Brightcove (NASDAQ:BCOV) versus Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) Head-To-Head Contrast

Brightcove (NASDAQ:BCOV) and Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) are both small-cap computer and technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, profitability, earnings, analyst recommendations and risk.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

85.7% of Brightcove shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 53.8% of Applied Digital shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.7% of Brightcove shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 23.7% of Applied Digital shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Brightcove and Applied Digital’s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Brightcove	$201.19 million	0.41	-$22.89 million	($0.54)	-3.50
Applied Digital	$55.39 million	9.43	-$44.65 million	($0.35)	-12.23

Brightcove has higher revenue and earnings than Applied Digital. Applied Digital is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Brightcove, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

Brightcove has a beta of 0.69, indicating that its stock price is 31% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Applied Digital has a beta of 4.14, indicating that its stock price is 314% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current recommendations for Brightcove and Applied Digital, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Brightcove	0	1	1	0	2.50
Applied Digital	0	0	4	0	3.00

Brightcove presently has a consensus target price of $4.00, indicating a potential upside of 111.64%. Applied Digital has a consensus target price of $13.75, indicating a potential upside of 221.26%. Given Applied Digital’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Applied Digital is more favorable than Brightcove.

Profitability

This table compares Brightcove and Applied Digital’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Brightcove	-11.38%	-17.02%	-7.22%
Applied Digital	-28.94%	-31.26%	-10.20%

About Brightcove

Brightcove Inc. provides cloud-based streaming services the Americas, Europe, the Asia Pacific, Japan, India, and the Middle East. It offers Video Cloud, an online video streaming platform that enables its customers to publish, deliver, and distribute high-quality video to internet-connected devices. The company's solutions and products comprise Brightcove Marketing Studio, a video streaming solution; Brightcove Communications Studio for marketers and corporate communications professionals; Brightcove Media Studio, a solution for over-the-top (OTT) video services, media publishers, and leading broadcasters to monetize their media, live stream at scale, and nurture their audience lifecycle; Brightcove Audience Insights, a customer data platform for video streaming businesses; Zencoder, a cloud-based video encoding service; and Brightcove Beacon, a platform that enables its customers to launch premium OTT video streaming experiences, as well as Brightcove Marketplace. It also provides ad monetization; professional; customer success, support, and documentation; online and onsite training; and video.js and developer solutions. The company serves media companies, broadcasters, digital publishers, sports and entertainment companies, fashion and hospitality brands, faith-based institutions, retail and e-commerce businesses, and technology organizations, as well as government agencies, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations. Brightcove Inc. was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

About Applied Digital

Applied Digital Corporation designs, develops, and operates datacenters in North America. Its datacenters provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing industry. The company also provides artificial intelligence cloud services, high performance computing datacenter hosting, and crypto datacenter hosting services. The company was formerly known as Applied Blockchain, Inc. and changed its name to Applied Digital Corporation in November 2022. Applied Digital Corporation is based in Dallas, Texas.