Vimeo vs Lumen5: which video maker and editor should you choose?

Vimeo and Lumen5 are two leading platforms for creating and editing videos. While both include AI editing tools, they have different offerings in terms of video creation and marketing features like screen recording, live streaming, and making and editing videos on mobile. Knowing how Vimeo and Lumen5 compare helps you figure out which platform will best serve your needs.

What is the difference between Vimeo and Lumen5?

Both Vimeo and Lumen5 have full-blown video editing tools with AI-powered features. If you’re looking for a full-fledged solution that also includes flexible video creation capabilities, however, Vimeo’s offering shines thanks to features like video marketing, screen recording, and live streaming and virtual events. We’ll compare the two solutions and help you decide which video platform suits your needs best.

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Vimeo vs Lumen5: Quick comparison

Want an all-in-one video platform that gives you everything — including video hosting, live streaming, screen recording, and advanced editing features? See the comparison table to understand how Vimeo stacks up to Lumen5.

You get everything you need to create, edit, and share your videos across the globe with Vimeo, with an ad-free, customizable video player, accessibility tools (so that your videos can be consumed by everyone) and the ability to live stream and host virtual events. Lumen5 features video creation and editing tools too, yet lacks a customizable video player, and you can’t use the platform to live stream or host virtual events.

Vimeo video platform overview

Vimeo offers a range of powerful tools to enhance your video content and streamline collaboration. Offering an ad-free, customizable video player that offers top-tier quality, along with the toolset you need to help you easily create, share, and manage your high-end videos — from accessibility features to privacy controls and live streaming capabilities — Vimeo is a full-featured video platform.  

• Ad-free, customizable video player. With our fully customizable video player, Vimeo provides an uninterrupted ad-free viewing experience. It even offers support for 4K, 8K, HDR, and Dolby Vision, ensuring you get the best video quality available without any distractions.
• Accessibility features. Add multiple audio tracks, captions, and subtitles as well to help retain your audience — they can enjoy a video that’s not only in their language but also with descriptive audio and/or commentary. Users on the Advanced plan and higher can also benefit from our AI-powered tools to automatically generate captions in seven different languages on any paid plan.
• Embed videos. Vimeo generates simple, copy-and-paste code automatically for you, so embedding videos on your website is simple.
• Privacy and access controls. After you upload your videos to the Vimeo video-hosting service, you can manage video access by making them public, private, or password-protected, based on your plan. One nice feature is being able to set permission levels — at the user, folder, or video level. Enterprise plans offer advanced security features like multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and domain-level privacy, so you can restrict which websites have authorization to embed your videos.
• Live streaming and virtual event capabilities. Webinars, live streams, and virtual events are easy and effective with branded streams and browser-based multistreaming. With Vimeo, you can host private streams or stream on platforms like YouTube and Facebook securely, and with audience engagement tools like chat, polls, Q&A, and live links.
• Collaboration and video communication. Those who sign up for paid Vimeo plans can place video content in shared folders and invite team members to join a team as an admin, contributor, or viewer to collaborate on video projects. Chapters can be shared for team members to review, while event collaborators can add time-stamped notes and stay updated via Slack and email notifications.

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Lumen5 video overview

While Lumen5 doesn’t offer a customizable video player, it does allow you to organize videos with workspaces and projects. It provides browser-based editing from desktop browsers (though it doesn’t work with mobile) and sets access controls, allowing admins to assign permissions and set video privacy settings.

• Workspaces and projects. With Lumen5, you can organize your videos into workspaces and projects. Projects are organizational layers within workspaces that act like folders, which means you can create projects in each workspace to separate videos, campaigns, templates, etc. It allows you to run several campaigns or events but keep relevant templates accessible in one workspace.
• Browser-based editing. Lumen5 works from any desktop browser. However, it’s not designed to be used on mobile browsers, and Lumen 5 doesn’t provide mobile apps — meaning you need to use a desktop or laptop browser in order to use the tools.
• Access controls and permissions. If you’re working as a team, you can give users an Admin or Editor role. Admins have the ability to determine what projects editors can see. You can also set the privacy for individual videos, making them public, sharing them with a few people with an access link, or making them private. 

Video creation comparison: Vimeo vs. Lumen5

Both Vimeo and Lumen5 have simple video creation tools. However, Lumen5 is a browser-based video editor that doesn’t work with mobile browsers, but Vimeo lets you access videos from your desktop or mobile. Unlike Vimeo, Lumen5 doesn’t have screen recording capabilities, while Vimeo supports screen recording features in your browser or mobile device. 

Vimeo video maker overview

With desktop and mobile video creation, easy screen recording, direct video uploads, and an immense library of adaptable templates and stock media, Vimeo streamlines your video creation. Advanced features, including live streaming, as well as detailed analytics, enable users to engage their audience and iterate on their video strategy for maximum impact.

• Create on mobile or desktop. Vimeo’s video platform allows you to create, edit, share, and watch videos anywhere, across mobile and desktop. Vimeo allows you to record your screen, webcam, or both. Users on Advanced and Enterprise plans can also broadcast live directly from mobile devices.
• Upload and customize videos. Use the Vimeo video maker to seamlessly upload and create videos in just minutes. You can upload videos from your device or via integrations with Google Drive, Dropbox, Zoom, Box, Webex, etc.
• Customizable video templates. Vimeo offers thousands of pre-built video templates if you’re not sure where to start — or you want to get started quickly. Edit them to include your own words, pictures, songs, and other content to make them your own.
• Stock media library. Immerse your viewers in the scenes with Vimeo’s extensive catalog of royalty-free stock media — images, videos, soundtracks, etc.
• Advanced analytics. Vimeo’s powerful analytics dashboard gives you details on who’s watching your videos, where viewers drop off, and how they engage with your content, helping you further refine your video strategy as time goes on.

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Lumen5 video maker overview

Lumen5 provides basic tools for video creation. The ability to record talking head videos is one of the platform’s core functionalities, but it lacks screen recording tools on the platform.

• Video templates. Similar to Vimeo, Lumen5 lets you get started from a blank slate, or you can select from templates, including templates for popular aspect resolutions like 16:9, 1:1, and 9:16, from its library. You are free to readjust the format later on if necessary.
• Talking head videos. It’s also simple to record talking head videos with your webcam in Lumen5. 
• Teleprompter. Lumen5 has a built-in teleprompter. You submit the script; Lumen5 automatically scrolls through the words as you create the recording.
• Brand kits. Jump-start your project with Lumen5’s one-click brand kits, available with Starter and above plans, where you can easily load your brand colors, fonts, and a watermark to a video template. 
• Stock media library. Lumen5 has access to a stock media library, including still images, videos, and graphics. Access to these assets is dependent on what plan you have.

Video editing comparison: Vimeo vs. Lumen5

Vimeo and Lumen5 are well-known editing tools that make use of AI technology to help accelerate the video editing process. Lumen5 is an AI-powered tool for transforming written content into visually appealing videos, but lacks the ability to schedule direct to social media and has no interactive features. Making aspect ratio adjustments is easy, but you can’t include clickable links in videos.

Vimeo video editor overview

Vimeo provides easy-to-understand and simple-to-use tools to make the video editing process easier and more aligned with your brand. Robust editing tools enable you to trim or resize videos, apply professional-grade editing with filters, transitions, and custom graphics, and access a huge stock media library.

• Timeline-based editor. Vimeo’s easy timeline-based editor features drag-and-drop functionality, letting you easily adjust the length, timing, and flow of your video in minutes.
• Integrated brand kit. For video content that always needs to be on-brand, Vimeo’s Brand Kit — on Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, Business, and Premium plans — gives team members access to logos, brand colors, fonts, and other approved brand elements.
• Advanced editing capabilities. Vimeo has all the necessary tools you’ll need to trim, resize, and crop your videos — helping to eliminate unwanted or unnecessary parts and adjust the video’s frame size and aspect ratio to suit any platform's requirements. Add music, filters, styles, transitions, text, stickers, animations, and custom graphics to your videos for a polished, professional, distinctive look.
• Stock media library. With Vimeo’s video maker, you can enhance your content with video, images, and audio pulled from our extensive library of royalty-free stock media. Include audio clips, custom fonts, video graphics, and other elements to give your videos that extra polish.
• Compress videos. If you want to send a video by email or via Dropbox and Google Drive but also keep its quality at a high level, you can compress your video.

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Vimeo AI video tools

Vimeo’s groundbreaking AI tools empower marketers and creators to produce professional-grade videos in a fraction of the time — no technical knowledge required.

• Text-based video editor. With a Vimeo Standard or higher plan, you can easily delete filler words, unwanted phrases, and awkward pauses from your auto-generated transcript, removing them from your video instantly, like magic!
• One-take video creation. Vimeo Standard and above users can overcome writer’s block with our AI script generator, which can take a brief description and create a full video script. Stay on point with our built-in teleprompter to help you nail your take in one go.
• Auto-generated video information. Vimeo’s AI video creation software helps you to streamline your workflow so you can save time. Add interactive experiences to your videos and auto-generate a title, summary, chapters, and tags (for Advanced and Enterprise users).
• AI dubbing. Vimeo's voice-cloning AI duplicates your natural voice so you can sound like yourself in many languages, from Spanish to Arabic. Note: This is only available to select Enterprise users.
• Auto-generated highlight reels. Vimeo Enterprise users can also apply AI to create highlight reels on auto-pilot, offering a short, easy-to-digest recap with all the need-to-know tidbits for viewers.

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Lumen5 video editor overview

Lumen5 has numerous editing tools that are specifically designed to allow you to create polished videos with ease. There are intuitive sliders that let you adjust your brightness, contrast, and saturation, plus no-frills tools for merging, cutting, and compressing videos.

• Adjust video brightness, contrast, and saturation. Lumen5 enables you to set light, contrast, colors, and saturation, all within seconds through a slider bar.
• Merge, cut, trim, and compress videos. Lumen5 also provides options to merge, cut, trim, and compress videos.
• Add text, images, and audio. Use Lumen5’s video editor to upload audio files, and add text, your logo, a watermark, or still images to your video. Lumen5 accepts all popular image and audio formats. 
• Slide-based editing. Each video scene in a Lumen5 video is a slide, so you can simply delete, add, and rearrange slides to make a more fluid video.

Lumen5 AI video tools

Lumen5 uses AI to help you create videos by creating scripts, voiceovers, and AI talking heads. Lumen5 also has automatic script generation, text to video, and AI voiceovers, so you can have your video content out in minutes.

• AI script composer. Lumen5’s AI can produce video scripts that are based on your video concept outline. Lumen5 can also pull content from a URL you provide and analyze that content so it can suggest scenes and generate multiple video scripts for video, making it a handy tool for repurposing content such as blog posts and ebooks.
• Convert text to video. Lumen5 uses generative AI to automatically create video content from text.
• AI voiceovers. Add AI voiceovers to your videos with a Lumen5 paid plan to access a premium AI voice library. The free plan includes 2 minutes of AI Voiceover, but you may be limited to a small selection of AI voices.
• AI talking heads. When it comes to creating a talking head video, you can record your face and voice if you want, or you can opt for an AI-generated talking head and voice in place of your own.
• Automated captions. Lumen5 will automatically provide captions to your script, which you can edit with font and color changes. A paid plan is necessary for this feature.

Video marketing capabilities comparison

Video marketing gets your video in front of your audience once you’ve edited and polished it. While Lumen5 leverages AI to turn written content into engaging videos, it doesn’t have the ability to directly post to social media or the interactive features that Vimeo does.

Vimeo video marketing overview

In addition to the video hosting aspects of our platform, Vimeo provides marketing tools to help you reach your audience and log your performance, including a detailed analytics dashboard, a customizable video player, and easy marketing integrations. Vimeo offers end-to-end video marketing capabilities from production to distribution. 

• Marketing integrations. An integration with a CRM like Marketo, HubSpot, Constant Contact, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud is available with an Advanced plan or higher, making it easier to include videos in your marketing effort. While most of these integrations can be utilized by users with an Advanced plan, some features and integrations are only available with a Vimeo Enterprise plan. 
• Social media video templates. Vimeo offers editing features for adapting and resizing content and creating video templates specifically for social media channels, such as TikTok and Instagram.
• In-depth analytics. You can see all the key metrics of your performance through the Vimeo analytics dashboard, such as views, unique viewers, and watch time. Filter by date, region, source, content, device, or type to easily measure and optimize your results.
• Create and share reports. Vimeo allows for creating and sharing reports and can customize them based on a number of parameters — desktop, mobile device, region (what state/country), source (where did the viewership come from), video (which videos were viewed), date, engagement (how long the video was viewed), and much more.
• Create interactive, shoppable videos. Enterprise users may be able to drive even more engagement with interactive content, like calls to action, quizzes, polls, and shoppable links.

Explore Vimeo’s marketing tools → 

Lumen5 video marketing overview

One factor to note is that Lumen5 does not allow users to insert clickable links into videos or share your videos directly on social media. You can download videos to your device, upload them to a social media platform, and overlay clickable links through the options provided by the social platform, however — but that obviously adds a few steps to the process.

• Repurpose written content. Lumen5 converts written content from ebooks, whitepapers, blog posts, and infographics into engaging marketing videos with its AI capabilities.
• Easily adjust aspect ratio. From a creative perspective, Lumen5 also enables you to change the aspect ratio of your video whenever you want, which means you can adapt your video content to suit different social networks.

Which video maker is best for you: Vimeo or Lumen5?

While both Vimeo and Lumen5 provide useful video creation and editing capabilities, Vimeo is a better all-in-one solution for companies and creators. As a resource for end-to-end video production, publishing, and marketing, Vimeo is built with capabilities such as live streaming, a customizable video player, AI editing, and marketing integrations.

While good for converting written content to videos, its absence of live streaming, accessibility on mobile devices, and ability to create interactive content may limit its use for more advanced video marketing needs. If you want to expand the reach and impact of your video content, Vimeo offers an advantage with its versatile capabilities.

Elevate your video strategy with Vimeo →