an option that offers absolute reliability, data security, features that meet your requirements and cost-efficiency.