PeerTube README

The project's README from github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube. As one markdown file: README.md.

PeerTube

Website | Join an instance | Create an instance | Chat with us | Donate

Be part of a network of multiple small federated, interoperable video hosting providers. Follow video creators and create videos. No vendor lock-in. All on a platform that is community-owned and ad-free.

Developed with ❤ by Framasoft

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Introduction

PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform developed as an alternative to other platforms that centralize our data and attention, such as YouTube, Dailymotion or Vimeo. :clapper:

To learn more:

:sparkles: Features

All features for viewers | All features for content creators | All features for administrators

Video streaming, even in live!

Just upload your videos, and be sure they will stream anywhere. Add a description, some tags and your video will be discoverable by the entire video fediverse, not just your instance. You can even embed a player on your favorite website!

You are used to hosting live events? We got you covered too! Start livestreaming from your favorite client, and even host permanent streams!

Keep in touch with video creators

Follow your favorite channels from PeerTube or really any other place. No need to have an account on the instance you watched a video to follow its author, you can do all of that from the Fediverse (Mastodon, Pleroma, and plenty others), or just with good ol' RSS.

An interface to call home

Be it as a user or an instance administrator, you can decide what your experience will be like. Don't like the colors? They are easy to change. Don't want to list videos of an instance but let your users subscribe to them? Don't like the regular web client? All of that can be changed, and much more. No UX dark pattern, no mining your data, no video recommendation bullshit™.

Communities that help each other

In addition to visitors using P2P with WebRTC to share the load among them, instances can help each other by caching one another's videos. This way even small instances have a way to show content to a wider audience, as they will be shouldered by friend instances (more about that in our redundancy guide).

Content creators can get help from their viewers in the simplest way possible: a support button showing a message linking to their donation accounts or really anything else. No more pay-per-view and advertisements that hurt visitors and alter creativity (more about that in our FAQ).

:raised_hands: Contributing

You don't need to be a programmer to help!

You can give us your feedback, report bugs, help us translate PeerTube, write documentation, and more. Check out the contributing guide to know how, it takes less than 2 minutes to get started. :wink:

You can also join the cheerful bunch that makes our community:

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or ideas! :speech_balloon:

:package: Create your own instance

See the production guide, which is the recommended way to install or upgrade PeerTube. For hardware requirements, see Should I have a big server to run PeerTube? in the FAQ.

See the community packages, which cover various platforms (including YunoHost and Docker).

:book: Documentation

If you have a question, please try to find the answer in the FAQ first.

User documentation

See the user documentation.

Admin documentation

See how to create your own instance.

See the more general admin documentation.

Tools documentation

Learn how to import/upload videos from CLI or admin your PeerTube instance with the tools documentation.

Technical documentation

See the architecture blueprint for a more detailed explanation of the architectural choices.

See our REST API documentation:

See our ActivityPub documentation.

License

CC BY-SA 4.0, by Framasoft

Code

Copyright (C) 2015-2025 PeerTube Contributors (see CREDITS.md)

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

PeerTube (Chocobozzz/PeerTube)

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15.4K ·GitHub
PeerTube
What is this?PeerTube is a free, decentralized and federated video platform built as an alternative to centralized services like YouTube, Dailymotion or Vimeo.
Is this one app I install, or a network of independent servers?It's server software you run as your own 'instance'; instances federate with each other over ActivityPub so videos and follows work across the whole network, not just one site.
How do I create my own PeerTube instance?Follow the production guide, which is the recommended way to install or upgrade PeerTube; community packages also cover platforms including YunoHost and Docker.
What does running an instance require on the server side?The codebase targets Node.js 22+ and pnpm 10.9+, with dependencies for things like S3 storage, OAuth2, and OpenTelemetry built in.
Do I need a big server to run an instance?Hardware needs vary by instance size; the FAQ has a dedicated section on this, implying small instances are viable but large ones need more resources.
Who is this for — viewers or instance admins?Both: viewers just watch/follow creators across instances via the Fediverse (even via Mastodon or RSS), while admins run and customize their own instance.
How does P2P actually reduce load for an instance?Viewers' browsers share video chunks with each other over WebRTC, and friend instances can cache one another's videos, so small instances get help distributing content to a wider audience.
Can viewers follow a channel without an account on that instance?Yes, you can follow video creators from the Fediverse (Mastodon, Pleroma, and others) or simply via RSS, with no account needed on the instance that hosts the video.
Does PeerTube support live streaming, not just uploads?Yes, you can start a livestream from your own streaming client, and instances support both one-off live events and permanent streaming channels.
How can viewers support creators financially?Creators can add a support button showing a message that links to their donation accounts or any other support method, instead of relying on ads or pay-per-view.
What are similar projects?owncast, misskey, deskreen, mastodon, LibreTV, WebRTC-Experiment, lemmy, livego
Which topics is it in?activitypub, federation, livestream, video-streaming, webrtc, decentralized, angular, p2p, agpl, streaming, video, react
Creator
Chocobozzz
Size
592.5 MB
Stars
15.4K
Updated
CommitOct 16Releasev8.3.1Sep 28
Age
10y
Commits · 90 Days