17 Best Video Player Plugins for WordPress in 2023

Video content is taking the lead in the visual-first marketing strategy. No matter whether you want to create a playlist of video tutorials or an inspiring brand video – both can have a measurable impact on your business’ bottom line. But after the creative part of the job is done, you need to find the best way to add videos to your WordPress website. Default WordPress functionality allows you to embed videos without plugins and customize them by adding very basic attributes. However, if you need more flexibility and features, the best way to go is to use a WordPress video player plugin.

You will be spoiled for choice because there are a bunch of free and paid solutions ready to put your video to work.

But which one is the most appropriate for your needs? Before we introduce to the best video player plugins for WordPress, let’s firstly create a checklist of the things to consider when choosing a WordPress video player. It pays to pay attention to the details of a plugin from the get-go!

Let’s make things easier by breaking it down into several sections.

What sort of WordPress video player plugin do I need?

Good question. There are several types:

1. A fairly simple WordPress video player suitable for featuring several key brand videos. For example, an overview of your product or service on the website landing page. In this situation, any video player plugin with a good reputation and price-performance ratio will do.
2. A rather complex WordPress video gallery plugin for building mid-sized and massive video directories featuring tutorials, game reviews, and course playlists. In this scenario, you may not only need a well-structured gallery layout to organize your videos but more advanced functionality like video search, filters, an ability to add custom details to each video (description, length, author), a highly flexible video gallery customization toolkit or even an option to let users download your videos. These are all key things to assess when choosing the best video plugin for WordPress.
3. E-commerce functionality to sell your videos. When this is the case, you might not be able to get by with a dedicated WordPress video gallery plugin but will need a specific WooCommerce plugin like WooCommerce Product Table or a video plugin with e-commerce integration.

FYI: If you are looking to embed a background video, we recommend searching for a WordPress theme that supports this option out of the box. For the vast majority of WordPress websites, this is a more seamless solution than connecting any third-party video player plugin.

Where to host your WordPress videos

Along with images, videos are the heaviest asset of any website. No surprise, cumbersome videos, and video galleries can be slow to load.

If you opt for self-hosted videos (stored on your WordPress website server), well-trusted WordPress video player plugins should be high on your list.

Since it’s a general recommendation to put extra efforts into optimizing your WordPress website for playing self-hosted videos, the hosting and video player plugin should be reliable in the first place.

Remember, self-hosted video players aren’t the best option for continuously added quality videos that tremendously eat up your server space.

If you host your videos offsite with the popular services like YouTube or Vimeo, lots of problems vanish at once. First off, you don’t need to worry too much about performance as your videos are hosted elsewhere. Moreover, those hosts automatically re-encode your videos to work on all modern devices and across all browsers (something you might need to go about manually with self-hosted videos). So your task is easier – to rather choose a specific functionality you need in a WordPress video player plugin and not wrack your brain around tech stuff.

However, if you need to embed just a couple of brand videos, self-hosted videos may be a better way to go since they are unbranded and don’t distract website visitors with annoying ads.

The vast majority of WordPress video player plugins support both of these types.

A quick checklist of things to consider when choosing a WordPress video player plugin

1. Make sure a WordPress video player comes with a great range of customizable skins to be integrated beautifully into your WordPress theme. You should be able to have a good level of control over how the videos look and work.
2. If you need to embed only specific types of videos hosted offsite (e.g., YouTube), going with a dedicated plugin like Yottie (one of the most used YouTube gallery WordPress plugins) might be a better option. Such HTML 5 video plugins are packaged with dozens of options related to just one video host and do not force you to bear the burden of tons of never used extra features.
3. Consider the SEO capabilities of the video player or the WordPress video gallery plugin. It’s important that the plugin allows you to write video descriptions, titles, output the needed metadata, author, and every piece of info that helps your videos get indexed properly by the search engines.
4. If you need a user-friendly lightbox pop-up functionality instead of just playing videos on a page, make sure that it’s supported by default. Some vendors offer this option as an extra add-on, but with others, the lightbox pop-up functionality is included in the plugin’s core features.
5. Put yourself in a client-facing role – is a player speedy enough and intuitive in use? If possible, try to play demos or perform stress testing if the plugin is free.
6. For self-hosted videos, check whether social sharing integration is supported. If there are lots of videos and you want to allow viewers to easily share individual ones across their accounts, make sure the WordPress video player plugin supports this feature. Basically, if each video is played in an individual WordPress post, this should not be such a problem. But if you are working with a custom gallery and lightbox pop-up, you’ll have to double-check if this option is available.
7. Want to show the number of views indicator with each video? Note that far from the vast majority of video gallery plugins provide this option by default.
8. For offsite hosted content, check for an easy connection with video host API for automatic playlist updates and a whole bunch of options.
9. Look for advanced video options: multiple video quality, private and password-protected videos, support for subtitles, etc.
10. A general rule of thumb is to pay special attention to regular updates and good reviews of the plugin.

The Best WordPress Video Player Plugins

Hopefully, we’ve managed to help you sketch out your own checklist! Now let’s dive into the collection of the best WordPress video plugins we carefully selected.

Elite Video Player

To keep on track with the rapidly growing VR technologies, YouTube 360 VR & Livestreaming support is built right into the base plugin. If your website deals with events, HTTP live streaming may also come in handy. Lightbox mode for all types of videos is available.

Elite Video player supports videos hosted from Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3 & Amazon cloud drive videos. If you need to show an image or a gif instead of a video, it’s also doable.

The plugin is customizable, works with a wide array of website builders, and automatically detects unplayable video sources. Optionally, you can use the Elite Video Player to display VAST, VMAP, Google IMA, or custom ads.

Details/Download

HTML5 Video Player (CodeCanyon)

HTML5 player brings minimalism and higher-quality streaming to your videos across all major browsers. MP4 and .WebM video files are supported. For better SEO, this WordPress video player supports custom video titles and descriptions.

The player has several skins, so finding the one that matches your site’s style won’t take long. Depending on the option you choose, the plugin lets you place the playlist below or next to the display, but you can also opt to exclude the playlist.

Details/Download

Video Gallery

Being superior in features, the plugin is used on thousands of WordPress websites. It easily deals with multichannel galleries, YouTube API, deep linking (generating individual URLs for all videos), and MPEG-Dash for high-quality streams.

Among other standout features is drag&drop video gallery builder, .srt subtitles support, metadata for SEO, and easy social media sharing buttons for each video, and that’s not a limit. A built-in Analytic tool will help you keep track of how your videos perform.

Besides five skin presets, the player has a skin builder that lets you create custom skins. Its admin panel puts all player’s functionalities at your fingertips and allows you to import two or more videos simultaneously.

Details/Download

YouTube Vimeo Video Player & Slider

Users love this plugin for its ease of use and intuitive design. To help you get your YouTube and Vimeo videos organized inside a beautiful gallery, you can use fixed and full-width players, customize colors and borders, set different parameters and more.

The plugin automatically obtains descriptions, thumbnails, and titles for all YouTube videos. The player has 16 transition effects that allow you to create eye-catching photo slideshows. Its text elements functionality enables you to add multiple text layers to your pictures.

Details/Download

Universal Video Player

The plugin supports YouTube, Vimeo, and self-hosted videos, so you can easily add your brand videos or integrate playlists from external video hosting platforms. For self-hosted videos, you can enable website visitors to download the video – perfect for restricted content areas and membership WordPress websites.

Installation is straightforward, and it takes a few minutes. Once you activate the plugin, you can use Google Analytics to track metrics for each video you add to your site. The player has just black and white skins.

Details/Download

YouTube Channel Gallery

You control almost any aspect of this plugin to display your YouTube video gallery, including the video feed type, player type, video order, dimensions, progress bar, video quality parameters, your YouTube logo, and related videos or thumbnail resolution.

The player can help improve a site’s SERP because users can tweak video descriptions and titles whenever they want. What’s more, you can connect this WordPress video plugin to your AdSense account and monetize video views.

Details/Download

Easy Video Player

The plugin allows you to control the player size and ratio, skins, loop, video player template, and more. It’s very easy on customization and is not bloated with excessive features.

You can add this HTML 5 player plugin several times to the same page and decide whether to enable or disable video descriptions. You can control how much space the player will occupy on each page by defining its width, height, and borders.

Details/Download

Videojs HTML5 Player

Basically, with this plugin, you are able to embed MP4 videos into standard WordPress posts and pages, embed HTML5 videos, use videos with poster images, play videos directly from your Media Library in a shortcode with a link, and more options. Overall, the plugin is very clean, lightweight, and powerful.

The plugin doesn’t require setup after installation and will automatically play videos once the page render is complete. The fact that the plugin has more than 10,000 installations is yet another reason why Videojs is considered one of the best HTLM5 video player plugins for WordPress.

Details/Download

Flowplayer 6 Video Player

The base framework of this plugin is known for its great performance, huge customization options, and awesome user experience. 

Flowplayer 6 is perfect for online businesses that want to monitor the statistics for each of their videos because it has built-in functionalities that track video views. Installing this plugin on your WordPress site will enable you to use Google Analytics, slow motion feature, or enable video subtitles.

Details/Download

Advanced Responsive Video Embedder

This plugin’s distinctive features are SEO friendliness, real-time video editing, responsive videos out of the box, support for more than 40 video hosts (free and paid), and custom URL parameters.

Installing the Advanced Responsive Video Embedder might be a good idea if you want to ensure your site loads quickly. The plugin’s Lazyload feature shortens the site’s performance by eliminating the need to load an entire video.

Details/Download

Brid Video Easy Publish

It’s a great free solution for creating customizable and powerful WordPress video galleries that can easily match your website branding. The plugin supports all major features like searching through the gallery, video titles, descriptions, and customizable video playlists.

Bird Video Easy Publish allows you to monetize video content through VPAID 2.0 or VAST ads. The plugin is free, but you’ll have to cover a small fee if you need hosting services or want to encode videos.

Details/Download

Unite Gallery

This is a universal plugin for those who need an image & video gallery in one plugin. For video galleries, the plugin works with Youtube, Vimeo, HTML5 and Wistia videos.

To create a unique gallery, you are offered tons of options: more than a hundred gallery types, a built-in lightbox, several gallery skins, zoom effects, and various premium options.

The player is touch-enabled, which makes it ideal for sites frequently displayed on devices with touch screens. The plugin is frequently updated, and users can get up to 12 months of customer support.

Details/Download

HTML5 Video Player (WordPress.org)

The authors state that if you are selling videos on your site, you can use this plugin to offer a preview for unlimited videos. Using shortcodes, you can embed a video on any post or page. This HTML5 WordPress video player plugin should work perfectly in all major browsers.

The player has compact dimensions and won’t occupy too much space on a webpage.

Details/Download

Huzzaz Video Gallery

Recently, the plugin authors added support for Facebook and Twitch videos allowing you to build a beautiful WordPress video gallery with mixed types of videos.

The plugin provides nice video search capabilities through the gallery, automatic HD playback, a smooth float for scroll-downs, deep linking, pagination and more useful cogs to build a fully-functional WordPress video gallery.

Its responsive design adjusts to different screen sizes, while the float option allows the visitor to keep watching a video while scrolling a page. Admins can rearrange videos featured in a library by dragging and dropping them to the desired position.

Details/Download

WonderPlugin

This plugin supports YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia and self-hosted MP4/WebM videos.

You can create multipurpose WordPress video galleries and insert them into standard WordPress posts, pages or sidebars. Lightbox pop-up is available in a free version as well as out-of-the-box support for all major browsers.

The gallery plugin works with a range of web builders such as Divi, Elementor, or WordPress Gutenberg. Wonder’s lightbox plugin offers thumbnail-based navigation that makes it easy to split videos and photos into different categories. 

Details/Download

YourChannel: YouTube Video Gallery

Thanks to one video host dedication, the plugin easily deals with truckloads of YouTube videos making your website an organized and structured video gallery. It’s able to fetch a banner image, your profile picture and username, display total videos and views, single videos, uploads, etc.

The plugin supports 7 video thumb styles, smooth transitions, a cache system for faster loading and more essential features for a beautiful look and performance of your WordPress video gallery.

Details/Download

You can use this plugin for self-hosted videos as well as for multiple of external providers (including playlists) like YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion. SoundCloud, Spotify, etc.

Spider Video Player

You can create several players with different themes and playlists with unlimited videos option. Easy social media integration is supported out of the box. The essentials like video quality selection, full screen, and shuffle are provided within this free plugin.

Keep in mind that your site must be built on WordPress 3.0 or a more recent version of the CMS, and support PHP5.x and MySQL 5.x if you want to use the Spider Video Player plugin.

Details/Download

Frequently Asked Questions about Video Player Plugins for WordPress

How to Embed a Video on WordPress?

The fastest and easiest way to embed a video on a WordPress website is to paste its URL into WordPress’s Visual Editor. 

So, all you need to do if you want to add a YouTube video to your site is open it in your web browser, copy its URL and paste it to the Visual Editor. WordPress will embed it automatically. 

Optionally, you can use the iFrame method to embed videos on WordPress. 

• Open a YouTube video in your web browser and click on the Share button below it
• Choose the Embed option that pops up on the screen and copy the iFrame code. 
• Go to WordPress’s Visual Editor and switch from visual to text mode. 
• Paste the code

How Do I Add a Video Player to My Website? 

The exact steps you must take to add a video player to a website depend on the plugin you choose. 

However, in most cases installing and activating a video player plugin for WordPress is a straightforward process. Here’s what you have to do after buying and downloading a video plugin. 

• Go to WordPress’s Dashboard and open the Add New Plugins tab
• Click on the Upload button, search for the plugin file on your computer’s hard drive and import it into WordPress. 
• Hit the Install Now button once the file becomes visible in the Add New Plugins tab
• Activate the video player plugin after the installation is complete.