HTML5 Video Player – embed fast, responsive videos with ease vs YouTube Sidebar

Embed beautiful, responsive videos anywhere on your site – no code required, trusted by 30,000+ websites worldwide. HTML5 Video Player | Documentation | Pricing | Support | Demo Why HTML5 Video Player? HTML5 Video Player is a flexible, fully responsive video player plugin for WordPress. Embed MP4 and other video formats with ease, customize the player to match your site design, and enjoy smooth playback across all major browsers and devices. Add players to posts, pages, or widgets using shortcodes or the Gutenberg block – no code needed. Built-in options let you control video behavior such as autoplay, loop, mute, and more, while schema markup helps search engines understand and index your videos. Free Features Responsive HTML5 Video Player: Seamlessly adapts to all devices and screen sizes. No-Code Embedding: Use shortcodes to quickly add videos anywhere on your site. Cross-Browser Compatibility: Works perfectly on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and more. iOS & Mobile Friendly: Plays video files on all major devices without extra plugins. Autoplay, Loop & Mute Options: Customize how your videos behave. Preload Options: Choose how much of the video loads up front (metadata, auto, none) to balance speed and bandwidth. Inline iOS Playback: Play videos inline on iOS devices instead of forcing fullscreen. Skins & Color Customization: Style the player to match your brand. Supports Multiple Formats: Embed MP4, WebM, OGG, and MOV files. Preview for Paid Content: Great for selling digital video files with previews. Lightweight & Compact: Doesn’t take up unnecessary space on your page. Custom CSS Support: Fine-tune your player with custom styles. SEO Optimized: Schema markup helps search engines understand and index your videos. Video Playlist Block: Build a playlist of videos with a simple list layout, auto-play next with a 5-second “Up Next” countdown, custom thumbnails, and duration badges. HLS Streaming: Play .m3u8 adaptive streams, with automatic quality levels. Subtitles & Captions: Add a .vtt caption track to any player, with your own language label. Player Alignment: Align the player left, centre or right from the block editor, the classic metabox, the Quick Player settings, the shortcode or Elementor. Audio Player Block: A skinnable audio player with four skins — Modern Bar, Waveform, Podcast Card and Compact Pill — plus speed, skip, volume and download controls. Pro Version The Pro version adds more flexibility and advanced controls for managing video playback and customization: Color Picker: Change player colors to match your site perfectly. External Hosting Support: Embed videos from Amazon S3 and other sources. Multiple Subtitles Support: Add more than one caption track and let viewers choose the language. Advanced Playlists: Three extra playlist layouts (List With Thumb, List on Right Side, Grid), a live search filter, prev/next arrows, plus a playlist post type and [video_playlist] shortcode. DASH Streaming: Play .mpd adaptive streams alongside HLS. Quality Switcher: Viewers can toggle video quality like on YouTube. Page Load Optimizer: Defer player assets and video loading for better page speed scores. Restart, Rewind, Fast Forward: Full playback control buttons. Download Button Toggle & Custom Download URL: Enable, hide, or redirect video downloads. Customize Every Control: Show/hide any button or control. Speed & Quality Control: Let users adjust playback speed and resolution. Advanced Shortcode Generator: Right inside your post/page text editor. Autoplay When Visible on Screen: Smart autoplay triggers only when the video enters the viewport. Disable Pause: Prevent viewers from pausing the video. Show Thumbnail on Pause & Sticky on Scroll: Keep viewers engaged as they browse. Seek Time & Start Time: Customize jump distance and auto-start position. Google VAST Tag URL: Integrate ad tags using Google VAST for monetization. Chapters & Overlay: Add chapter markers and custom overlays for a better experience. End Screen & Popup Player: Show a custom end screen or open videos in a distraction-free modal. Password Protected Videos: Restrict video access to users with a valid password. Watermark Support: Add branding or copyright with a watermark. Additional ID/CSS Class: Add unique IDs or CSS classes for advanced custom styling. Try the Pro Version – Unlock all premium features today! How to Use HTML5 Video Player – Quick Start Install and activate the plugin. Go to the HTML5 Video Player menu in the WordPress dashboard. Create a new video player and configure your settings. Copy the shortcode displayed for your player. Paste the shortcode into any post, page, or widget. Prefer the block editor? Add the HTML5 Video Player block, select your player, and publish – your video is live! Quick Player shortcode: [video_player src="video src"] More attributes you can use: controls="play-large, restart, rewind, play, fast-forward, progress, current-time, mute, volume, captions, settings, pip, airplay, download, fullscreen" autoplay="true/false" muted="true/false" preload="auto/metadata/none" playsinline="true/false" width="500px" align="left/center/right" caption="https://example.com/subtitles.vtt" caption_label="English/en" reset_on_end="true" Live Demo | Buy The Pro Use Cases Product Demos: Embed demo videos on landing and product pages. Courses & Tutorials: Display video tutorials and course content. Testimonials: Showcase client testimonial videos. Portfolios: Build a video portfolio of your work. Digital Sales: Add previews for paid video content. What Users Say ❛❛We got multiple support from the developer. Outstanding and fabulous! 100 % satisfied and my personal recommendation for video player plugin!❜❜ -newbie2004 ❛❛This guy is the future of WordPress plugins. The interface is the very definition of simplicity and everything just works right out of the box.❜❜ -amallulla Like the plugin? Missing a feature? Send your feedback Check Out Our Other WordPress Plugins Html5 Audio Player – Listen audios with awesome visuals. PDF Poster – Display/Embed PDF files with different styles. StreamCast – Customizable radio player with different skins. 3D Viewer – Embed 3D models and 3D products with interaction. Advanced Post Block – Show posts and custom posts in different layouts. Source Code You can find the source code, report bugs, and contribute to the development of this plugin on our GitHub repository: HTML5 Video Player on GitHub Third-Party Libraries This plugin bundles the following third-party library: Codestar Framework Source: http://codestarframework.com/ GitHub: https://github.com/Codestar/codestar-framework License: GPLv2 or later – https://github.com/Codestar/codestar-framework/blob/master/LICENSE Purpose: Provides the options framework for the plugin’s settings and shortcode generator. Plyr – Version: 3.8.4 – Purpose: Provides the customizable HTML5, YouTube, and Vimeo media player interface used to render videos. – License: MIT – Website: https://plyr.io – Source code: https://github.com/sampotts/plyr – Bundled file: public/js/plyr-v3.8.4.polyfilled.js bpl-tools Source / GitHub: https://github.com/bPlugins/bpl-tools License: GPL-2.0-or-later – https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html Purpose: Shared utility library providing admin dashboard components and common Gutenberg editor controls. External Services: The library may connect to bPlugins, WordPress.org, and Freemius services for product data and checkout functionality. See full details: https://github.com/bPlugins/bpl-tools#external-requests–why-they-are-made

YouTube Plugins are nothing new but I like to add my own approach to every plugin. This plugin allows the insertion of a video ID for displaying with a specific post. The video is displayed instantly. This differs from plugins that may allow a single video to be added using an entire widget – not great use of a widget in my opinion. The YouTube widget management would become very busy if every widget was THAT basic. So the widgets in YouTube Sidebar will handle multiple videos and even ads when no videos are available. If this still is not enough. Try my Video Blogger plugin which allows the display of videos from other streaming sites and offers other unique approaches to video management. Main Plugin Links Plugins Portal Features List Two widgets, only need to use one. Display different videos per post. Multiple videos per post. Display an ad when post has no video. Request Features If you need a tool or an existing plugin customized. Please post it in this plugins forum and I will do my best to add the service to this plugin in the way you need it. Languages Translators needed to help localize YouTube Sidebar. Donators These donators have giving their permission to add their site to this list so that plugin authors can request their support for their own project. Please do not request donations but instead visit their site, show interest and tell them about your own plugin – you may get lucky. Ryan Bayne from WebTechGlobal Version Numbers and Updating Explanation of versioning used by myself Ryan Bayne. The versioning scheme I use is called “Semantic Versioning 2.0.0” and more information about it can be found at http://semver.org/ These are the rules followed to increase the YouTube Sidebar plugin version number. Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the: MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes, MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes. Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.