We Built SmartVideo Because Buffering Made a Two-Year-Old Cry
In 2013, a frozen Netflix stream and a frustrated toddler sparked an obsession with fixing video on the internet. Over a decade later, that obsession powers thousands of websites worldwide.
14-day free trial · No charge until day 15The Moment That Started It All
In 2013, Swarmify founder Nathan Barnett was home with his wife, their two-year-old daughter Brylee, and a baby on the way. Brylee was quietly watching Dora the Explorer on Netflix when the video stopped and started buffering. She burst into tears. Nathan scrambled to restart routers, the streaming box, the app—nothing worked.
It was a small moment, but it stuck. Nathan had been fascinated with the internet since running dial-up bulletin boards in high school. His senior research project in 1996 was on improving compression for CU-SeeMe, one of the first video conferencing apps, developed at Cornell University. Yet here they were, nearly two decades later, and video still couldn’t play reliably.
Figuring out why—and whether it could be fixed—became what his wife would describe as an obsession. That obsession became Swarmify.
The moment that started Swarmify. What Drives Us Today
Video makes up the majority of internet traffic and plays an outsized role in how we sell, teach, and share. But the way video works on most websites hasn’t been rethought since the early internet. Even with faster connections, videos still buffer, embeds still slow pages down, and platforms like YouTube still plaster ads over your content.
SmartVideo exists to fix that. We give any website—whether it’s a solo creator or an enterprise—the same video delivery infrastructure that Netflix and Amazon use, without the army of engineers. One script, no configuration, and your videos start fast from 125+ edge locations worldwide.
What Makes SmartVideo Different
We didn’t set out to build another video host. We set out to fix the three things that make video on websites painful—and to do it without asking you to change how you work.
Built for speed
Videos deliver from 125+ edge locations worldwide and start quickly. The player is lightweight and async — a fraction of the bundle a YouTube embed pulls in before the first frame.
Ad-free and yours
No ads, no “Watch on YouTube” links, no suggested videos sending visitors to a competitor. The player is 100% white-label—your brand, your colors, your site keeps the traffic it earned.
Predictable pricing
Every plan includes unlimited bandwidth and encoding. Traffic spikes never trigger per-GB overage bills—you pay by views, not by how viral a post goes, so your costs stay predictable.
Who SmartVideo Is For
SmartVideo powers video for thousands of websites in 100+ countries—from solo creators to enterprise teams. It’s a fit if you publish video on a site you control and want it to load fast without handing your audience to someone else’s platform.
- Marketers who need landing-page video that converts without tanking Core Web Vitals.
- Course creators and educators hosting lessons without per-student bandwidth fees.
- Churches and nonprofits streaming sermons and updates without ads interrupting the message.
- E-commerce stores running product demos that load fast enough for shoppers to actually watch.
- Agencies and developers who want one white-label player across every client site, with a single script tag.
Trusted by teams at
The Team
SmartVideo is built and run by a small team that believes video infrastructure shouldn’t require a video engineering team.
Nathan Barnett
Founder & AdvisorStarted Swarmify in 2013. Nathan’s early fascination with internet video—from dial-up BBSes to researching video compression in high school—laid the groundwork for SmartVideo.
James Christensen
Co-owner, OperationsRuns the business side—customer success, growth, and making sure the product solves real problems for real website owners.
Matthew Davidson
Co-owner, EngineeringBuilds and maintains the SmartVideo platform—from the CDN edge network to the SmartVideo player to the dashboard you log into every day.
See Why Thousands of Websites Trust SmartVideo
Try it free for 14 days. Your videos are ad-free, lightweight, and deliver from 125+ edge locations worldwide—no setup fees, no charge until day 15.
Start your free trial“We've had a 10% increase in conversion rate from lead to customer.”
“SmartVideo loaded immediately; YouTube took 5 seconds to start. It became a no-brainer.”
“Our search-engine rankings went up after we switched over to Swarmify.”