Kaltura vs. muse.ai

Kaltura and Mediaspace are well suited for any business that has a need for an easy to use video conversion software. We use the SaaS solution, but Kaltura is also open-sourced which means if you have the server resources available, you could get Kaltura up-and-running for a minimal cost or customize it to your hearts content. We have gone with the SaaS solution to minimize the amount of administration required as well as give us the benefit of getting the most-up-to-date version of the software. There are ways to monetize videos by adding ads and other things, but unfortunately I don't have much experience with these since we are a University. Kaltura is excellent from our University's perspective because it gives our campus a way to share their videos in a very easy to use package that basically "just works." If you're a small company or institution that doesn't need a lot of control over the back-end of a video solution, then there may be other, better alternatives that are free such as YouTube.

Muse.ai offers a great option for video hosting for videos for bloggers, online content creators, course creators, coaches, online marketers, or anyone needing to host videos on a secure, fast, efficient, easy to use and affordable platform. The price is super affordable compared to other video host platforms. Muse.ai offers many features and functions for video hosting including some video player customization, public, private and embedded only video options, different sharing options and auto transcription. I have not found the automatic transcription/captions to be very accurate so I still use another program for my captions and manually upload them. (Muse.ai does offer the option to add your own captions so this is not an issue for me and only takes a couple more minutes time.)

Incentivized

• Kaltura Classroom is one of the best ways to teach online, including the capacity of instructors to record classes directly to the LMS
• Integrates very well with enterprise application via strong API system
• Cutting edge implementation of emerging technologies like 360 videos
• Robust and flexible transcoding profiles

Incentivized

• user friendly
• affordable
• excellent uptime
• good customer support

Incentivized

• As it relates to the LMS integration, we would like to see improved workflow. But that may be just as much a Canvas issue as a Kaltura issue.
• I would like to see the ability to add inline, anchored comments to the video timeline.
• We are seeing issues with compatibility with certain browsers - especially Chrome. The faster Kaltura can move away from Flash the better.
• The capture appliance (CaptureSpace Lite) needs to be reconsidered. It's not intutive enough.

Incentivized

• better audio transcription
• more video player customizations

Incentivized

The choice to renew our subscription does not belong to us, though we are able to provide input. We are aware of competitive products who have matured in the past three years, and we are aware now of alternatives to conventional plugin usage (LTI).

The first line support agents seldom are able to diagnose or troubleshoot any problems that we have. These agents simply open support tickets in their system which are escalated to a foreign level 2 support agent which creates at least a day delay between reporting a problem and getting initial feedback. Any back-and-forth questions add at least another day delay.

Incentivized

Panopto is a much cheaper option (based on a pay per view model) but the user experience is not nearly as good. The video portal UI is difficult to navigate and the recording feature requires downloading separate desktop software that differs greatly from PC to MAC. Inline quizzing features are far behind Kaltura. It does have stronger analytics tools but they are the type that are better exported to .csv and processed by an advanced Excel user. Vimeo Pro is a very cheap and solid option for a small program or business that is just starting out, but it isn't highly searchable, it doesn't support a large body of users and does not offer any type of online features. It isn't really much more than a repository but it is a bit nicer than using freeware such as YouTube.

Incentivized

Initially, it came down to the price. Muse.ai was $60 a year vs $200 for Vimeo. (Wistia is even more). Muse.ai may not have as many bells and whistles and options as Vimeo BUT they have everything I need for video hosting for videos on my blog, for my clients and within my member website for my online courses, classes and workshops. It is very easy to upload, customize, choose your settings and grab your embed or share links for your videos on their platform. I have only had to reach out to their customer support a couple of times, but each time I received a fast and friendly response.

Incentivized

• Managing video content with the KMC has greatly reduced the amount of hours previously needed to manage.
• User issues ie: uploading video, viewing video has been greatly reduced.
• Increased user engagement with using video in LMS courses. We currently have 6,929 videos on our system. Last month , 2/1/14, 17,623 videos were viewed at least 75% of the way through.

• saves me several hundred dollars annually compared to other video platforms I previously used ($140 less annually than Vimeo, for instance)
• saves me time in uploading and customizing my videos and grabbing the embed code
• so far, 100% uptime - meaning my clients and customers aren't having issues accessing content
• mobile-friendly video player, ease of use for my customers and clients who are viewing the videos

Incentivized