There’s countless Online Video Platforms (OVPs) available. The most popular of them is also free: YouTube. What makes it onto this list, though, are platforms with a feature set focused on the EDU market. Single sign-on support and integrations with platforms such as your institution’s learning management system, lecture capture solution, and web collaboration tools (such as Zoom or WebEx) are key. That’s why you won’t find Vimeo, Brightcove, of VBrick’s Rev on this list.

This survey of tools is likely to be the most incomplete as testing a number of these functions would require a degree of access to the platform that a vendor is likely hesitant to provide.

Kaltura

Supported Integrations: Canvas, Moodle, Brightspace by D2L, Blackboard, Zoom

Comments: The market leader in the EDU vertical for video platforms, Kaltura recognized early in its existence the needs of the educational market and tailored a number of their features to that market. While also providing services to OTT and enterprise verticals, Kaltura continues to put a great deal of emphasis on EDU, regularly developing new tools for the industry and allowing for numerous 3rd party integrations. it is the most innovative of the online video platforms, providing you with a lot more than just the ability to share and play videos. They’ve innovated enhanced video functionality which turns a passive playback experience into an engaging experience for students and educators.

Panopto

Supported Integrations: Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, Sakai, Bridghtspace by D2L, Bridge, Cornerstone, Saba, SAP SuccessFactors

Comments: Probably the platform with the most momentum at the time of this writing, Panopto is best known for its lecture capture capabilities, providing both software and hardware based solutions. Given their lecture capture background, it’s no surprise that Panopto offers a mature suite of recording tools include a free (for anyone, no registration required) browser-based recording product with webcam, microphone, and screen recording capabilities. Panopto also has an extensive list of supported lecture capture appliances, both certified (Seneca, Matrox, Shuttle) and endorsed (Extron, Epiphan, Wolfvision).

YuJa

Supported Integrations: Canvas, Moodle, Brightspace by D2L, Blackboard

Comments: YuJa has the benefit of being the new kid on the block with no legacy baggage to weigh it down. It includes an elegant suite of recording tools, including browser-based tools that carry annotation functionality, Mac and Windows desktop capture software, and a hardware capture solution. YuJa has come a long way in just a few years. In addition to the same core functionality you would expect in all modern video platforms, it brings all the extra trappings you would hope for, including “nice to have” functionality like media archiving and test proctoring. YuJa has matured into a serious player in the academic market in a short period of time.

YouTube

Supported Integrations:

Comments: It’s a tough call to include YouTube on this list. While it does provide single sign-on functionality through Google Apps/GSuite integration, YouTube hardly provides the kind of security that an EDU deployment requires (i.e. FERPA protections). YouTube’s primary goal is to get your video to as many viewers as possible. For a student assignment, that can be catastrophic. There is no easy way for a student to upload their assignment to YouTube and share it exclusively with an instructor or a cohort of peers in a class. You’re also not going to find any administrator level tools that will allow you to support your users.

Sonic Foundry Mediasite

Supported Integrations:

Comments: Among the biggest of the old school lecture capture providers, Mediasite started as on on-premise solution and has since migrated to the cloud. They continue to exist as a holistic A-to-Z solutions provider, from capture appliances to video delivery.

Echo360

Supported Integrations:

Comments: Mediasite’s chief rival in the early days of on-premise lecture capture solutions, Echo360 remains a force to be reckoned with as it too has moved to the cloud. Echo360 continues to provide complete lecture capture solutions to institutions.

MediaAMP

Supported Integrations: Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, Drupal, Google, Zoom, Adobe, WordPress

Comments: Emerging originally out of development at the University of Washington, it was built atop a commercial media platform and customized for educational use.

VidGrid

Supported Integrations:

Comments: Formerly known as ilos.

Opencast

Supported Integrations:

Comments: Formerly known as Matterhorn, one of the oldest of the EDU online video platforms, Opencast grew up as a collaborative effort between a number of institutions but never made it into the cloud. Instead, Opencast Matterhorn institutions host servers on-premise and do most of the support and development in house or through 3rd party commercial firms.

Indeed, the inclusion of Opencast in this survey can be considered questionable given that it’s not hosted in the cloud and thus may not be considered “online”, but it should still be considered by institutions should they wish to explore on-prem solutions, particularly institutions where cloud hosting may not be a viable option.

As Opencast matured, firms cropped up to provide hosting and development services, which is how Extron came to offer a commercial version of Opencast dubbed Entwine, before ultimately getting out of the market.

Without a commercially available cloud-based solution, a number of past supporters of the platform who can no longer justify the cost of in-house development and on-prem hosting are migrating away from Opencast.

Instructure Canvas Studio

Supported Integrations: Canvas

Comments: Formerly known as Arc.

Ubicast

Supported Integrations: Moodle, Blackboard, Canvas, Ilias, Brightspace, Coursera

Comments: A relative unknown outside of Europe, Ubicast has been around for more than a decade and delivers a complete end-to-end solution from their Miris Box line of lecture capture appliances to an elegant front-end playback interface.

MediaShareIQ

Supported Integrations:

Comments: Launched by Education Management Solutions, MediaShareIQ is an offshot and expansion of their simulation and training platform for the healthcare market.

ShareStream

Supported Integrations: Canvas, Moodle, Brightspace by D2L, Blackboard, Sakai, Zoom

Comments: Emerging out of Georgetown University, ShareStream is one of the earliest video platforms to focus on education. Yet ShareStream continues to innovate, with an elegant Zoom integration where meetings can be scheduled and launched from ShareStream’s Capture Scheduler, and a modern front-end interface for accessing media from within the LMS or independent of the LMS.

TechSmith Screencast.com

Supported Integrations:

Comments: Not necessarily focused on the educational market, TechSmith’s Screencast.com is so ubiquitous as to warrant a mention here. TechSmith’s Camtasia and Snagit tools both upload directly into Screencast.com and sharing your video from Screencast.com is as simple as copy/pasting a URL.

TechSmith Knowmia

Comments: TechSmith has formed a strategic alliance with Panopto and has sunset Knowmia in favor of the Panopto platform.

Microsoft Stream

Supported Integrations:

Comments: In December 2020 Microsoft announced changes to Stream and the retirement of the product as a streaming platform.

Illumira

Supported Integrations:

Comments: Formerly known as NJvid.

Warpwire

Supported Integrations:

Comments: Warpwire was acquired Symphony Technology Group (STG) in 2020, becoming part of its learning and content management suite of products.

Ensemble Video

Comments: Ensemble Video was acquired by Panopto in 2021.

Zoom

Supported Integrations: Canvas, Kaltura, Panopto, many more

Comments: An unusual contender until you think about it. Zoom is known as a popular and easy to use web collaboration tool. But Zoom also has exceptional screen recording capabilities and provides enterprise users with copious amounts of cloud storage and integrates through your institution’s single sign-on solution. While many institutions currently use Zoom’s extensive marketplace to move their recordings to other platforms, such as Kaltura or Panopto, arguably, you can use Zoom as your institution’s lecture capture solution as well as your storage and delivery platform. The full suite of expected functionality isn’t there yet (there is no public or secure portal yet), should Zoom ever choose to pivot in this direction, they’d likely disrupt the market. It won’t be long before institutions start asking themselves why they’re paying for both Zoom and another platform.

Last updated: January 24, 2023