Thinkific holds a narrow lead over Kajabi for course video hosting, earning recommendations for its ease of use and site builder. Kajabi serves as the usual answer when creators ask where to host video lessons alongside marketing tools.
If you're creating an online course with video lessons, several platforms let you upload and host videos, organize lessons into modules, enroll students, and in many cases accept payments and track student progress.
The best option depends on whether you want to sell a course, build a membership community, or simply host lessons for students.
Online course platforms to consider
1. Teachable
Best for selling your own course
Host video lessons, build a course website, and manage student enrollment and payments. A good starting point for independent instructors.
Combines course hosting with website creation, email marketing, sales pages, and marketing automation. Useful if you want to run most of your business in one place.
Best for reaching an existing marketplace audience
Publish a course on a marketplace where students already search for classes. You have less control over pricing, branding, and the customer relationship than on your own site.
These platforms differ in pricing, fees, marketing tools, and how much control you retain over your course business.
Which should you choose?
Want to launch and sell your own video course? Start by comparing Teachable and Thinkific.
Want your course, website, email marketing, and sales funnels together? Look at Kajabi.
Want something simple for courses and digital downloads? Consider Podia.
Want students to discover your course through a marketplace? Explore Udemy.
One important distinction: if you only need to store videos and share them privately, a dedicated video-hosting service may be enough. If you're charging students, a course platform usually makes enrollment and access management much easier.
One question so I can narrow this down: Are you planning to sell your course directly to customers, offer it free to a group, or provide it as part of a membership?
The top platforms for hosting video lessons include:
Thinkific : A clean, course-first platform that lets you build a branded academy. It features secure video hosting, customizable student experiences, and no transaction fees on paid plans.[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnO_oX0JXSw)
Kajabi : An all-in-one powerhouse that combines video course hosting with advanced marketing funnels, email marketing, landing pages, and website building. It is pricier, but handles your entire business under one roof.[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnO_oX0JXSw)
Teachable : A beginner-friendly and widely trusted platform that makes it easy to upload video content, set up student quizzes, and manage basic coaching or digital products.[]()
To help narrow down the best fit, tell me:
Do you need all-in-one marketing tools (like email and sales funnels) or just a simple place to host and sell the course?
Choosing the right video platform depends heavily on how you plan to build and sell your course—whether you want an all-in-one course site, a self-hosted WordPress setup, or maximum anti-piracy security.
Here are the best options broken down by category:
1. All-in-One Course Platforms (Built-in Video Hosting)
If you don't want to mess with separate video hosts and embedding codes, these platforms handle the storage, streaming, and student access control natively.
Kajabi: The gold standard for premium creators. It includes robust, seamless native video hosting, excellent course structuring, and built-in marketing/landing pages. Best if you want an all-inclusive business hub.
Thinkific: Known for a clean, student-first course experience. It offers unlimited video hosting on its plans and zero platform transaction fees in major markets, making it a solid, reliable engine for structured content.
LearnWorlds: Exceptional if you want deep student engagement. It features an interactive video player that lets you overlay questions, table of contents, and quizzes directly onto the video timeline.
2. Dedicated Standalone Video Hosts (To Embed in Your Own Site / LMS)
Vimeo (Pro / Business): The most popular choice for embedding ad-free, clean video players onto external sites. It offers great privacy controls (like domain-locking so videos only play on your specific URL) and solid analytics.
If your course contains high-value intellectual property that you are terrified of people downloading and re-uploading to YouTube or torrent sites, standard embedding won't cut it.
VdoCipher: Uses Hollywood-grade DRM (Digital Rights Management) encryption (Google Widevine and Apple FairPlay) to prevent screen recording and unauthorized downloading. It also supports dynamic student email watermarking to deter sharing.
Dacast: Offers secure, encrypted video-on-demand hosting with high-end distribution and monetization tools, making it great if you plan to mix pre-recorded modules with live streams.[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut77itolPk4)
4. Marketplace & Budget Options
Udemy: Ideal if you just want to test the waters without paying for software. You upload your videos directly to their platform, and they market the course for you—though they take a sizable cut of sales and you don't fully own the customer relationship.
YouTube (Unlisted): Completely free, but not recommended for professional or paid courses because unlisted links can easily be shared, ads can occasionally pop up based on algorithmic shifts, and you have zero data privacy control.
To help narrow this down, tell me:
Are you planning to build on an all-in-one platform (like Kajabi) or use a self-hosted site (like WordPress/LearnDash)?
Is video security/anti-piracy a major concern for your niche?
If your main need is “upload my video lessons, stream them reliably, and sell access as a course,” I’d focus on dedicated course platforms rather than generic video hosts.
Choosing the right platform to host your educational course videos depends on whether you want an all-in-one course builder (which includes video hosting natively) or a dedicated video host (to embed into your own website or Learning Management System).
These options manage your website, student payments, and video delivery in a single dashboard.
Thinkific : A clean, course-first platform featuring unlimited video hosting on all paid tiers and 0% platform transaction fees in major markets. It includes a drag-and-drop course builder and robust student progress tracking.
Kajabi : A premium all-in-one option ideal for established creators. It combines native secure video hosting with powerful marketing funnels, email automation, and community features.
LearnWorlds : Excellent if learner engagement is your top priority. It features an advanced course player with interactive video capabilities (allowing you to embed questions, clickable pop-outs, and notes directly into the timeline).
Vimeo : Offers robust privacy controls, domain-level locking, ad-free high-definition playback, and detailed analytics to see where students drop off or re-watch segments.[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ipg-N2KReo)
Wistia : Tailored for professional-looking content without ads or distracting sidebar recommendations. It allows for custom interactive tools like in-video email collection or calls-to-action.
VdoCipher : Purpose-built for e-learning platforms that require locked-down anti-piracy DRM encryption to stop screen recorders and unauthorized downloading.[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6qVPK1SHnc)
If you tell me where your course website is currently built (or if you are starting from scratch) and how concerned you are about video piracy , I can help narrow down the best platform for your budget.
If you're building an educational course, I'd recommend choosing a video hosting platform based on how you'll deliver lessons, whether your videos need to be private, and how much control you want over the student experience.
You don't necessarily need a full course platform to host your videos. You can store videos with a dedicated host and embed them into your own website or learning management system (LMS), or choose an all-in-one service that combines video hosting with lessons, student accounts, and payments.
My top video hosting recommendations
1. Vimeo
(Best overall for most creators)
A polished, ad-free video player with privacy controls, captions, transcripts, and embedding options for course websites. A strong choice if you already have a website or LMS.
Best for: Paid courses, professional training, and independent educators.
LearnWorlds : Ideal if you want high engagement. It specializes in interactive video features (like adding questions, pop-ups, or notes directly inside your video player) and strong design customization.[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnO_oX0JXSw)
Podia : A simple, affordable, and straightforward option great for solo creators who want to host courses, digital downloads, and basic memberships without an overwhelming interface.
LearnDash : A top choice if you already run a WordPress site and want total ownership and custom control over your student portal using a plugin framework (though you will need an external video host like bunny.net or Wistia).[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnO_oX0JXSw)
Teachable
Easiest launch
$29/mo annually
✅ 1 TB included
Simple selling + payments/tax handling
Kajabi
Premium/all-in-one business
$143/mo annually
✅
Courses + email + funnels + CRM
Podia
Solo creators
$42/mo annually
✅
Simple, inexpensive digital-product business
LearnWorlds
Advanced learning experiences
$24/mo annually
✅
More sophisticated LMS features
Udemy
Marketplace exposure
Free to list
✅
Udemy brings potential students
*Prices can vary by billing cycle and plan; these are current published entry prices I found.
🥇 I'd choose Thinkific for most new courses
Thinkific's Basic plan is currently $40/month when billed annually ($54 monthly) and includes unlimited courses, video lessons, quizzes, discussions, a community, checkout/e-commerce tools, and a custom domain.
Importantly for your specific requirement, Thinkific hosts the videos for you—you upload them directly to the platform rather than having to configure your own video CDN. Its current system supports videos up to 3 GB per file, with plan-specific monthly video bandwidth.
Best if: you're building a branded course business and want everything—video, lessons, quizzes, payments, students, and community—in one place.
🥈 Teachable — easiest alternative
Teachable is particularly attractive if you want a straightforward path from video → sales page → payment → student access. Its current annual plans start at $29/month for Starter and $69/month for Builder; Builder removes the platform transaction fee.
Every plan currently includes up to 1 TB of video storage, which is a lot for a typical video course.
A particularly useful distinction: Teachable handles VAT/GST remittance across 45+ countries through its native payment system, which can be valuable if you're selling internationally.
Best if: you want the least technical setup and expect to sell globally.
🏆 Kajabi — if you're building a bigger business
Kajabi costs substantially more—its Basic plan is currently listed at $143/month annually—but it bundles course delivery with marketing funnels, email marketing and CRM functionality.
So I wouldn't pay for Kajabi just to host videos. I'd choose it if you're thinking:
One important point: I wouldn't use Vimeo/YouTube as the primary course platform unless you already have a separate website/LMS. They're excellent video hosts, but they don't by themselves give you the complete course-commerce/student-management layer that Thinkific or Teachable does.
If you tell me (1) roughly how many hours of video you have, (2) expected number of students, (3) course price, and (4) whether you need quizzes/community/certificates, I can narrow this to the cheapest 2–3 options and calculate the likely monthly cost for your course.
Free hosting with broad device support and easy sharing. Unlisted videos are accessible to anyone with the link, however, so they aren't a secure way to distribute paid lessons.
Best for: Free courses, public educational content, and pilot lessons.
Offers professional video embedding, viewer engagement analytics, and marketing integrations. Particularly useful if you want to understand where viewers lose interest or connect videos to lead-generation campaigns.
Best for: Businesses, corporate training, and marketing-led education.
Designed for education and institutional training. It supports searchable lecture recordings, captions, access management, and integration with major LMS platforms.
Best for: Universities, schools, and large training programs.
A usage-based video hosting and delivery option for creators who want to control costs and are comfortable with more technical setup. You may need to configure embedding, access restrictions, and your course website separately.
Best for: Developers, custom course websites, and growing video libraries.
Goes beyond video storage, combining course creation, student access, payments, and marketing tools. A good option if you want to build and sell a course without piecing together multiple services.
Best for: Course businesses that want an all-in-one solution.
Pricing, storage limits, and specific privacy features vary by plan. Verify the current terms before committing.
Which one should you choose?
For a small course on your own website: Start with Vimeo.
For a free course on a tight budget: Start with YouTube.
For a paid course with marketing analytics: Consider Wistia.
For university lectures or institutional training: Consider Panopto.
For a custom-built course site with usage-based costs: Consider Bunny Stream.
For selling courses with minimal technical setup: Consider Kajabi.
One important distinction: video hosting is not the same as video storage for backups. If you have original recordings you need to preserve, keep separate backup copies. Also, no hosting platform can guarantee that students won't record or copy everything they can view.
Let me narrow it down for your course
The best choice depends mostly on how you plan to deliver your content. Will your videos be hosted inside an existing website or course platform, or do you want a platform that also lets students enroll and take the course?
