Chinese Short Video & Video Sharing Platforms
Chinese short video is not one market with one leader. Two apps split the feed: Douyin, the mainland original behind TikTok, ranks everything by algorithm and keeps viewers inside one full-screen scroll; Kuaishou began in 2011 as a GIF tool and built the opposite feed — two tabs, following first, skewed to smaller cities, where creators address viewers as laotie. The rest of the field is video that lives inside something else: Bilibili and AcFun carry anime communities with danmaku comments rolling over the picture, WeChat Channels sits inside a messenger and borrows your friends' taste, and RedNote wraps clips in product notes. For a reader outside China the question is which of these will actually open.
Chinese short-video and video-sharing platforms compared
| Platform | What it is | Operator & launch year | Outside-China access | English UI | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Douyin / 抖音 | Algorithm-ranked short clips, live streams and in-app shopping, built for mainland viewers | ByteDance | Geo-blocked abroad; the app detects a foreign SIM and pushes users to TikTok | No, Chinese interface | Free; earns from live commerce, virtual gifts and ads |
| Kuaishou / 快手 | Short-video and livestream app built on everyday creators, with two tabs instead of one endless scroll | Kuaishou, 2011, as a GIF tool | Chinese app may be region-locked; Kwai and SnackVideo serve overseas markets, notably Brazil and Indonesia | No on the Chinese app | Free; live-commerce commissions |
| Bilibili / 哔哩哔哩 | Video and UGC site where danmaku comments scroll across anime, gaming and study content | Bilibili, 2009, as an anime-sharing site | Opens in the US without a VPN; some licensed anime stays geo-restricted to the mainland | Yes, an English interface option | Free to watch; paid membership and premium series |
| WeChat Channels / 微信视频号 | Short-video and live-selling feed living inside WeChat rather than as a separate app | Tencent, January 2020 | Available worldwide inside WeChat, but the feed is overwhelmingly Chinese | No, Chinese content | Free; selling runs through WeChat Pay and mini-programs |
| RedNote Short Video / 小红书短视频 | Lifestyle community where photo notes, short clips and in-app shopping share one feed | RedNote, 2013, as a daily-life community | Usable abroad, and it topped the US App Store download chart during the January 2025 TikTok scare; content still mostly Chinese | No, mostly Chinese | Free; in-app storefronts and livestream selling |
| AcFun / A站 | China's first danmaku community, still centred on anime, comics and games | AcFun, 2007; acquired by Kuaishou in 2018 | Reachable overseas without a VPN; some licensed titles are geo-restricted | No, Chinese only | Free; memberships and paid content |
How this market is structured
Two feeds, two answers to the same question
Both big apps answer "what should I watch next", and they disagree. Douyin opens straight into a single full-screen video and keeps going, with no tab to choose and no list to scan — the recommendation engine decides everything, which is why the app is hard to put down. Kuaishou gives viewers a following tab beside a discover tab and reports roughly 400 million daily actives doing it; the design protects the relationship between a creator and their audience rather than subjecting every clip to the same ranking. That choice produced two cultures: Douyin's polished, commerce-ready, brand-friendly surface, and Kuaishou's laotie culture, where streamers call viewers old iron and sell to them like neighbours. It also produced two audiences — Kuaishou skewed to smaller cities and older users, Douyin to coastal urban ones.
The platforms that are not feeds
Bilibili started in 2009 as an anime-sharing site and grew into the closest thing China has to YouTube, with around 340 million monthly actives and a membership exam that keeps the community gated. Its danmaku layer turns watching into something shared rather than private. AcFun predates it — launched 2007, adopting Niconico-style scrolling comments a year later — and is now a much smaller ACG stronghold whose loyal base outlasted repeated near-collapses; Kuaishou bought it in 2018 and kept the brand. WeChat Channels arrived late, in January 2020, and won its place by not being an app at all: it inherits WeChat's social graph, so clips your friends liked surface in your feed and purchases settle in WeChat Pay. RedNote, from 2013, does the reverse of entertainment — its clips are reviews, hauls and tutorials, which is why shopping sits inside the content instead of after it.
Using it from outside China
Access splits three ways. Bilibili and AcFun both open abroad without a VPN, Bilibili even offering an English interface, though licensed anime can stay locked to the mainland. Douyin does not: it detects a non-Chinese SIM and sends you to TikTok, and the practical substitutes are Kwai and SnackVideo, Kuaishou's overseas apps. WeChat Channels needs nothing extra beyond a WeChat account, but the feed is Chinese. RedNote is fully usable abroad and reads best as a shopping research tool rather than an entertainment feed. If the goal is simply watching Chinese short video in English, Bilibili is the only one of the six built for it.
