A summary of options for hosting video in Drupal web sites, from free self hosting to enterprise-level integration and delivery.
Drupal is a powerful open-source content management system that offers many powerful features for building and community web site. However, hosting video in Drupal requires extending Drupal's core capabilities with external modules tools.
There are many options available to integrate video into a Drupal web site. The options range from free public sites to private professional hosting. Before searching for a video option it's helpful to first identify your key requirements. When evaluating options to host video in Drupal it's important to consider:
Budget is likely the most important factor when considering your video hosting strategy. It's also important to remember that free or low cost options are rarely free, as support is likely to be needed during the lifetime of the project and will need to be provided by an expert.
When considering data backups, remember that if you store the video files on your own system you are likely to need more hard drives on your server than normally would be needed. Whatever tool you use to backup your data will take longer to run (as the video collection grows) and will require additional storage space. In a hosted service, backups are typically provided by the service provider.
It's also important to consider your exit options, should you choose to migrate to another platform in the future. Your options to extract and migrate content at a later date from one service to another will vary greatly depending on the particulars of the platform you adopt.
What about feature set? Video is (or should be) a simple experience for the user: Play the video, or don't. It's likely that the key requirements for the project will be player customizability and branding.
Lastly, understanding the capabilities of the site editor(s) or administrator(s) who will be adding the video to your website is key to the evaluation process. For example
Out of the many options available for hosting video in Drupal, we selected four platforms that represent a full spectrum of integration, cost and user experience options:
Below is a summary of the primary differentiates between the services.
| FlashVideo | Blip.tv | Viddler | KalTura | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Description | A Drupal module | A video sharing site, like YouTube | A hosted video platform | A hosted video platform |
| Video storage | On the Drupal site or on Amazon S3 | Hosted on Blip.tv | Hosted on Viddler | Hosted on Kaltura |
| Site editor experience | Integrated upload; user stays in Drupal for single uploads | User uploads video to service and then points Drupal node to video for automatic integration | Integrated recording and upload; user stays in Drupal for single uploads | Integrated recording, upload, import from Flickr/YouTube, editing, bulk upload; user stays in Drupal |
| Video editing capacity | None | None | None | Yes. Editing performed within Drupal interface. |
| Player support | Various open source players | Blip.tv player only | Viddler player only | Kaltura player only |
| Player customization | Varies; some players offer full customization | Light branding | Light branding | Full; player source code available |
| CDN1 | Yes, if hosted on S3 | Yes | Yes, Edgecast | Yes, Limelight& Akami |
| Supported Drupal versions | 4+ | 5+ | 6 | 5+ |
| API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| HD videos | Yes | Yes | Yes (beta as of 2010) | Yes |
| Support | None (self) | Email only | Email, telephone | Email, telephone |
| Exit options | Download from S3 or server via FTP | Individual file download from web site interface | Download from dashboard | Download from dashboard |
| Pricing Model | Free if self-hosted; Approx $0.01 - 0.15 per GB for Amazon S3 | Free; $8/month professional plan for unlimited storage and bandwidth | ~$100/month for 50GB traffic (includes up to 50GB storage) | ~$200/month for 100GB storage & traffic |
| Other plans | 10TB-500TB | Only 1 paid plan | 50GB- 5TB | 100GB-10TB plans |
1 CDN stands for "content delivery network", which is an approach to video hosting where you distribute servers around the world so viewers can load videos faster from severs that are physically close to them.
Justin Emond is a Senior Project Manager at Urban Insight and a Drupal module contributor. Urban Insight, a Los Angeles-based web development firm, offers Drupal consulting.