For video downloaders, the first results are rg3/youtube-dl (This command-line media downloader supports multiple platforms, playlist downloads, format selection, and conversion capabilities, making it a foundational tool for the requested category), nexmoe/vidbee (VidBee is a self-hosted media download manager wrapping the yt-dlp engine with web and desktop interfaces, playlist downloading, and format selection, closely fitting your need for a multi-platform downloader tool) and tyrrrz/youtubedownloader (YoutubeDownloader is a desktop application for downloading videos and audio from various platforms, featuring format selection, playlist support, and format conversion through a graphical interface rather than a command line). yt-dlp/yt-dlp and jely2002/youtube-dl-gui round out the shortlist. Compare the match explanations and check the project documentation against your requirements.
Hand-picked open source video downloaders for GitHub. Compare the top tools by stars and features, and find the right one to grab videos.
This project is a command-line video downloader and web media extractor written in Python. It is designed to retrieve video and audio streams from various hosting platforms for local storage or real-time streaming via standard output. The system utilizes a framework of custom extractor classes to handle different websites and allows for the development of new extractors to extend compatibility. It supports accessing restricted, private, or region-locked content through the use of session cookies, user-agent headers, and proxy server routing. Capabilities include media format selection based
This command-line media downloader supports multiple platforms, playlist downloads, format selection, and conversion capabilities, making it a foundational tool for the requested category.
VidBee is a self-hosted media download manager that wraps the yt-dlp engine to download videos and audio from over 1000 websites. It functions as both a desktop client and a Fastify-based web service, managing downloads through a persistent queue with pause, resume, retry, and real-time progress tracking. The application uses cookie-based authentication to access login-gated, age-restricted, or subscriber-only content by importing browser cookies or Netscape-format cookie files. The application distinguishes itself through automated download workflows, including RSS and Atom feed monitoring t
VidBee is a self-hosted media download manager wrapping the yt-dlp engine with web and desktop interfaces, playlist downloading, and format selection, closely fitting your need for a multi-platform downloader tool.
YoutubeDownloader is a desktop application designed to retrieve and archive video and audio content from online platforms. It enables users to download media files directly to local storage, providing options to select specific quality levels and file formats to suit local playback requirements. The application distinguishes itself through its ability to access restricted or private content by utilizing personal account credentials. By managing session authentication, it allows for the retrieval of media that is not accessible to the general public. Furthermore, it incorporates automated work
YoutubeDownloader is a desktop application for downloading videos and audio from various platforms, featuring format selection, playlist support, and format conversion through a graphical interface rather than a command line.
This project is a command-line media downloader designed for the systematic retrieval and organization of digital content from diverse online platforms. It functions as an extensible extraction engine that utilizes a declarative format-selection pipeline to automate the identification, merging, and downloading of specific audio and video streams based on user-defined criteria. The system distinguishes itself through a modular architecture that supports custom plugins and site-specific scripts, allowing for the bypass of platform restrictions and the handling of complex authentication challeng
It is the definitive command-line video and audio downloader supporting countless platforms, playlist retrieval, format selection, and conversion.
This project is a cross-platform desktop application that serves as a graphical wrapper for the youtube-dl command line tool. It functions as a web media extractor and batch video downloader, allowing users to save video files, audio tracks, subtitles, and metadata from supported online platforms. The application provides a visual interface to manage download quality, output formats, and file naming. It supports the retrieval of restricted or private content through browser cookie files, basic authentication, or video passwords. The software includes capabilities for bulk playlist archiving
This project is a graphical desktop wrapper for youtube-dl that provides a user-friendly interface for downloading videos and playlists, though it relies on an external command-line backend rather than implementing the core downloading engine directly.
This project is a command-line utility designed to fetch video, audio, and image content from a wide range of web platforms. It functions by parsing page metadata and utilizing modular, site-specific scripts to extract direct media stream URLs from complex web structures, enabling the local archiving of digital media for offline use. The tool distinguishes itself through its ability to handle authenticated content, allowing users to inject browser-stored session cookies to access restricted or private media. It also supports real-time media streaming by piping remote content directly into ext
This tool is a command-line video and audio downloader with multi-platform support, though it lacks a built-in graphical user interface.
Seal is a mobile application designed to retrieve video and audio content from various online platforms. It functions as a graphical interface that manages background transfer processes, allowing users to download and archive media files directly to their local device storage for offline access. The application distinguishes itself by acting as a bridge to powerful command-line utilities, orchestrating these external binaries to handle complex media extraction and file conversion tasks. Users can customize their experience through a declarative template system that defines specific execution
Seal is an Android video and audio downloader with a graphical interface and format conversion capabilities, though it is specifically a mobile app rather than a multi-platform desktop tool.
This project is a command-line utility for downloading media from various online platforms. It provides comprehensive tools for selecting specific video and audio formats, managing playlist downloads, and filtering content based on metadata such as upload dates and file sizes. The software includes extensive filesystem and output controls, allowing users to define custom naming templates, manage subtitle tracks, and retrieve thumbnails. An automated post-processing pipeline supports tasks like audio extraction, format conversion, and metadata embedding. To ensure reliable operation, the tool
This Python-based command-line utility provides robust multi-platform downloading, playlist support, and format conversion, though it lacks a built-in graphical user interface.
Lux is a command line video downloader written in Go designed for extracting and saving video and audio from various websites. It functions as a concurrent media downloader that increases transfer speeds by splitting files into fragments and downloading them using multiple threads. The tool serves as a playlist download manager capable of retrieving entire video collections or specific ranges of items. It also operates as a proxy-enabled media client, supporting HTTP and SOCKS5 proxies and session cookies to access region-locked, private, or age-gated content. Additional capabilities include
Lux is a command-line video downloader written in Go that supports multiple websites, playlist extraction, and concurrent downloads, though it lacks a built-in graphical user interface.
M3u8-downloader is a cross-platform desktop utility written in Go that downloads, decrypts, and merges HLS streaming media playlists into local video files. It operates by parsing remote streaming playlist files to discover media fragment URLs and fetching them concurrently through a worker pipeline. The application incorporates a segment decryption engine that applies decryption keys on the fly during retrieval to process protected media streams into readable formats. It handles network volatility via automatic retry mechanisms for failed requests, and executes sequential file concatenation
This cross-platform M3U8 download tool handles streaming video extraction nicely, though it is scoped specifically to HLS/M3U8 streams rather than a broad multi-site video downloader.
Video-Downloader is a cross-platform desktop utility designed to retrieve and archive online video content. It functions as a media aggregator that extracts streaming video sources from various platforms and saves them to a local file system for offline viewing. The application specializes in processing fragmented media streams by fetching individual segments and merging them into a single, playable file. It utilizes pattern matching to identify source endpoints and employs concurrent data fetching to manage large media transfers reliably. To maintain compatibility with evolving third-party
This cross-platform desktop utility handles media extraction and offline archiving from various streaming sites, though it is narrower than a flagship command-line tool.
Super Video Downloader is an integrated application designed for capturing, managing, and playing streaming media from web sources. It functions as a comprehensive utility that combines a web browser with media extraction tools, allowing users to save video and audio content directly to local storage for offline access. The application distinguishes itself by incorporating a headless browser engine that automates navigation and interacts with dynamic web content. It includes built-in privacy and security features, such as proxy-based traffic routing and encrypted domain name queries, to prote
This Android application combines a browser with media extraction tools to capture and download streaming audio and video content from various web sources, though it lacks a command line interface and dedicated format conversion.
ytDownloader is a video downloader and media extraction tool that uses the yt-dlp engine to retrieve video and audio files from various social media and video sharing platforms. It functions as a utility for capturing full media files, specific segments or ranges of tracks, and entire video playlists. The project includes a hardware-accelerated video compressor to reduce file sizes while maintaining visual quality. It also features a subtitle downloader capable of retrieving both text captions and embedded subtitle tracks for accessibility and translation. The system handles broad media task
ytDownloader is a cross-platform video and audio downloader powered by yt-dlp that provides a user interface for retrieving media, playlists, and subtitles, though it relies on external tools or workflows for command-line access and format conversion.
Pytube is a Python library and command line interface for downloading videos, playlists, and captions from YouTube. It functions as both a programmatic tool for metadata extraction and a standalone media downloader. The project is designed using only the Python standard library to avoid external package dependencies. It utilizes regular expression-based HTML parsing to extract stream URLs and asset details directly from the platform. The library supports retrieving video metadata and thumbnails, as well as extracting caption tracks. It provides capabilities for downloading entire playlists a
Pytube is a lightweight Python media downloader with playlist and CLI support, though it is scoped specifically to YouTube rather than multi-platform streaming sites.
This tool provides a user interface on top of youtube-dl and yt-dlp to download and convert videos from various platforms, fitting the category well despite the missing feature details in its metadata.
SpotiFlyer is a cross-platform media utility designed to aggregate music from multiple streaming services into a single, unified library. It functions as a music downloader and offline audio manager, allowing users to save tracks directly to local device storage for playback without an active internet connection. The application utilizes a plugin-based provider architecture to normalize metadata from diverse external sources, enabling the consolidation of content into a consistent format. This modular design supports the integration of custom modules and external services, which expands the c
SpotiFlyer is a cross-platform media downloader that aggregates audio from multiple streaming services with playlist support and local storage, though it focuses specifically on music rather than general video downloading.
This project is a command-line utility and Python-based scraper designed to download and archive educational media from Coursera for offline access. It functions as a tool for saving course syllabi, videos, subtitles, and notebooks to a local file system to ensure a secure backup of academic materials. The tool distinguishes itself by providing capabilities for course quiz extraction, retrieving questions and answers from both graded and ungraded quizzes. It supports the retrieval of learning materials from both legacy and on-demand platforms and implements interrupted download resumption to
This Python-based command-line utility serves as a targeted downloader for archiving educational media from Coursera, fulfilling the core video-downloading intent even though it is specialised for a single platform rather than a universal multi-site downloader.
M3U8-Downloader is a media utility and playlist client designed to download, decrypt, and play back fragmented video content from HLS streams. It functions as a high-performance downloader that captures segmented video from M3U8 playlists for offline local storage. The tool includes an AES-128 decrypter to unlock encrypted streams using specific keys and initialization vectors. It also provides mechanisms to inject custom HTTP headers into requests, allowing the tool to authenticate with video servers and bypass access restrictions. The application supports multi-threaded segment fetching an
M3U8-Downloader is an Electron-based application for downloading and decrypting HLS video streams, matching the video downloader category well despite focusing primarily on M3U8 content rather than general streaming platforms.
FileCentipede is a comprehensive file management and transfer application designed to handle diverse network protocols and data operations. It functions as a multi-protocol download manager, a full-featured BitTorrent client, and a remote filesystem manager, providing a unified interface for moving and organizing data across local and remote environments. The application distinguishes itself through deep browser integration, which allows for the direct capture of media streams, video, and bulk download links from web pages. It also includes a modular utility suite that enables users to perfor
FileCentipede is a comprehensive download manager that handles media streams and video downloads from web pages, though its primary focus is general file transfer and torrenting rather than dedicated streaming platform extraction.
m3u8-downloader is a tool for extracting, downloading, and merging video segments from m3u8 playlist files into a single file. It functions as an HLS stream extractor and downloader that parses playlists to identify and retrieve individual video fragments. The project features a dedicated AES-128 stream decryptor to ensure encrypted media is playable and utilizes an MP4 transcoder to convert fragmented stream segments into a standard container for broad media player compatibility. It employs cross-origin script injection to bypass browser security restrictions and extract video source links d
This tool provides stream extraction and merging capabilities for m3u8 playlists, fitting the video downloader category despite lacking a general multi-platform scraping interface.
MeTube is a self-hosted, containerized media downloader that provides a web-based interface for archiving online video content. It functions as a manager for the command-line tool yt-dlp, automating the retrieval, organization, and post-processing of media files directly to your local hardware. The application distinguishes itself by supporting authenticated downloads, allowing users to inject browser-derived session cookies to access private or restricted content. It also features advanced post-processing capabilities, including the automatic embedding of metadata, chapter markers, and subti
MeTube is a self-hosted web UI wrapper for yt-dlp that handles video downloads and format conversion, matching the requested category even though it relies on an external engine rather than implementing downloader features from scratch.
| Repository | Stars | Language | License | Last push |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| rg3/youtube-dl | 140.5K | Python | Unlicense | |
| nexmoe/vidbee | 6.4K | TypeScript | mit | |
| tyrrrz/youtubedownloader | 14.2K | C# | mit | |
| yt-dlp/yt-dlp | 171K | Python | Unlicense | |
| jely2002/youtube-dl-gui | 8.5K | Rust | AGPL-3.0 | |
| soimort/you-get | 56.8K | Python | NOASSERTION | |
| junkfood02/seal | 27K | Kotlin | GPL-3.0 | |
| ytdl-org/youtube-dl | 140.5K | Python | Unlicense | |
| iawia002/lux | 31.4K | Go | MIT | |
| llychao/m3u8-downloader | 1.5K | Go | MIT |