Frequently Asked Questions

PeerTube is a tool that you install on a web server. It allows you to create a video hosting website, so create your "homemade YouTube".

The difference to YouTube is that it's not intended to create a huge platform centralizing videos from the whole world on a single server farm (which is horribly expensive).

On the contrary, PeerTube's concept is to create a network of multiple small interconnected video hosting providers.

Peer-to-peer broadcasting

• It reduces server bandwidth overload if a video becomes viral
• We become an actor of the video broadcasting
• It's based on WebRTC, a free and open-source project for web browsers.

Exciting features for viewers

• Enjoy a beautiful adaptative player that includes chapters and previews on the web interface or the mobile application
• Personalize the interface with themes, filtering, NSFW settings, and autoplay preferences
• Save videos for later, organize playlists, resume playback, and check watch history
• Follow channels and access new videos in a dedicated feed
• And many more features!

For content creators

• Join a community with aligned values, talk to real moderators, and export/import your content across PeerTube platforms
• Let PeerTube automatically synchronize a channel from a remote platform (Youtube, Vimeo, etc.)
• Access detailed analytics, edit (trim, watermark, intro/outro) or a upload new version of your video
• Stream via OBS or other RTMP software, enable replays and interact with viewers via live chat
• Manage multiple channel that can be followed by ActivityPub platforms (PeerTube, Mastodon, Pleroma, etc.) for greater discoverability
• And many more features!

And for administrators

• Full control & customization with many settings, plugins, themes
• Customize the homepage with Markdown/HTML, set instance branding (avatar, banner, categories), define default user settings, and broadcast messages with a banner
• Manage user registrations, set upload limits, assign moderator roles, review abuse reports, block or ban users, and mute accounts or platforms
• Advanced video transcoding with the ability to use remote runners
• And many more features!

PeerTube 是由法国非营利数字问题大众教育组织 Framasoft 开发的软件。

It employs a developer, Chocobozzz, who works since 2018 on PeerTube projects:

• Development of new features and software maintenance;
• Thoughts on the architecture, the design and the future of PeerTube;
• New stable releases preparation and communication (blog posts, changelog, etc.);
• PeerTube 官网 开发、维护；
• PeerTube 扩展索引 开发、维护；
• PeerTube 实例索引 开发、维护；
• PeerTube 视频 / 频道索引 开发、维护；
• PeerTube 官方文档站点 的开发与维护；
• PeerTube support and discussions on bugtrackers, forum, IRC or by email;
• Pull requests/merge requests reviews, merges, and support of features added by external contributions (bug fixes, documentation, refactor, etc.);
• Maintenance of several PeerTube plaftorms (peertube.cpy.re, peertube2.cpy.re, etc.).

Moreover, Chocobozzz works on internal Framasoft's projects (Framapad, Framatalk, etc.). In other words, the management of PeerTube projects is operated by only one employee, who has other responsabilities in addition to his workload.

其他 Framasoft 的志愿者和有薪成员也通过各种方面（策略、交流、开发、社区动画）为 PeerTube 项目做出了贡献。 尽管如此，PeerTube 并不是由拥有 50 人团队的初创公司开发的，也没有非常完善的工作流程。

Framasoft will therefore takes the time to improve the software progressively, at its own pace and with its atypical methods which, so far, have proven to be rather effective.

不，并不是。

PeerTube 是由法国非营利数字问题大众教育组织 Framasoft 创建、开发并维护的软件。 Framasoft has a French culture, respects French laws and is a political actor (« who participates in the life of the city-state ») of civil society.

PeerTube is part of several actions assembled by Framasoft in the Contributopia roadmap. These actions aim to propose alternative digital tools to those coming from surveillance capitalism, so that people who do not recognize themselves in such a system can create spaces of freedom.

Consequently, PeerTube development and/or management of websites associated with the PeerTube project (joinpeertube.org, instances.joinpeertube.org, search.joinpeertube.org, etc.) may not please everyone (in particular because of different ideas, ideologies of cultures).

我们尊重并提醒各位，PeerTube 项目的所有软件均为自由软件，并可以配合自己的域名安装使用。

We can answer with certainty: no!

The ambition remains to be a free and decentralized alternative: the goal of an alternative is not to replace, but to propose something else, with different values, in parallel to what already exists.

Yes, Framasoft holds the "PeerTube" trademark in several countries for preventive purposes.

Framasoft affirms here its intention to not use intellectual property for predatory purposes or to constrain legitimate uses of the software. However, Framasoft reserves the right to use trademark law, especially in case of damage to the image of the PeerTube project, edited by Framasoft.

我们建议你创建自己的数字身份，而不是直接在你的项目里使用“PeerTube”（软件名称，网站域名......），以避免混淆人们对谁是网站/项目背后的人的观念。

For more information, please refer to our Trademark Code of Conduct.

PeerTube 只是一个软件名称。您可以在服务器里安装该软件，并随心为它命名。 举个例子：Framasoft 的 PeerTube 站点的名字是 FramaTube。

错了，这不是章鱼，是墨鱼！它源自拉丁语的 sēpia，因此 PeerTube 的吉祥物叫 Sepia。
It has been created by David Revoy (illustrations are under CC-BY).

Sepia can also help you to search PeerTube content like videos or channels on Sepia Search!

The following web browsers are supported by PeerTube:

• Firefox 78+ on desktop
• Latest Edge version on desktop
• Latest Chrome version on desktop
• Safari 13+ on macOS
• Latest Chrome version on mobile
• Latest Firefox on mobile
• Safari 14.5+ on iOS

Yes it does! On Android:

• Google Play
• F-Droid
• Manual APK installation

On iOS:

• App Store

A list of unofficial third-party clients can also be found on https://docs.joinpeertube.org/use/third-party-application.

As any digital tool, PeerTube inevitably has a negative impact on the environment.
However, this impact will vary according to different factors.

These factors provide a very rough estimation of PeerTube's environmental impact.
Bear in mind that is impossible to know the environmental impact of a web service used in real-life conditions, due to the immense complexity of the links that make-up the very nature of the Internet.
However, we think it's still important to consider the environmental impact of non-quantifiable elements.

As we can see from these questions, the issue of environmental impact goes far beyond a simple technological choice.
It is the political visions of our tools that can and will define their environmental impact.

• Enjoy a player with many features
  • See the different chapters of the video in the progress bar
  • Preview the video frame while scrubbing the progress bar
  • The size of the player is automatically adjusted according to the video ratio
  • Choose subtitles, playback speed or video resolution in the player settings
  • Communicate with the streamer and other viewers using the livechat PeerTube plugin
• Become a part of the broadcasting of the videos you are watching
  • Help the PeerTube website to share videos and lives using P2P
  • Easily disable P2P in your account if logged-in or in your anonymous settings
• Customize the interface
  • Update your name, avatar or description in your profile
  • Set your appropriate NSFW policy (display, blur or hide NSFW videos)
  • Choose a PeerTube theme to change the look and feel of the interface
  • Automatically filter videos depending on many criteria (language, category, live/VOD etc)
  • 选择您的自动播放原则
• Manage your library
  • Use the built-in Watch Later playlist and add easily videos in it
  • Organize videos in public or private playlists
  • Automatically resume videos from the last time you watched them
  • Check your watch history in a dedicated page
• Subscribe to channels
  • Subscribe to local or remote channels to be notified when they publish videos
  • Display videos of your subscriptions in a dedicated page
• Share and interact with videos and playlists
  • 分享 视频或播放列表的链接 / 嵌入（支持自动播放/停止、循环播放、静音等属性）
  • Download a video using a dedicated modal
  • Comment, reply and rate videos using PeerTube or an ActivityPub compatible software (Mastodon, Pleroma...)
• Search videos, channels and playlists
  • 搜索 本地或远端视频、频道、播放列表
  • Use many advanced filters (tags, category, licence...)
  • Use the video URL, playlist URL or channel handle/URL to fetch remote content

No we don't, because PeerTube is not a service but a free software. 这意味着所有人都可以下载并安装 PeerTube，并在某个特定的域名中托管视频（这被称为“托管 PeerTube 平台/网站”）。 Framasoft has no control over who downloads PeerTube and who installs or uses it. Nor does Microsoft or Adobe have any control over who uses Word or Photoshop and for what purposes.

Framasoft only hosts and promotes two PeerTube platforms: https://framatube.org and https://peer.tube

此外，Framasoft 只托管、推广这一款 PeerTube 搜索索引：https://sepiasearch.org

管理员可以完全控制他们接受的内容，以及决定是否默认显示敏感内容（暴力、色情等）。 In its default configuration, PeerTube hides videos that contain sensitive content.

Therefore, you may find inappropriate videos on some PeerTube platforms. But it's far from being the majority of the PeerTube content. For example, in September 2021, the 900 platforms listed on our public index host only ~1% videos tagged as containing sensitive content.

See the dedicated section in the PeerTube documentation: https://docs.joinpeertube.org/use/report

The web browser generates a random string to identify the viewer during the browser session and periodically notifies the server that a user is watching the video. By default, a view is counted after 10 seconds of viewing (or 50% of the video duration if the duration is less than 10 seconds). Views are buffered, so don't panic if the view counter stays the same after you watched a video.

• Find the PeerTube website that suits you best
  • 加入 PeerTube 社区，根据其主题、服务条款或行为准则决定
  • Talk to administrators and moderators that are real people, not robots
  • Export all your data (videos, settings, channels...) to an archive file and import it on another PeerTube platform!
• Upload and import videos
  • Upload or import videos from the web (Youtube, Dailymotion...) or from a torrent file
  • Automatically synchronize a remote channel or playlist
  • Set metadata: category, licence, language, tags, description, thumbnail...
  • Choose video privacy: public, unlisted, password protected, internal or private
  • Add subtitles
  • Add chapters
  • Easily disable comments or download
  • Upload an audio file and an image and let PeerTube take care of creating the video!
• Manage your videos
  • Let PeerTube save and store your original video file so you no longer have to keep it on your hard drive anymore (this option must be enabled by your administrator)
  • Get detailed statistics on your videos (views, watch time, unique viewers...)
  • Cut, add a watermark, an intro/outro to your videos directly from the web interface using the PeerTube studio
  • Upload a new version of the video (this option must be enabled by your administrator)
• 线上直播
  • 借助您最喜欢且兼容 RTMP 协议的软件（OBS、Restream、ffmpeg 等）发布直播视频
  • Create permanent lives to stream multiple times inside the same live (URL doesn't change for the viewers)
  • Let PeerTube create a replay of your live sessions
  • Communicate with your viewers using the livechat PeerTube plugin
• Manage your channels
  • Create multiple channels inside your account to group your videos by topic
  • Brand your channel using a dedicated name, a banner and an avatar
  • Set a Support button for your channel to explain how to support your work
  • People can subscribe to your channel from a PeerTube website or from an ActivityPub compatible software (Mastodon, Pleroma...)
  • Create public playlists assigned to your channel to organize your content or remote videos

Being free doesn't mean being above the law! Each PeerTube hosting provider can decide on its own general conditions of use, abiding by their local laws.

For example, in France, discriminatory content is prohibited and may be reported to authorities. PeerTube allows users to report problematic videos, and administrator must then apply its moderation in accordance with its terms and conditions and the law.

There are none at the moment: PeerTube is a tool that we wanted neutral in terms of monetization.

However, the uploader can display a support button under the video. This button displays a frame in which people who upload videos can display text, images, and links freely (link to Patreon, Tipeee, Paypal, Liberapay...).

We did not go any further, as we refuse to tie our code to a particular content funding method, that might not fit all communities and deter others. It's the reason why we encourage developers to use the PeerTube plugin API to create their own monetization system.

• Free and open-source software
  • Install PeerTube on your server and create your "homemade YouTube"
  • Official Docker support
  • Documented REST API and CLI tools
• Federation with ActivityPub
  • Enable or disable federation for your instance
  • Display videos/accounts of other instances on yours
  • 借助公开索引 自动关注 其他实例
• P2P with WebRTC
  • Reduce your server bandwidth using P2P on VOD and live videos
  • Enable or disable easily P2P for your instance
  • Help (or get help) other instances using PeerTube redundancy
• Video transcoding
  • Optimize videos and generate multiple resolutions using ffmpeg
  • Enable additional video extension (.mkv, .mov, .avi...) or audio uploads
  • Generate HLS playlists or raw MP4 files
  • Customize ffmpeg transcoding profile using PeerTube plugins
  • Transcode videos by remote runners
• 线上直播
  • Enable live streaming for your instance
  • 赋予用户发布直播回放的能力
  • Set simultaneous live streaming limits (per user/instance)
  • Enable live streaming transcoding in multiple resolutions
  • Customize ffmpeg live transcoding profile using PeerTube plugins
  • Transcode lives by remote runners
• Video imports
  • Enable video import using youtube-dl (Youtube, Dailymotion...)
  • Enable video import using webtorrent (torrent file or magnet URI)
• 审核工具
  • Enable or disable signup, approve manually new users or set upload limits
  • Assign moderator/admin roles
  • Manage abuse reports on videos, accounts or comments using a dedicated dashboard
  • Automatically block videos from untrusted users awaiting a review by moderators
  • Block specific videos and specify a reason
  • Ban local users, mute accounts or instances
• Highly configurable
  • Easily set instance metadata: avatar and banner images, name, description, main categories...
  • Create your own homepage using markdown or HTML
  • Search and install PeerTube plugins or themes
  • Use external auth (LDAP, OpenID Connect...) using auth plugins
  • Choose default user settings (NSFW policy, comments/download/P2P enabled, etc)
  • Store videos and lives in the server filesystem or in object storage
  • Broadcast a message to users using a banner

The installation guide is here (only in English).

Minimum hardware requirements:

• 1 vCore
• 1.5 GB of RAM
• Enough storage for videos
• 20Mbit/s upload network speed
• Enough bandwidth to broadcast videos

Recommended hardware requirements for a big instance to handle 1,000 concurrent viewers (see our blog post about our viewers stress test):

• 4 vCore
• 4 GB of RAM
• Enough storage for videos
• 1Gbit/s upload network speed
• Enough bandwidth to broadcast videos
• Read the scalability guide if you plan to have many users or viewers

If you plan to do transcoding on the same machine as the PeerTube instance:

• 8 vCore
• 8 GB of RAM

For a more detailed guide about hardware requirements:

Except for video transcoding, a PeerTube instance is not CPU bound. Neither Nginx, PeerTube itself, PostgreSQL nor Redis require a lot of computing power. If it were only for those, one could easily get by with just one thread/vCPU.

You will hugely benefit from at least a second thread though, because of transcoding. Transcoding is very cpu intensive. It serves two purposes on a PeerTube instance: it ensures all videos can be played optimally in the web interface, and it generates different resolutions for the same video.

Transcoding can also be offloaded to other machines using remote runners.

1.5 GB of RAM should be plenty for a basic PeerTube instance, which usually takes at most 500 MB in RAM. The only reason you might want more would be if you colocate your Redis or PostgreSQL services on a non-SSD system.

There are two important angles to storage: disk space usage and sustained read speed. To make a rough estimate of your disk space usage requirements, you want to know the answer to three questions:

• What is the total size of the videos you wish to stream?
• Do you want to enable transcoding? If so, do you want to provide multiple resolutions per video? Try this out with a few videos and you will get an idea of how much extra space is required per video and estimate a multiplication factor for future space allocation.
• Which sharing mechanisms do you want to enable? Just web video, or also HLS with P2P? If you want both, this will double your storage needs.

If you want to store many videos on your PeerTube instance, you may want to store videos externally using Object Storage.

In terms of read speed, you want to make sure that you can saturate your network uplink serving PeerTube videos. This should not be a problem with SSD disks, whereas traditional HDD should be accounted for: typical sustained read rates for a well tuned system with a 7200rpm hard disk should hover around 120 MB/s or 960 Mbit/s. The latter should be enough for a typical 1 Gbit/s network uplink.

对传统服务器的视频串流网络容量的粗略估计通常是很直接的。 You simply divide your server's available bandwidth by the average bandwidth per stream, and you have an upper bound.

Take a server for example with a 1 Gbit/s uplink for example pushing out 1080p60 streams at 5 Mbit/s per stream. That means the absolute theoretical upper capacity bound is 200 simultaneous viewers if your server's disk i/o can keep up. Expect a bit less in practice.

But what if you need to serve more users? That's where PeerTube's federation feature shines. If other PeerTube instances following yours, chances are they have decided to mirror part of your instance! The feature is called "server redundancy" and caches your most popular videos to help serve additional viewers. 虽然观众们在浏览器里观看视频时会贡献一点额外的带宽（主要在流量激增期间），但镜像服务器有更好的上行线路，并能帮助您的实例提供更高并行串流量。

At the moment, you can't deploy multiple PeerTube nodes behind a load balancer.

But some pars of PeerTube can be horizontally scaled to bypass the following limits, as described in our scalability guide:

• Bandwidth: can be mitigated using PeerTube redundancy system and cache servers that serve video static files in front of your PeerTube instance
• Storage: can be mitigated using S3/Object storage
• Video transcoding: can be mitigated using remote transcoding by remote workers

If you notice performance problems or a bottleneck at your scale, don't hesitate to create an issue to discuss it.

Framasoft tries to make around 4 major releases per year. Releasing a new PeerTube version takes a lot of our time, so we cannot change this release cycle.

There is no LTS version: only the latest stable version of PeerTube is supported by Framasoft.

If you want to test the PeerTube develop branch, we provide nightly builds.

We try to keep compatibility with the latest minor version (2.3.1 with 2.2 for example). Unfortunately we don't have enough resources to keep compatibility with other versions.

“这令人愤慨且不合情理：你们发布的 PeerTube 版本缺少必要的工具，无法有效管理权利人主张的视频，也无法有效管理评论中的在线骚扰问题，更无法有效管理通过广告实现的货币化，甚至还不能（在此插入你们对 PeerTube 的需求）。它永远不会起作用！你们到底想干啥？”

You're right. PeerTube is not the perfect tool, far from it. And we never promised this software would include all the features corresponding to every use cases.

Remember that PeerTube has only one full time developer and a small handful of very involved volunteers. It is not a product developed by a start-up with a full time team and significant financial support.

因此，如果您认为目前 PeerTube 无法满足您的需求，那么很简单：暂时不要使用它。 We remind you that we don't make money developing PeerTube, and if we obviously hope for its success, Framasoft does not depend on it to continue its activities.

是的，它提供！Since the first stable release of PeerTube in October 2018, every release added or improved moderation features:

• PeerTube 1.1 新增了用户管理表与实例 / 账号静音的批量操作功能；
• PeerTube 1.2 新增了解除拉黑不在联邦的视频的功能；通知系统现在可以显示报告以及新用户；
• PeerTube 1.3 增加了管理员为新的 / 不信任的用户自动隔离新视频的功能，隔离将在管理员审核完成后结束。实例的关注者管理也进行了重做：用户界面改进，可以拒绝关注；
• PeerTube 1.4 added a plugin system, and made sure plugins can for instance automatically blacklist videos or reject comments based on any rule (similar to Pleroma MRF);
• PeerTube 2.0 setup now asks the admin to answer questions regarding their moderation policy and dedication to it. Make a feature to automatically follow a public index of PeerTube instances part of core PeerTube, instead of leaving admins to script it themselves. This allows instance administrators to automatically follow instances of a "follow list" of their choice; a list which is self-hostable, so that communities can grow at their own pace;
• PeerTube 2.1 added an internal privacy mode to videos (such videos won't be shared outside of the instance), and added quick access to moderation tools below the comments and hooks to create registration plugins (geoblocking or captchas for example); some third-party plugins already demonstrate this ability. This release also put emphasis on describing moderation features within the interface: warnings for features that might increase moderation work like autofollow, and descriptions to the action dropdowns.
• PeerTube 2.2 greatly improved video abuses management (search, abuses display, actions on the video or account etc), added moderation hooks and helpers in the plugins API and Framasoft developed an experimental Auto mute plugin based on public lists.
• PeerTube 2.3 improved the report modal and added predefined reasons selection. This version made it possible to delete all the comments of an account and Framasoft developed an experimental Auto block videos plugin based on public lists.
• PeerTube 2.4 added ability to report accounts and comments, a messaging system between the local reporter of an abuse and moderators, and an abuse management view for users.
• PeerTube 3.0 added a dedicated view to manage comments of the instance (list, filter, remove in bulk etc).
• …

PeerTube developers are committed to develop and improve moderation tools to make instances always easier to manage. We welcome you to take part in discussions to help ongoing efforts in that direction or suggest new ones!

Yes, core PeerTube (PeerTube without installed plugins/themes) is compatible with GDPR:

• P2P can be disabled by default
• It doesn't send personal data to any third party if P2P is disabled
• Users can delete their account
• Users can export their data and reimport it in another instance (in PeerTube >= 6.1)
• PeerTube provides a privacy guide to help admins to fill their Terms

It probably means that we moderated your PeerTube platform after an abuse report and found out that:

• there is problematic content hosted by the platform (not only one video/account/channel or two, but severals)
• the platform doesn't seem to be properly moderated or lacks federation policy ( = lack of ToS or CoC in the about page)

Framasoft remains the sole judge of this notion of “abuse”.

• Free and open-source software
  • View, share and update PeerTube code
  • Join a community of admins, video makers and viewers
• PeerTube REST API
  • Test PeerTube REST API with the getting started guide
  • Check the REST API documentation
  • Get help on PeerTube forum
• Player embed API
  • Use the PeerTube player embed on your website
  • Control the PeerTube player embed using the embed API
  • Get help on PeerTube forum
• Plugins & Themes
  • Develop plugins and themes using the getting started guide
  • Check the complete plugin/theme documentation
  • Get help on PeerTube forum or ask new plugin/theme API in PeerTube issues

PeerTube uses ActivityPub because this federation protocol is recommended by the W3C and is also used by other projects like the social network Mastodon.

IPFS is a great technology, but it still seems too young for streaming large files. The PeerTube P2P system based on well established protocols like HTTP and WebRTC, and the redundancy system are more easy for us to use and to maintain.

DTube does not seem open source, because publishing only compiled code hinders freedom of modification.

PeerTube does not impose any remuneration model. This is the choice we have made, and others (like DTube) have made other choices. So it's up to you to see what suits you.

因为这是历史原因 :D

We have a policy for contributions related to security. Please refer to our security policy and advisories.