Video Lecture Hosting
Where to put recorded lectures — MediaCMS, PeerTube, Owncast, Panopto, Kaltura.
Recorded lectures live longer than the live class. You need: chapters, captions, search, access control, embeds for the LMS, and analytics. For live classes themselves see virtual classroom, and for the live-streaming protocols layer see Real-time Video. Audio-only lectures? See Self-host podcast hosting.
Self-host, FOSS
- ★ MediaCMS — AGPL; YouTube-shaped video CMS for institutions; categories, channels, comments, ratings, transcoding pipeline. The closest FOSS to "our own YouTube."
- ★ PeerTube — AGPL; Fediverse / ActivityPub; one instance can federate with the rest. Strong for university-wide deployments, weaker for granular access control.
- Owncast — MIT; live-stream broadcast (one streamer to many viewers); not a VOD library, but great for live lecture broadcasts.
- Castopod — AGPL; podcast-flavoured; see podcast hosting.
- Stremio Add-ons / Jellyfin — repurposable for closed institutional libraries, but not built for it.
Higher-ed paid incumbents
- ★ Panopto — paid; the dominant US higher-ed lecture-capture system. Tight Canvas / Blackboard / Moodle integration; in-video search by spoken word + on-slide text; auto-captions.
- ★ Kaltura — paid + a Kaltura Community Edition under AGPL. Kaltura MediaSpace is the product; tight LMS integration; assignment-style video upload; quizzes inside videos. Strong in US / global higher-ed.
- Echo360 — paid; lecture-capture hardware + software; many auditoriums shipped with it.
- YuJa — paid; Panopto / Kaltura competitor; popular at mid-sized US universities.
- Mediasite (Sonic Foundry) — paid; older lecture-capture incumbent.
Hosted "creator" platforms (cheaper / free tier)
- Vimeo — paid + free tier; cleaner-than-YouTube; embed control; chapters, transcripts.
- Wistia — paid + free up to 10 videos; analytics-strong; quizzes / forms in-video.
- Loom — paid + free up to 25 short videos; ideal for short instructor recordings; AI summaries in 2025+.
- YouTube (unlisted) — free; 99% of lecturers default here; weak access control (anyone with the link). Pair with embedded auto-captions.
- VideoAsk (Typeform) — paid; conversational video forms.
- Bunny.net Stream — pay-as-you-go; cheap; great if you build your own LMS-side player.
- Cloudflare Stream — pay-as-you-go; integrates with Cloudflare Workers / Pages.
- Mux — pay-as-you-go; developer-flavoured; pairs with Mux Player.
Captioning / search
- Auto-captions are now table-stakes — see Auto-captions / Whisper.
- In-video search — Panopto, Kaltura, MediaCMS (with Whisper.cpp plugin) all support indexing spoken words.
- WebVTT / SRT — bring captions across platforms.
Analytics / engagement
- Panopto, Kaltura, Wistia, Vimeo all show heatmaps + drop-off.
- PostHog + a custom video player — see analytics — DIY heatmap.
Pick this if…
- FOSS, our own YouTube: MediaCMS.
- FOSS, federated, multi-institution: PeerTube.
- Live broadcast lecture only: Owncast.
- Default US higher-ed paid: Panopto or Kaltura.
- Solo creator, cheap, just works: Loom or Vimeo.
- Build your own player on cheap CDN: Bunny Stream, Cloudflare Stream, or Mux.
- You only need YouTube unlisted: YouTube (it's fine, honestly).