Vimeo vs YouTube for Business and Content Creation: A Comprehensive Comparison for Effective Video Promotion
Jourdan Aldredge
Sep 24, 2024
Whether you’re a content creator starting off your journey into video or a seasoned pro looking to re-evaluate your content creation upload decisions, let’s give you a primer on the pros and cons of choosing between YouTube and Vimeo for your content.
As a quick note, though, there’s no reason why you have to choose one instead of the other. A lot of content creators upload their videos to both YouTube and Vimeo. However, as we’ll explore below, there are some key differences between Vimeo and YouTube, so if you are going to use both, you might want to take different approaches to how you shoot, edit, and present your content for each.
With all that being said, let's explore what are the key differences between YouTube and Vimeo and provide you with some hand-picked royalty free music selections and playlists to consider for each.
The pros of YouTube vs Vimeo
To start, let’s look at some of YouTube's pros. Founded in 2005, YouTube is currently the second most visited website in the world and home to around 2 billion monthly users. The name YouTube has become synonymous with video content creation, and it’s certainly the best place for any content creator to start.
YouTube's biggest pro is simply its size and reach. Over 2 billion active monthly users watch millions of videos a day, so if you want a launching pad for your channel or brand, YouTube is certainly as big as it gets.
YouTube is also the second most popular search engine in the world, so if you’re looking for people to find your videos, you’re more likely to find them with your YouTube videos.
YouTube is also free to use and easy to get started with. Over the years, YouTube has added many different built-in tools and features. You can do a lot of your video editing in the app, as well as easily share and embed your content onto other social platforms.
The cons of YouTube vs Vimeo
As you can see above, YouTube's pros are indeed quite great, so take any criticism of the platform with a grain of salt. Even if YouTube had the worst backend user experience in the world, it would still be worth it just for its size and reach.
That said, YouTube isn’t quite as creator-focused as other social apps and platforms. If you’d like to change or tweak videos after you’ve uploaded them to YouTube, you’ll find that it can be difficult and severely mess up your analytics and tracking.
Also, while YouTube is the biggest and most popular social video platform, it is perhaps the easiest one to get lost in. If you don’t understand the YouTube algorithm, you could easily create content no one can see.
Royalty free music for YouTube
Another important factor to keep in mind when considering YouTube is how music works on the platform. While YouTube does offer a music library of its own, it’s a bit limited and of lower quality. If you do want to use music, you’ll want to be very careful about where you get your music from and how you license it, as YouTube strictly adheres to copyright rules and regulations.
Your best bet for working with music in YouTube videos is to use the best royalty free music that you can find, which will safely “cover you from any YouTube copyright strikes, restrictions or penalties. To help you on this end, we have some hand-selected royalty free music tracks for you to consider using in your YouTube videos.
- Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as fun and happy. Bass and bass guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
- BPM: 111
- Key: F Major
- Listen and license here.
- Description: A low-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and reflective. Synth and piano are the primary instruments in this track.
- BPM: 108
- Key: B Major
- Listen and license here.
- Description: A medium-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and happy. Ambient tones and bass are the primary instruments in this track.
- BPM: 102
- Key: E Major
- Listen and license here.
- Description: A medium-energy, hip-hop song that is best described as happy and hopeful. Bass and bass guitar are the primary instruments in this track.
- BPM: 96
- Key: A Major
- Listen and license here.
- Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as chill and fun. Synth is the primary instrument in this track.
- BPM: 140
- Key: Eb/D# Major
- Listen and license here.
These are just a few samples of royalty free music for YouTube, though. You can also check out some playlists below and go directly to our music library here.
If you’re still on the hunt, though, we can also share even more resources for the best royalty-free music for YouTube, a guide on how to use copyrighted music on YouTube, and tips for working with free music on YouTube.
The pros of Vimeo vs YouTube
One thing to consider is the use of Vimeo vs. YouTube for business purposes. Vimeo operates quite similarly to YouTube in many ways. Yet it is also more of a niche platform for those who work in higher-end video production or are more interested in creating content to better market their small businesses or enterprise organizations.
Founded in 2004 (a year before YouTube actually), Vimeo gets about a quarter of YouTube's traffic but is still regarded as YouTube’s biggest direct competitor for social video hosting. The biggest pros of Vimeo might simply be the company’s business model, which relies more on video marketing tools for business than placing ads in your videos.
Vimeo has also been the more trusted option of most professional filmmakers and videographers over the years, thanks to the company’s focus on video quality and back-end tools for managing, reviewing, and sharing videos with your partners, clients, and teams.
The cons of Vimeo vs YouTube
All that being said, it’s still very hard to discount the size and reach that YouTube has to offer. Vimeo also trails YouTube in many categories for free users looking to get started in content creation for the first time. There are limits to Vimeo’s free accounts, which YouTube does not have.
Vimeo is not owned by Google either (which could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it), but this ultimately means that Vimeo isn’t used as a search engine the same way YouTube is, which accounts for Vimeo’s smaller user and search numbers overall.
With Vimeo’s model not being ad-based, the costs for using more of Vimeo’s advanced tools are passed on to the small business or organization. So, if you do want to get the most out of Vimeo, you might be best served by signing up for a paid account to unlock the best tools and features.
Royalty free music for Vimeo
As far as music for video goes, Vimeo is another platform that has its own guidelines and rules for protecting copyrighted music—which is ultimately a good thing. You wouldn’t want people stealing your music or content without your consent or compensation, right?
Similar to YouTube, your best bet for using music in your Vimeo videos will always be royalty free music provided by trusted music licensing companies like Soundstripe. To help you get started, here are some hand-picked royalty free music tracks for Vimeo videos.
- Description: A medium-energy, electronic song best described as chill and fun. Synth is the primary instrument in this track.
- BPM: 95
- Key: Ab/G# Minor
- Listen and license here.
- Description: A high-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and fun. Synth is the primary instrument in this track.
- BPM: 155
- Key: C Minor
- Listen and license here.
- Description: A high-energy, electronic song that is best described as chill and calm. Synth and ambient tones are the primary instruments in this track.
- BPM: 140
- Key: Ab/G# Major
- Listen and license here.
- Description: A medium-energy, hip-hop song that is best described as chill and calm. Bass and piano are the primary instruments in this track.
- BPM: 81
- Key: Eb/D# Major
- Listen and license here.
- Description: A high-energy, hip-hop song that is best described as chill. Synth is the primary instrument in this track.
- BPM: 106
- Key: F Minor
- Listen and license here.
These are just a few samples of royalty free music for Vimeo, so you can also always review some more playlists below.
And if you’d like even more music for your Vimeo videos, check out our full music library here.