ytdl
Command line youtube video downloader. observed · 2026-10-14
Health v2 · maintenance only
41/100
- Activity 41
- Release rhythm 8
- Longevity 100
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-10-22. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: n/a
- age_days: 5210
- days_rel: n/a
- days_push: 354
- n_releases_24m: 0
Adoption not part of the score
1290 stars · 153 forks observed · 2026-10-14
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
node-ytdl-core is a JavaScript library for downloading YouTube videos in Node.js, exposing a stream-friendly API with format selection, byte ranges, and live stream support. Development has been paused since mid-2023, with community-maintained forks recommended for ongoing updates.
Use cases
- download youtube videos in node.js
- extract audio from youtube videos
- stream youtube video to a file
- download specific format or quality from youtube
- record live youtube streams
- get youtube video metadata and formats
When to choose
- you need a programmatic, stream-based YouTube downloader in Node.js
- you want fine-grained control over format, quality, and byte ranges
- you are building a bot or app that pipes YouTube audio/video
When to avoid
- you need actively maintained YouTube extraction that keeps up with YouTube changes - use a fork like @distube/ytdl-core instead
- you need a GUI or CLI downloader for end users
- downloading YouTube content may violate YouTube's terms of service in your context
Facets
library · maturity maintenance
web-scraping video-processing http-client media developer-tools web-development youtube-downloader streaming video-download scraper nodejs javascript
1 source
- readme: https://github.com/fent/node-ytdl · fetched 2026-10-14 · 9e1f96442961
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| fent/node-ytdl | main | 41 |
| fent/node-ytdl-core | sdk | 42 |
For agents
Data as of 2026-10-19T08:05:51.212177+00:00 · Report a problem