Overview of alternative open source front-ends for popular internet platforms (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
Invidious: Invidious is an alternative front-end to YouTube - Lightweight, no ads, no tracking, no JavaScript required
Piped: An alternative privacy-friendly YouTube frontend which is efficient by design - Lightweight, no ads, no tracking
Poketube: The privacy-friendly youtube front-end built with the InnerTube API
CloudTube: Alternative front-end for Invidious
YouTube.js: Full-featured wrapper around the Innertube API, which is what YouTube itself uses
FreeTube: Open source YouTube desktop player for privacy on Windows, Mac and Linux
Invuedious: An alternative frontend for invidious built with vue.js
Youtube-viewer: Lightweight YouTube client for Linux
pipe-viewer: A lightweight application (fork of straw-viewer) for searching and playing videos from YouTube.
Invidious-viewer: Python application to watch YouTube videos through the Invidious API, in the terminal (requires MPV player and libmpv.so, provided by Linux distro)
NewPipe: A libre lightweight streaming front-end for Android
Youtube-dl: Command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and other video sites
OpenVideoDownloader aka jely2002/youtube-dl-gui: A cross-platform GUI for youtube-dl made in Electron and node.js
ytdl-gui: A simple-to-use, cross-platform graphical interface for youtube-dl
Alltube: Web GUI for youtube-dl
Vividl: Modern Windows GUI for youtube-dl
Tartube: A GUI front-end for youtube-dl, partly based on youtube-dl-gui and written in Python 3 / Gtk 3
ytmdl: A simple app to get songs from YouTube in mp3 format with artist name, album name etc from sources like iTunes, LastFM, Deezer, Gaana etc.
Plumber: Local and remote video trimmer, can trim parts of video without downloading whole video, utilizes youtube-dl, allows conversion to GIFs
ViewTube: An alternative front-end for YouTube, written in Vue.js, uses Plyr video player; supports SponsorBlock, multiple Invidious instances support, chapters
youtube-local: Browser-based client for watching Youtube anonymously and with greater page performance
yt-local: Browser-based client for watching Youtube anonymously without forcing javascript (Fork of youtube-local)
SkyTube: An open-source YouTube app for Android
yt-dlp: A youtube-dl fork with additional features and fixes
uYouPlus: uYouPlus (uYou+) is an alternative YouTube app for Apple's iOS and iPadOS
SmartTubeNext: SmartTubeNext is an advanced YouTube app for Android TVs and TV boxes, free and open source. It is not a live TV client and does not support "YouTube TV"
TubeSync: TubeSync is a PVR (personal video recorder) for YouTube. It syncs YouTube channels and playlists to a locally hosted media server
TubeArchivist: A self hosted YouTube media server
ytfzf: A POSIX script that helps you find Youtube videos (without API) and opens/downloads them using mpv/youtube-dl
ytcc: Command line tool to keep track of your favorite playlists on YouTube and many other places. Can import youtube subscriptions from Google Takeout and provide them as an RSS feed for your favorite reader
smtube: Stand-alone YouTube video player
mps-youtube: Terminal based YouTube player and downloader
minitube: Lightweight youtube client with a kid-friendly interface. Can make playlists from search keywords
yattee: Alternative YouTube frontend for iOS, tvOS and macOS built with Invidious and Piped, supports sponsorblock
ytcast: Cast YouTube videos to your smart TV from the command line. This program does roughly the same thing as the "Play on TV" button that appears on the player bar when you visit youtube.com with Chrome or when you use the YouTube smartphone app
LibreTube: Android frontend for YouTube, based on Piped
BlackHole: Android music player app for YouTube Music and Spotify made with Flutter
oleksis/youtube-dl-gui: Cross-platform front-end GUI of the popular youtube-dl written in wxPython
ytmdesktop: Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, and Linux) desktop app for YouTube Music. Has a (proprietary?) remote control app for Android
Beatbump: An alternative frontend for YouTube Music created using Svelte/SvelteKit, powered by Cloudflare Workers
AudioTube: Client for YouTube Music. Plasma-mobile project with an interface designed for Linux phones
th-ch/youtube-music: YouTube Music desktop app based on Electron bundled with custom plugins (including built-in ad blocker and downloader)
Nitter: Alternative Twitter front-end - Lightweight, no ads, no tracking, no JavaScript required
Shitter: Android, alternative front-end for Twitter, built with Java
Harpy: Android, alternative front-end for Twitter, built with Flutter/Dart
Twidere X: Android, alternative front-end for Twitter, built mostly with Kotlin, in early stage
Tweeterr: A tool to use Twitter from the command line on the fly
Tweet-app: Desktop Twitter client only for tweeting. Timeline never shows up
Tweepy: Twitter for Python
Fritter: A free, open-source Twitter client for Android
Teddit: Alternative Reddit front-end focused on privacy - Lightweight, no ads, no JavaScript, unofficial API
Libreddit: Alternative front-end for Reddit. Themed around Reddit's new design - Lightweight, no JavaScript, no ads, no tracking
Xeddit: A Xamarin.Forms app for Reddit
RedditClient: Alternative front-end for Reddit, built with Angular
Updoot: Android, alternative front-end for Reddit
Eddrit: Alternative front-end for Reddit, inspired by Nitter, built with Python & Starlette
Top of Reddit: Top Reddit posts every day
Snew: Open-source client for Reddit forked from the Reddit source code
Stealth: Account-free, privacy-oriented, and feature-rich Reddit client
Infinity: Reddit client for Android
Dawn: Open-source Reddit app
Slide: Open source, ad free Reddit browser for Android
junipf/reddit-frontend: A reddit front-end written in React
kddit: uWSGI frontend for Reddit.com written in Python
Troddit: A web client for Reddit
Roffline: A self-hosted offline Reddit server. It allows you to browse Reddit posts (including any media in the post) while offline. It is targeted at people that have intermittent internet
Rimgo: Self-hosted frontend for Imgur ritten in Go
Rimgu: Self-hosted alternative frontend/ proxy for Imgur
Imgin: Minimal Imgur front end
Omgur: Omgur is a free and open-source alternative Imgur front-end focused on privacy. Inspired by the Invidious, Nitter, and Teddit projects.
imgrs: Imgrs is a free and open-source alternative Imgur front-end focused on privacy. It's a Rust rewrite of a previous Imgur proxy project, Omgur.
psst: Fast and multi-platform Spotify client with native GUI
Spotiqueue: Minimalistic queue-oriented macOS-native client for Spotify, with Guile Scheme scriptability
spot: Gtk/Rust native Spotify client for the GNOME desktop. Only works with premium accounts
spotube: A lightweight and free Spotify crossplatform-client which handles playback manually, streams music using Youtube & no Spotify premium account is needed
SpotX: Modified Spotify Client for Windows (Windows Only) - Blocking ads and updates for the desktop version of Spotify, disabling podcasts and more
kotify: Requires Spotify Account - Multiplatform desktop client for Spotify focused on library organization for power users. Relies on official Spotify client for playback
librespot: Requires Spotify Premium Account - librespot is an open source client library for Spotify. It enables applications to use Spotify's service to control and play music via various backends, and to act as a Spotify Connect receiver. It is an alternative to the official and now deprecated closed-source libspotify. Additionally, it will provide extra features which are not available in the official library
spotifyd: unix daemon, using librespot.
streamlink-twitch-gui: Multi platform Twitch.tv browser for Streamlink
Twire: Alternative and open source Twitch client for Android
Xtra: Twitch player and browser for Android
ElectronPlayer: Electron Based Web Video Services Player. Supports Netflix, Youtube, Twitch, Floatplane, Hulu and more
Whoogle Search: A self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting metasearch engine for Google
Searx: Searx is a free privacy-respecting internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. Additionally, searx can be used over Tor for online anonymity
SearXNG: SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from various search services and databases. Users are neither tracked nor profiled (SearXNG is a fork of searx)
LibreX: Privacy respecting free meta search engine (free as in freedom)
Lingva Translate: Alternative front-end for Google Translate, serving as a free and open-source translator with over a hundred languages available
SimplyTranslate: Provide fast and private translations to the user without wasting much overhead for extensive styling or JavaScript. Supports Google Translate, DeepL, ICIBA and LibreTranslate.
SimplyTranslate Mobile: Unofficial Android client of SimplyTranslate.
InstaLate: Distraction-free translation for Android, to be used directly from within any app. Supports Beolingus, DeepL, Dict.cc, GNU CIDE, Heinzelnisse, LibreTranslate, Linguee, WikDict and Wiktionary.
DeepL Android: Unofficial Android client for DeepL
Crow Translate: Simple and lightweight cross-platform translator that allows translation using LibreTranslate, Lingva, Google, Bing, and Yandex, as well as text-to-speech using Google
SlimSocial: Android, alternative front-end for Facebook, built with Java
Frost: An extensive and functional third party app for Facebook (Android app)
Sengi: cross-platform multi-account Mastodon & Pleroma desktop client
TheDesk: cross-platform Mastodon & Misskey desktop client
Tootle: simple GTK-based Linux Mastodon client
Tusky: lightweight Android Mastodon client
Fedilab: multi-account Android Mastodon client
Pinafore: Alternative web client for Mastodon, focused on speed and simplicity Unmaintained
Hyperspace: cross-platform Mastodon client for the fediverse written in TypeScript and React In maintenance mode
Scribe: Alternative front-end to Medium.com
Libmedium: Alternative front-end to Medium.com
RPiPlay: An open-source AirPlay mirroring server for the Raspberry Pi. Supports iOS 9 and up.
air-pi-play: Turn a Raspberry Pi into an Airplay server using RPiPlay to enable screen mirroring on tvs, monitors and projectors.
HN-search: Algolia Hacker News search
HNTopLinks: Top Links on Hacker News
Hackerweb: A simply readable Hacker News web app
Hckrnws: A custom front-end for a better reading experience of HackerNews
Hackers: a native iOS app for Hacker News
Pastewin: Free alternative Pastebin front-end
MediathekViewWeb: Video content of German public-service television broadcasters (e.g. ARD, ZDF)
NoPaste: NoPaste is an open-source website similar to Pastebin where you can store any piece of code, and generate links for easy sharing
PrivateBin: Zero knowledge encrypted paste-bin. A minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data. Data is encrypted/decrypted in the browser using 256 bits AES
vaultwarden: Password manager. Unofficial Bitwarden compatible server written in Rust, formerly known as bitwarden_rs
snapdrop: Similar to Apple's Airdrop but in your browser. A Progressive Web App for local file sharing
hedgedoc: Collaborative markdown editor. A platform to write and share markdown
etherpad-lite: Collaborative rich text editor. A modern really-real-time collaborative document editor
gitea: Lightweight git server. Git with a cup of tea, painless self-hosted git service
ArchiveBox: Open source self-hosted web archiving. Takes URLs/browser history/bookmarks/Pocket/Pinboard/etc., saves HTML, JS, PDFs, media, and more
Wikiless: A free open source alternative Wikipedia front-end focused on privacy
Librarian: Alternative frontend for LBRY / Odysee.com
Privacy Redirect: A simple web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, & Google Maps requests to privacy friendly alternatives
libredirect: A web extension that redirects popular sites to alternative privacy-friendly frontends and backends. Actively maintained fork of Privacy Redirect that supports Youtube, Youtube Music, Twitter, TikTok, Imgur, Reddit, Searx, Google Translate, Google Maps, Wikipedia, and Medium
Farside: Farside provides links that automatically redirect to working instances of privacy-oriented alternative frontends, such as Nitter, Libreddit, etc. This allows for users to have more reliable access to the available public instances for a particular service, while also helping to distribute traffic more evenly across all instances and avoid performance bottlenecks and rate-limiting.
UntrackMe: UntrackMe transforms Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and Medium and Wikipedia links to links of open source, privacy friendly front-ends. Converts Google Maps links to OpenStreetMap links. Removes tracking parameters from any url. Then delegates the action to other apps that are capable of handling them. (Android app)
Redirector: Web browser extension (Firefox, Vivaldi, Chrome, Opera, Edge) to redirect URLs based on regex or wildcard patterns.
uBlock Origin: An efficient blocker for Chromium and Firefox. Fast and lean
StreetComplete: Easy to use OpenStreetMap editor for Android
Matrix.org's Synapse: End-to-end-encrypted messaging. Matrix reference homeserver. See also matrix.org.
Pluja's Awesome Privacy: A curated list of services and alternatives that respect your privacy because privacy matters.
12ft.io / 12ft Ladder: 12ft Ladder is a free service for reading news articles. Prepend 12ft.io/ to the URL of any paywalled page, and we'll try our best to remove the paywall and get you access to the article. It is similar to Outline.com which is not available anymore.
Youtube Vanced: Youtube replacement app for the Android platform: YouTube Vanced is the stock Android YouTube app, but better. It includes adblocking, true amoled dark mode and a lot more. Use the Vanced Manager to install YouTube Vanced with ease.
This overview originally included three alternative front-ends: Invidious (for YouTube), Bibliogram (for Instagram) and Nitter (for Twitter). Therefore it was named alternative front-ends. As more projects have been added to the repository, the listed projects partially left the scope of alternative front-ends.
For example, youtube-dl is not a front-end, but can be generally described as an open source project that interacts with the internet platform Youtube.
Therefore the name alternative front-ends does not capture the full scope of the listed projects anymore. Maybe this repository will be renamed in the future to better reflect the larger scope. A possible name might be open-source-alternatives or something similar.