The Vimeo alternative for filmmakers.
No re-encoding. Your export streams byte for byte.

Vimeo asks for a 4K upload between 30 and 60 Mbps and streams back at most 22. The first things to go are gradients, grain and shadow detail; the mechanism is in why your video looks worse after upload. Here the encoder is yours: the bitrate in your export dialog is the bitrate the viewer decodes, and the bitrate calculator is the only sizing tool you need. The trade is that you carry the file size. Vimeo’s ladder exists so a phone on a poor network never buffers; here there is no lower rung, so a poor connection buffers rather than degrades. Right for a client screening or a festival programmer; possibly wrong for a clip that must play on any phone anywhere.

The proof is not on this page: the homepage carries a drag-the-line comparison, 4K against 4K, same clip, same frame, and the feature-by-feature head-to-head with the bitrate charts is at uncompressed.io vs Vimeo. This page prices the absence of a transcode against what Vimeo sells in September 2026, and says plainly where Vimeo is still the better tool.

Two lines settle it for most filmmakers. Bandwidth: every self-serve tier meters the same monthly amount, the subject of a Vimeo alternative with no bandwidth cap. Storage: a Vimeo account’s total is lifetime and never renews, so a busy year fills the locker for good unless you delete. Here storage is what you hold today, and a finished project can move to cold at half the hot rate, the arithmetic in hot vs cold storage for footage.

The listed options after contact are two: bring usage back under the threshold, or move to a Custom or Enterprise plan priced on expected bandwidth. Vimeo’s terms add that it may charge for excessive usage, require an upgrade, or terminate with advance written notice. Here the Terms state that storage is the only meter and there are no bandwidth caps, and the pricing page lists unlimited views, uploads and viewers on every plan. There is no fair-use number, because there is no meter.

Masters under 3 GB import in one pass; larger masters run through a chunked, resumable job that survives a closed laptop. The procedure is in move Vimeo videos without re-uploading, the export checklist in what to export before canceling Vimeo, and what a cancelled plan does to a library in cancel Vimeo without losing your videos.

Vimeo’s terms on ownership are short: when a subscription ends the account reverts to free or is deleted at Vimeo’s option, and, in its own words, “You are responsible for archiving your content.” Here the upload is the master, the Terms say files are never sold or used to train AI, with a 30-day notice rule, and delivering a master to a client is covered in deliver final video files to clients.

None of that is an argument on its own: a change of owner and a size-sorting policy are ordinary corporate events, and a one-person film company is nowhere near the line. It matters because choosing a host is choosing who holds the master copy: one product holds a re-encode and keeps the source on its own conditions, the other holds the source and nothing else. Every plan here, the free one included, carries the same player, the same review room and no meter; the plans differ in storage alone.