chocobozzz/peertube

PeerTube is a free, decentralized video platform built as an alternative to centralized sites like YouTube, Dailymotion, or Vimeo. Instead of running on one company's servers, it is made up of many small independent instances run by different people and organizations. These instances can talk to each other through a shared protocol called ActivityPub, the same one used by Mastodon. From the viewer's side it works like a regular video site, but no single company controls all the content, the data, or the recommendations. The project is developed by Framasoft, a French nonprofit, and the README describes it as community-owned and ad-free. Viewers can upload videos, add a description and tags, and have them discovered across the wider network of PeerTube instances rather than only on the one they signed up for. The player can be embedded on other websites, and live streaming is supported, including permanent streams. Viewers can follow channels from any Fediverse account or through RSS, without needing an account on the instance the video was posted to. The interface is described as customizable for both users and instance administrators, with no dark patterns, data mining, or algorithmic video recommendations. Instances can help each other by caching one another's videos, so that smaller servers can still reach larger audiences. Viewers themselves help share the bandwidth, because PeerTube uses peer-to-peer WebRTC connections in the browser so that people watching the same video also pass parts of it to each other. Creators can receive support from viewers through a support button that links to a donation page or any message of their choice, rather than ads or pay-per-view. There are several demonstration instances listed at peertube.cpy.re, and a two-minute introductory video hosted on PeerTube itself. The README invites non-programmers to contribute through feedback, bug reports, translation, and documentation, and lists chat rooms on Matrix and IRC plus a forum on Framacolibri. To run an instance, the project points to a production install guide for various operating systems and community packages including YunoHost and Docker.