One of the first names that comes to mind when we hear the word entertainment is YouTube. YT has a huge collection of movies, documentaries, historical videos, etc. You can stream the content with or without registering an account with the site. Although YouTube is a popular site, it has got several new competitors in the last few years. These competitors are not only growing, but are also entertaining people. Here are the applications I’m talking about:
Top YouTube alternative apps
Watch is a new feature introduced by FV in the year 2017. This feature made the social media site a good alternative to YouTube. I like FB Watch because it keeps displaying videos like the one I have watched previously. As on YouTube, Watch lets its users change the streaming resolution/quality. You can also prevent the app from auto playing videos.
Facebook Watch is a nice alternative to YouTube but its content doesn’t seem to be moderated. Many a times, you will find semi lewd clips on it. If you watch this entire video, the social media site will keep displaying similar clips in the feed. Unlike YT, which you can use without registering, FB requires account registration.
In 2023, Twitter introduced the “Blue” subscription plan wherein users are entitled to many benefits. For example, they can upload videos of size up to 2GB. The social bookmarking website used to allow uploading of small videos only before Elon Musk bought the company. Twitter Blue subscription is active only in some countries only. If it is rolled out globally, the bookmarking application will become a great alternative to YouTube. You can access content published or shared on Twitter without or after registering your account. Unlike FB where you’ll find a menu to open “FB Watch”, there’s no such option on Twitter. You will come across videos while using Twitter.
Instagram had to be on my list of YouTube alternative apps because of its content. Like YouTube where you will find thousands of lengthy videos, this application features short videos shared by users. The users use the lip syncing/background voice/song feature of Instagram to create short clips. Once the clip is ready, they will share the same on IG. The videos can be public or private. IG provides dozens of cool video filters. In case you’re a publisher or you want to get new followers, you can make your clip interesting or attractive by applying filters to it.
DailyMotion
The title of the site DailyMotion is “home for videos that matter”. I don’t use DM as much as its counterpart YouTube but still recommend this site because of its content. DailyMotion gives you access to videos that you may not find elsewhere on the internet. It also has a “channels” feature through which you can stay up to date with the content published by the owner of the channel. When it comes to rating, DM doesn’t have a good rating of 4.0. DailyMotion’s counterparts I’ve shared above have a rating of 4.3+.
Reddit isn’t a dedicated video streaming site like YouTube but it lets users upload videos. When you join a subreddit and click on a media post, the application will open the video/image in full screen mode. You just have to swipe up or down to see the previous or the next picture/clip. Reddit lets users upvote or downvote the post. You can also comment on the posts and downvote/upload comments of the users.
YouTube might be the most popular video streaming site out there but it is not the only one that can entertain you for free. The above applications have content different from the one you will find in their counterparts.
Features of YouTube that you won’t find in the above apps:
Download section: YouTube allows users to save videos for later watching. There’s a download option on the settings page where you will find the following download related settings:
- Quality, download over WiFi only.
- Recommend, delete.
The page also shows the overall size of the downloaded videos.
Search history management: YouTube enables users to delete their search history. Furthermore, you can configure it to not save your video browsing history.
