Why We Moved From Vimeo Pro to Wistia – And Why You Should Too

Editor’s note: Since this article was published, Vimeo has added support for HTTPS. That’s great and all, but we’re still very happy with Wistia and won’t be moving anytime soon. The sentiment below still stands…

Regular readers might be aware of my ongoing frustrations with the Vimeo Pro platform, specifically around HTTPS.

In case you are new here (or had better things to fill your mind with), here’s the issue: they don’t do https, they won’t do https and so are practically worse than useless as a video provider for any online business that wants to show videos and accept payments.

And believe me, I brought this up, at length, frequently, sometimes in verse. With no joy.

So, finally, we figured it was time to go, did an absolute heap of research and testing of alternatives, and settled on a solution that not only does https but does an absolute heap more too… meet my new bestie, Wistia.

These guys rock. I mean really rock.

Because ya see, it’s not just the https that makes these guys awesome. I, for example, was expecting nothing but complaining when I asked our video guy to move our entire promotional video setup to Wistia, but instead, I just got this:

Here is a list of things I enjoy about Wistia:

• Need I say HTTPS recognition and support
• The statistics are much more elaborate. (heat mapping lets you see exactly where you are losing users or gaining interest based on playback and drop-off.)
• Social sharing options can be built into the the embed of the player.
• Wistia will create a video site map for you. (It acts to push traffic back to you as opposed to the third party host. This is something I need to do next. This could be big for our plugin search results)
• The interface is intuitive and has a built in help menu with video tutorials if you get stuck.
• Support, support, support (Insanely responsive, friendly and helpful support staff)