Invidious vs Piped
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted social networks options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Invidious | Piped |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 97 · Excellent | 91 · Excellent |
| Category | Social Networks | Social Networks |
| License | GPL-3.0-only | AGPL-3.0-or-later |
| Language | Crystal | Vue |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 50 MB | 50 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 24,745 | ★ 10,258 |
| First released | 2023 | 2024 |
| Replaces | YouTube | YouTube |
What are Invidious and Piped?
Invidious
Invidious is an alternative front-end to YouTube. Contribute to iv-org/invidious development by creating an account on GitHub.
- No ads or tracking
- Subscriptions without an account
- RSS feeds for channels
- Audio-only and quality controls
Piped
An alternative privacy-friendly YouTube frontend which is efficient by design.
Invidious vs Piped: key differences
Invidious is written in Crystal, while Piped is built with Vue. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0-only for Invidious versus AGPL-3.0-or-later for Piped. Invidious has the considerably larger community, at 24,745 GitHub stars versus 10,258.
Why pick each one
Choose Invidious if…
- No ads or tracking
- No account needed
- RSS subscriptions
Watch out for
- Frequent YouTube breakage
- Crystal stack less familiar
Choose Piped if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0-or-later license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 10.3k GitHub stars
- Written in Vue
Frequently asked questions
Is Invidious or Piped better?
Neither is universally better. Invidious has the larger community, while Piped is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Invidious and Piped free and open-source?
Yes. Invidious is licensed under GPL-3.0-only and Piped under AGPL-3.0-or-later. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Invidious and Piped with Docker?
Invidious: check the project docs for container support. Piped: check the project docs for container support.