Presto Player Review: Best WordPress Video Player

In this post, we review a relatively new video player plugin for WordPress called Presto Player. It’s a very simple to use yet powerful plugin that enhances the default WordPress video player.

This plugin offers some unique and awesome features that can be very useful for bloggers, marketers, or course creators.

Let’s dive in and see what it can do and is it really that good.

What Is Presto Player

Presto Player is a WordPress plugin that allows you to display videos in a much more beautiful and easy way on the pages or posts of your website.

With it, you can display Youtube, Vimeo, or self-hosted videos. The plugin is very easy to use, has great features, and can be integrated with many third-party apps.

Also Read: Best Security Plugin

It works with Gutenberg, Elementor, and Beaver Builder. So, if you use any of these builders, you will have no problem with Presto.

Although it’s a premium plugin, it has a free version. It can be downloaded from the WordPress repository. The free version has some essential features but to use its full power, you will need the premium version.

Presto Player Features

This plugin is very simple to use but has some great features you can tweak and it’s very powerful too.

First of all, Presto allows us to embed Vimeo, Youtube, and even self-hosted videos on our websites. So, you only need one plugin and you can show videos from different sources.

One of my favorite features is branding that allows you to change the color of the video player. This is really helpful when you want to add your colors. It really adds branding power to your website.

Also, it allows you to add your logo but it is available only in the pro version.

Another great feature is related to performance and speed. Videos can significantly increase page load speed but Presto has a solution for that. It has an option to dynamically load JavaScript which increases the website’s performance.

Also, Presto Player has great analytics where you can see different metrics such as the number of plays, watch time, etc. But it’s not available in a free version.

Video Player

The video player itself has a simple yet modern design and is very easy to use. It’s much better than the default WordPress video player.

The Player has a play button, a progress bar with countdown, volume control, buttons for rewind and forward, and an option for full-screen mode.

But this can be different based on video presets. Some presets are more simple and have a minimalistic design.

Block Settings

Presto’s great power is in its block settings. When you add it as a Gutenberg block, it allows you to edit several settings. It’s a very powerful feature and you can really make videos custom-looking.

Some options are free but some of them are available in a pro version. Here are block options for the free version:

• Autoplay – Video starts playing on scrolling.
• Play Inline – On mobile devices, it plays videos on the page.
• Poster Image – Add thumbnail like on Youtube.

Also, it has video preset options where you can choose different design presets for video players such as course, simple, minimal, and Youtube optimized. Also, you can add a custom preset with a pro version.

The pro version of the plugin adds several options to block settings. You can add chapters to your videos like on Youtube and mute autoplay.

Media Hub

A powerful tool that Presto Player offers is Media Hub. It is a place where you can create videos like posts and have as many videos as you want.

It works very simply – you create a new video post, give it a name, add your video, and customize the block as you want. After publishing, it generates a shortcode.

So, if you want to display the same video on different pages, or if you want to have a special video that has different styles and want to customize it separately, Media Hub is a great tool for that purpose.

You will have a list of special videos and you can insert it on any page or post via the shortcode.

Integrations

Not only Presto can work with Youtube, Vimeo, Elementor, Gutenberg, and Beaver Builder, but it also can be integrated with other third-party apps.

You can integrate it with BunnyCDN which is a powerful and affordable CDN solution. So, you can host your videos there and increase your website’s performance.

Also Read: WordPress Youtube Channels

Also, Presto can be integrated with marketing tools such as MailChimp, Mailer Lite, ActiveCampaign, and SEO tools such as RankMath.

Presto also has an integration with WordPress course plugins like Tutor LMS and LearnDash which makes it one of the best choices for online course creators.

Full List Of Integration Tools:

Presto Player Pricing

Presto’s pricing is very simple and affordable. They have three packages with the same features. The difference is in the number of websites you can use the plugin.

The Starter package costs $69 per year and can be used only on one website.

The Pro package can be used on 25 websites and costs only $99 per year which is a very good price.

And the Lifetime package is a little different. You pay $299 once and you get lifetime support and updates. But can’t be used on more than 25 websites.

As you can see it’s not too expensive. I think the Pro package is the best because you can use it on 25 websites. If you build websites for clients, that is a great option.

Free VS Pro

When people hear about the free plugins, most of the time they are very skeptical but that is not the case here.

The free version of Presto Player is as good as a premium version. The difference is in options. But not everybody needs these options.

Also Read: How To Create Reusable Blocks

If you just want to have a beautiful and fast video player with some cool customizable options, the free version is enough.

But if you want more options like chapters, muted autoplay, video analytics, and things like that, then you need to buy a pro version.

How To Use Presto Player

Now let’s see how Presto works and how we can insert videos on our websites. Although it’s simple to use, there are differences between Elementor and Gutenberg.

For this tutorial, I will use a free version.

Presto With Gutenberg

If you use Gutenberg, create or edit an existing page. In the blocks, list search for presto and add the desired block. I chose Youtube block.

Then copy the video link from Youtube, paste it in the field and press the Add Video button.

On the right-hand side, you will see the different options you can change for that block.

in the Video Settings section, you can switch autoplay and play inline options. Also, from here you can add a thumbnail to your video.

In the Video Presets, you are able to choose between different presets and you can see the changes to the video player immediately.

And also you can choose colors for the video player. It affects the play button, progress bar, volume bar, etc.

And that’s it. Now you have a customized, fast video player that can display Vimeo, Youtube, or self-hosted videos.

Presto With Elementor

Presto Player works a little differently with Elementor. Instead of tweaking settings straight in the page builder, it uses the Media Hub.

So, open a page with Elementor, in the elements list search for presto, and add the widget to the page.

As you can see it loads the video from the Media Hub and you can choose any video from the dropdown.

So, if you want to use Presto with Elementor, first you have to create a video in the Media Hub and then load it with the widget.

Now you know how to use Presto with Elementor and Gutenberg and you can start using it immediately.

Conclusion

Presto Player is a great video player plugin for WordPress. It allows us to customize our player, it is fast, optimized, and has some cool features. The free version offers all the essentials you need to start using. But for more features, you should consider buying a pro version.

And because it works with different page builders, video portals, and integrates with tools and plugins like LearnDash, RankMath, and MailChimp to name a few, it is one of the best video player solutions for WordPress websites.