Rumble vs YouTube (Complete Comparison)

An increasing number of content creators and consumers are considering moving away from YouTube to other platforms, and one of the names that keeps coming up for alternative sites is Rumble. But how exactly does Rumble work, and how does it compare to YouTube in terms of basic features, functionality and ideology?

The basic functionality of both platforms in terms of signing up and watching or uploading videos is the same, but let’s cover the more subtle differences between the platforms so users can decide which platform is best for them.

Here are some crucial distinctions between YouTube and Rumble:

YouTube is better for audience reach, server speed and monetization. Rumble is far better for free speech and helping smaller content creators get noticed. Both platforms offer reliable streaming and uploads, and choice is down to ideology and personal preference.

Let’s cover all of these factors in more detail, so readers can see clearly the similarities (and key differences) between the two platforms.

Rumble vs YouTube For General Features

Let’s first run through some basic features that the two platforms have in common, since if people are considering switching over to Rumble, they’ll want to know they can do the same basic things they do on YouTube.

Here are some things the two platforms have in common:

Free to join and upload, but membership not necessary for streaming.
Videos are fully embeddable onto other websites.

Videos have quality/resolution settings to help with buffering.
Monetization options available – see further below.
Both platforms have a strict Copyright/DCMA takedown policy. If anything, Rumble is more strict on this than YouTube.

So the basics for uploading and watching videos are all covered, but there are some key differences which we’ll cover in the following sections.

Rumble vs YouTube For Reliability

Let’s quickly also cover the issue of reliability, both in terms of uploading and streaming videos, as this is something which can be a concern when switching to alternative platforms.

For uploading – We know that YouTube is reliable and fast for uploading videos, because it’s been around a long time and has high quality servers, but Rumble is a good match. It can’t quite match YouTube for upload speeds on videos, but it’s still reliable and reasonably good. When you press upload, the video uploads at a decent speed. This is important because other alternative platforms like BitChute are struggling with this right now, with many users finding uploads stuck on the processing screen. Rumble works reliably though.

For streaming – Again we know YouTube videos almost always play smoothly nowadays because they’ve perfected their video settings and server infrastructure so it’s very reliable. Again though, Rumble also offers excellent reliability whenever I use it – videos do play when you click on them, while again other alternative platforms sometimes struggle with this. Also, Rumble videos have quality/resolution settings like YouTube, so if you are struggling with buffering, you can turn down the video quality to help with playback.

Bottom line – Rumble is a good match for YouTube, both in terms of uploading and streaming videos. You might not get quite the speeds you’d get on YouTube, but plenty good enough and most importantly for an alternative platform, the service is reliable.

Rumble vs YouTube For Monetization

Most people will probably know how YouTube monetization works – you first of all need to qualify your channel for monetization by getting at least 1000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time on your videos. Your channel also needs to meet their advertiser friendly policies, but once monetized, you can expect to earn anything from $3-20 per thousand views (it varies greatly between niches).

There are also other monetization options, such as channel memberships and and merchandising, but your channel needs to be much bigger to get accepted for these. See Google’s own guide on earning money on YouTube.

Rumble on the other hand, has no restriction for monetization – you just select the appropriate account, enable monetization and you are good to go. No minimum subscriber or watch time requirements as with YouTube; you can monetize right away.

Rumble have a few different memberships to get started:

For most users, the Free Account does just fine – you can subscribe, upload and make money off videos on the Rumble site itself. If you want to make money off your videos when they’re embedded on other sites, then you’ll need the middle Publisher option (this is a paid membership).

Once you’re uploading videos, again you have a choice of monetization options:

Users will have to click on the i symbol on each one to actually read the full terms, but here’s a quick breakdown of each option:

Far left – Exclusive Video Management – You are assigning rights management of your video to Rumble, including on YouTube. You’ll get 90% of YouTube ad revenue and 60% of revenue from other sites where they place your video.

Second left – Exclusive Management (Excluding YouTube) – Similar to the first one, but no YouTube agreement. Better if you want to manage YouTube revenue separately. Rumble has management rights to your video on all other platforms.

Second Right – Rumble Only – You retain full control of your video, and get 60% of any ad revenue from watches on the Rumble platform itself (other platforms not included). Similar to what you sign up for with YouTube.

Far right – Personal Use – Best for personal small scale use where you aren’t bothered about an audience and just want a platform to upload on. No monetization or management by Rumble. Videos will just sit there and be watchable and embeddable, but not searchable. Great for sharing specific videos with family and friends.

As far as the amount of earnings you can get from Rumble, it’s probably fair to say it won’t be as much as YouTube for most creators just yet, because the audience isn’t quite there – YouTube is still the mainstream platform for video streaming. But there’s still good opportunities if you can move your audience over to Rumble and get your videos distributed on other platforms (selecting the right license when uploading is key here).

Bottom Line – YouTube is much harder to get monetized on, but can reap potentially greater rewards right now if you get there. Rumble is very easy to get monetized, but audiences and therefore potential earnings for most creators are going to be less right now than on YouTube (this may shift if more people in time move en masse to Rumble).

Rumble vs YouTube For Censorship

This is where the two platforms start to really diverge, because YouTube has an active and aggressive censorship policy, but Rumble does not. Let’s compare the two:

YouTube – They have a Community Guidelines policy, which does seek to take down content that is genuinely offensive or in violation of the law. They also take down videos for Copyright infringement, which again is fair enough. However, they also extend into ideological censorship, where they delete videos and sometimes entire channels because they are uploading content which does not match their ideological position on certain topics. YouTube is a dangerous platform to be on if you are covering any politically sensitive topics, challenging official narratives or consensus, or stating views that are not progressive/left leaning. YouTube retain the right to delete any video they disagree with, and often do.

Rumble – A strongly pro free speech platform. Their original founder is still the CEO and is strongly against any form of censorship on his platform. Videos are only taken down if they are obscene or clearly violate FCC regulations or the law. See their content policies page. Everything else is allowed. No censoring of videos based on ideology or opinion.

Bottom line – Rumble are a far superior platform in terms of free speech, and can be trusted to allow open debate on any topic as long as content creators abide by the law. No deleting of videos or channels according to selectively and subjectively applied “Terms of Service”. Everyone gets to express their view.

“Rumble was built on the belief that all video content creators should be given equal opportunity to freely express themselves and reach a broad audience across the globe, all while maximizing their revenue. This belief has been evident since we established the company and is at the core of what we do”

Rumble CEO – Jack Pavlovski – see here

Rumble vs YouTube For Creators

Let’s follow on from this issue of censorship to simply address the issue of how each platforms serves content creators, especially grassroots creators (“the little guy”).

YouTube – Ranking and results determined by a complex and ever changing set of algorithms that is not always neutral. You may get truly relevant search results when searching for something politically neutral, like a hobby topic, but not when searching for anything controversial or politically sensitive. In this area, large corporations and biased news companies dominate results, as well as left leaning content creators, with grassroots alternative voices shoved way down in the rankings. Similarly, monetization is very conditional on you having a very “safe” and non controversial channel, which hurts smaller creators who are trying to challenge consensus or expose corruption. Similarly, the chance of a silly home video “going viral” with millions of views is far less than it was 10 years ago – this sort of space is now dominated by “influencers” with large audiences.

Rumble – Stands up much more for the little guy. No algorithmic manipulation of search results. Users will get what they searched for, regardless of the topic. Stands up much more for free speech and grassroots commentators in this way, who can get their voices heard much more easily on the platform, without being squashed in the rankings by massive, authoritative brands. Recommended feeds are also un-manipulated and based on who you subscribe to and watch, not on what they think you should watch. No automatic unsubscribing of users from channels without their permission (which YouTube does all the time to alternative channels).

Bottom line – Rumble does stand up much more for independent, smaller scale content creators by committing itself to delivering fair and unbiased search results. YouTube might be good if you’re looking to monetize a channel about a totally neutral and politically safe niche hobby that doesn’t currently have a lot of content on the topic on the platform. Anything political or non mainstream, Rumble is going to protect your free speech and audience much better. Hopefully, as membership of the platform grows, so will the audience and monetization potential, and they may become a competitor to YouTube in this regard.

In this vain, Rumble have actually filed a lawsuit against YouTube’s parent company Google, arguing that their manipulation of video search results has unfairly diverted business away from Rumble and to YouTube, to the tune of $2 billion. See the video below for more on this. Time will tell how the lawsuit proceeds.

Rumble CEO on Google’s manipulation of search results

Note – We originally embedded this video from YouTube but, to demonstrate the point on censorship perfectly, it was taken down, so we’ve had to re-embed from Rumble instead.

Streaming Informer