PeerTube from your pocket!
Thanks to your support, we (Framasoft, a small french not-for-profit) have been developing PeerTube for seven years! From a student project to a software with international reach, our video platform solution is now used and acknowledged by many institutions!
Of course, we've still a lot to do, and if the PeerTube community is growing by the day, we can already see some crucial steps that would help PeerTube to reach a wider audience!
With your help, let's put PeerTube in everyone's pocket!
An application for everyone!
Last year marked an important milestone for PeerTube. Indeed, we hired Wicklow to work on the PeerTube mobile app, which doubled our workforce dedicated to the PeerTube development.
Yes, that may sound a bit crazy, but PeerTube has so far only been developed by one single employee and a handful of volunteer contributors! (Many thanks to you! 💖)
We've been thinking about building our own mobile app for a long time, noting the massive use of smartphones to enjoy video content. Thanks to your votes on our feedback platform for PeerTube, we were convinced to get started on this project, and now we want to put some resources into it!
Since its preliminary release at the end of the last year, the app has evolved a lot and you were able to discover, some weeks ago, its first major version! Details of the improvements introduced by this version can be found in the dedicated blog post.
A bubble of autonomy outside of the YouTube-Twitch-Vimeo system
More than a mobile app, PeerTube is a vibrant ecosystem: 1,300 platforms listed, with 300,000 user accounts and 756,000 videos.
In addition to many other improvements, version 7 introduced a new design, thought to be more modern, accessible, and better suited for institutions.
Among these institutions are the French Ministry of National Education and the GARR (the IT network of Italian universities).
For all these reasons, we consider PeerTube to be a mature piece of software.
(even if, yes, there are always ways to improve it and we'll work this way! 😛)
We see in PeerTube as an emancipatory software, allowing a non-commercial sharing of videos.
Whether you wish to share your videos with your students, publish your tutorials about easy gardening or to have an autonomous video platform for your organization, everything is possible with PeerTube!
Let's popularize videos and live streams shared by humans, for humans!
To give even more people access to PeerTube, we're delighted to announce the launch of a crowdfunding campaign! 🎉
Our roadmap for PeerTube being already funded, we want to focus on improving the mobile app. We'd like to add some key features that make it easier to add content.
Together, let's get a step further and get PeerTube in everyone's pocket!
Four collective goals
PeerTube was thought as a Common, a tool that can be used by everyone. That's why we've come up with four key objectives to support the development of the mobile app.
Unlike most participatory funding, we don't offer any "rewards" for your contributions. By supporting PeerTube, your reward is to have contributed to a Common, which serves everyone and belongs to everyone.
However, we played around with the concept, and are offering you different possible "contributions", to show you the work that your support enables us to do.
€15,000 - Free PeerTube "Premium" for the people
This goal unlocks "PeerTube Premium"... but free and for everyone!
- Play video in background so you can continue to listen to a lecture or lesson without interruption, even if you need to take a quick look at a document
- Cast videos to your TV and show your friend the video tutorial super-useful for your association
- Be notified of the latest videos from your subscriptions so you never miss a release from your favorite videomaker
- Change the video definition and save on your data rate
All without ads! The magic of an application designed to serve you, not track you! 🪄
€35,000 - Share videos from your pocket
Sometimes, you don't have any major editing to do on your videos and just want to upload them quickly without using your computer.
That's what this goal will let you do!
- Manage all your channels from your account, directly from the app
- Edit chapters, subtitles and other information about your videos
- View detailed stats on your content: how many people watch your videos, for how long, from where, etc.
- Upload new videos from your smartphone
Should the app answer to videomakers needs...? That's up to you to tell us, because we're looking forward developing these features by the end of the year.
€55,000 - Livestream from your mobile
So you can broadcast a social movement or your discovery of Seoul live!
- Configure and manage your livestreams from your phone, without OBS! 😎
- Use your device and its data, no additional equipment required
- Broadcast your lives right in your hands, without needing a computer
- No more need for a secondary mobile app dedicated to live streams - all your needs in one place!
We can already imagine live broadcasts shared from demonstrations, conferences, and community debates. However, even if this goal is funded, we don't think we can finish it before the end of the year, and are counting on a release in 2026.
€75,000 - Support Framasoft & PeerTube
PeerTube is a major project in the history of Framasoft, but it is not the only one. If Framasoft was able to develop PeerTube, that's because our association has been supported for its other actions by donations.By supporting Framasoft, you're helping to build a digital world that is inclusive, emancipatory and non-commercial.
- We do not make a profit: we provide Commons
- All donations fund all our projects, both PeerTube and dozens of others
- We maintain PeerTube, with a free and qualitative support: this daily, behind-the-scenes work is done in addition to new developments
- We de-google-ify more than 2M people each month, by providing web services enabling them to emancipate themselves from Big Tech.
We'll detail all of these goals in dedicated blog posts very soon! Stay tuned!
Contribute to commons: a virtuous circle!
By contributing, you donate not only to the PeerTube mobile app, but also to all Framasoft's projects!
Here is a graph showing, in detail, how we use this money. If you would like more details, you can also consult our financial report (in french).
This crowdfunding campaign is really important for us because not only does it allow us to secure the money we need to develop the project, it also allows us to gauge public enthusiasm for the mobile application and the PeerTube project in general!
But let's be clear! We will implement the improvements proposed in this crowdfunding campaign, regardless of whether we achieve our objectives!
If we don't meet our fundraising goals, we will have to dip into the donations made by the French-speaking community at the end of last year for all of Framasoft's projects. This will show us that our enthusiasm for PeerTube and its application isn't shared. (That happens sometimes! 🤷♀️)
We'll then ask ourselves whether we really need to add video uploading (or live streaming) to the app, and above all whether we should ease up on our strategy to popularize the PeerTube ecosystem.
Your support is our compass: it's up to you to tell us if you share our enthusiasm!
Support the PeerTube ecosystem by sharing your attention...
The PeerTube ecosystem extends beyond Framasoft. Month after month, more and more people and organizations are adopting the project and bringing it to life!
Thanks to its powerful extensions system, volunteer developers are constantly expanding software's functionalities. The PeerTube extension catalogue includes over 200 extensions, each of which can be used to add new features to PeerTube or change its appearance!
In the community, there are a number of inspiring initiatives!
Take the Mastodon Fedi.Video account, for example, which had helped to make PeerTube videomakers more visible for years!
Also, specialized platforms are springing up, like MakerTube, dedicated to those who "make".
Obviously, we can't list all the great initiatives we've spotted in this article, but a kudos to you all for your fantastic work. Thank you for enriching PeerTube with your colors! 🫶
If you'd like to know more about the PeerTube ecosystem, you can sign up for the PeerTube newsletter. We'll keep you up to date with the latest news about the project and community initiatives!
You can also follow the PeerTube account on our social media accounts:
In addition to occasional news updates, we publish weekly tips on how to use PeerTube!
Finally, you'll be able to ask us anything during next AMAs (Ask Me Anything) organized on Lemmy and Reddit:
- This Wednesday, May 28 at 5p.m., on the Open Source Lemmy community.
- During the week of 08 June, on the Open Source sub-reddit. The precise date will be shared later.
...and helping us raise the money!
We're giving ourselves 3 weeks to collectively fund our actions to popularize PeerTube.
We sincerely believe that we can do it, because we're convinced PeerTube is a Common that's as important to you as it is to us!
So if you would also like to see a world where PeerTube is used by everyone, support us by making a donation (if you can) and spreading the word about the campaign!
Together, let's take back the video platforms!