No single tool is best at this, because "search videos" can mean three different jobs. If you want a video someone published, use a web search engine or the search box on the platform where it was posted. If you want a file in your own storage, you need a file browser, a DAM or a MAM, and it will only work as well as the names and tags people gave the files. If you want a moment inside footage you already have, you need a tool that has indexed what is said and shown in the video itself. Most people who ask for "video search software" mean this last kind.
Each of these breaks in its own way, so it helps to know which one you are dealing with before you compare products.
Searching for videos other people published
Web search and platform search match what the uploader wrote about the video: the title, the description, sometimes the captions. If you remember the topic or the channel, that is usually enough. If all you have is a frame or a half-remembered scene, it gets harder. There are separate tricks for identifying a video from a screenshot, and none of them involve buying software.
Searching for a file in your own storage
This is a filing problem. Folders and naming conventions handle it for a small team. Past a certain size, teams move to a DAM such as Bynder or Brandfolder for finished brand assets, or a MAM such as Iconik or CatDV for production footage. Both are systems of record: they hold the files, the versions and the permissions, and the metadata says what each file is. If you're choosing one, picking a DAM for video goes through the questions in order.
The cost is logging. Someone has to describe each file when it arrives, and the search can only find what that person thought to write down. Even when it works, what you get back is the file. If the shot you want sits 40 minutes into a recording, you still have to scrub through it to find it.
Software for searching inside video footage
When the question is "where in our footage does this happen", there are two common routes.
The first is transcript search. You transcribe the recordings, either with a transcription tool or with the transcript a text-based editor such as Descript produces, and then search the text. This is cheap, and it works well for interviews, lectures and podcasts, where the thing you want was said out loud. It misses anything that is only visual: a wide shot of the venue, a product on a table, someone laughing off-mic.
The second is a search layer. You upload footage into a tool that indexes it once, then you ask in plain language and get back places in the video. The costs here are different. The footage has to be uploaded, indexing takes time, and you still review what comes back. This route pays off most for a large archive that grew for years with nobody logging it, because there are no tags to fall back on and nobody remembers what is in there. In how AI searches inside footage you can see what the index actually contains.
Results from these tools differ more than the product pages suggest. Some return whole files ranked by relevance and leave you to find the moment yourself. With short clips that is fine. With hour-long recordings it is not much better than file search. Others return time ranges. With Vivu, you upload the footage into a project that is indexed once, and a question like "the moment the crowd starts clapping along" comes back as time ranges you can open and preview. Each search runs inside one project, so a big unlogged archive usually gets split into projects along the lines you expect to search it.
Developer platforms such as Twelve Labs are a third option for teams that want to build their own search product. That is an engineering project, not something you buy and start using.
When you don't need a search tool at all
If the library is a few dozen videos and you remember roughly where things are, scrubbing is faster than setting anything up. If you only need to find something once, the same is true. If your files are already well named and the question is always "which file", a shared drive with a sensible folder structure covers it. Search tools start to earn their cost when the same footage gets searched again and again by people who didn't shoot it.
Which kind you need
Ask what you want back. If it's a link to something public, use web search. If it's a file, you have a storage and naming problem, and a DAM or MAM is the honest answer. If it's a moment, and the footage is long, unlogged or shared across people who never watched it, you need something that searches inside the video. Then the deciding question is whether you get back a place you can open or a file you still have to watch.
FAQ
Can I search a video for a word someone said?
Yes. Transcribe the video and search the transcript text. Most transcription tools put timestamps on the transcript, so a matching word takes you close to the right point in the recording.
This only works for speech. If what you're looking for is visual, a transcript won't find it.
Why does video search return the whole video instead of the moment?
Some search tools, and some search modes, rank whole files by relevance and don't place the match inside the file. That is fine for short clips. For long recordings it means scrubbing after every search. Before you settle on a tool, check whether it returns time ranges.
Can video search software find footage that's still on my drive?
A search tool only knows about footage that has been put into it. For upload-based search layers, that means uploading the recordings you want to search, and footage you add later has to be uploaded too. Your originals can stay where they are.
Is there a free way to search inside my own videos?
Transcribing your recordings with a free transcription tool and searching the text costs nothing but your time. It handles spoken content well and misses visual content completely, so whether it's enough depends on what you usually look for.