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Invidious avatar

Invidious

Self-hostable YouTube front end without ads or tracking

  • Media and downloads
  • Privacy and security
  • Self-hosted alternatives
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Website

What it is

Invidious is a web app that lets you watch YouTube videos through your own server or a public instance, without ads, Google tracking, or required JavaScript. It keeps subscriptions locally, sends notifications for subscribed channels, offers an audio-only mode, and can import and export data from YouTube, NewPipe, and FreeTube. People who want to follow channels without a Google account run it for themselves or host instances for others, and developers can build on its API.

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Facts

Stars
25,567 GitHub stars.
25,567

Forks
2,868
Commits
5,977
Contributors
272
Language
Crystal
License
AGPL-3.0
Last commit
Oct 19, 2026
On GitHub since
February 2018
First release
September 2018
Platforms
web, self-hosted
Self-hostable
Yes
Alternative to
YouTube
Tags
  • media-server
  • video-streaming

Last synced from GitHub on Oct 20, 2026

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What people are saying

Updated Oct 20, 2026
  • Hacker NewsInvidious – An open source alternative front-end to YouTubeOct 16, 2023 · 353 points · 183 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsGoogle has been blocking Invidious with error "This helps protect our community"Jun 10, 2024 · 130 points · 98 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsHow Google fights Invidious (a privacy YouTube Front end)Mar 31, 2024 · 106 points · 78 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsYouTube is trying to block InvidiousDec 17, 2023 · 101 points · 30 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsYouTube legal team contacted Invidious developersJun 8, 2023 · 94 points · 24 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“#Invidious is an open-source, ad-free alternative frontend to YouTube. Worth looking into if you're sick of YouTube's shit. (And, no, I don't care if it hurts…”Oct 31, 2025 · 30 likes · 1 reply (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsInvidious: An alternative front-end to YouTubeMar 21, 2022 · 21 points · 1 comment (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsInvidious – An open source alternative front-end to YouTubeFeb 2, 2022 · 4 points · 0 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“invidious.io It's a lot less suss than YouTube itself.”Dec 18, 2025 · 2 likes · 1 reply (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsInvidious is an alternative front-end to YouTubeAug 2, 2020 · 2 points · 1 comment (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Then use Invidious: A lightweight, open-source front-end for watching YouTube without ads or Google tracking. invidious.io”Oct 17, 2026 · 2 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“@dcbikeguy these days, when I'm forced to watch a YouTube video, usually use”Sep 14, 2026 · 1 like · 1 reply (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“I haven't seen the exact changes, but in theory, 3rd party frontends like invidious invidious.io should still be able to scrape videos and provide similar…”Jan 12, 2026 · 2 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsInvidious is an alternative front-end to YouTubeAug 3, 2020 · 2 points · 0 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Repo below 👇🏼”Aug 31, 2026 · 0 likes · 1 reply (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“invidious.io 🙂YouTube privacy front end with no algorithm”Jul 7, 2026 · 1 like · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“i just discovered Invidious, and it's glorious. invidious.io”Mar 9, 2026 · 1 like · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Nitter is an alt frontend for Twitter (there's a few of these alt clients for centralized services like invidious.io or I forget if selfhosting Nitter…”Nov 19, 2025 · 1 like · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“alternative frontends like this are some of the neatest things I've found in this little server project over this past year. sometimes they take some…”Nov 13, 2025 · 1 like · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Testing out the LLM approach to replacing YouTube. No need to change platform, just anonymously serve their content without any of the ads or tracking Best of…”Mar 21, 2025 · 0 likes · 1 reply (opens Bluesky in a new tab)