Tube is a free, open-source, self-hosted video sharing app written in Go with automatic transcoding, RSS feeds, and no ads or tracking.
Tube is an open-source, self-hosted video sharing application written entirely in Go. Created by developer James Mills (prologic) and built on an earlier project by Davy Wybiral, Tube gives individuals and small communities the ability to run their own YouTube-style video platform on infrastructure they fully control. Unlike commercial video platforms, Tube has no ads, no tracking, no recommendation algorithm, and no content moderation imposed by a third party, which the project describes as a censorship-free approach to video hosting.
The application is intentionally minimal. Instead of requiring a full database server, Tube stores each video's metadata in a simple YAML file next to the media itself, which keeps the stack lightweight and easy to back up or migrate. Administrators can organize uploads into multiple separate collections or libraries, each with its own RSS feed, making Tube useful for anything from a single creator's personal archive to a small organization's internal video library.
Because it is maintained by an individual open-source developer rather than a company, Tube has no roadmap promises, no customer support team, and no commercial pricing. Users interact directly with the source code, the project's issue tracker, and the Docker images that the maintainer publishes, which is typical of small self-hosted infrastructure tools built primarily for developers and homelab users.
Tube's core feature is automatic video transcoding: uploaded footage is converted to standardized MP4 output using FFmpeg, ensuring consistent playback across browsers and devices regardless of the original upload format. The application also auto-generates thumbnails for each video, removing the need for manual thumbnail creation.
The platform supports multiple independent video collections, so a single Tube instance can host several distinct libraries side by side, each exposed through its own RSS feed for subscription in standard feed readers. An optional upload password can be configured to restrict who is able to publish new content to an instance, which is useful for single-admin or invite-only deployments.
Tube ships as both standalone cross-platform binaries and an official Docker image (prologic/tube), making it straightforward to deploy on a home server, VPS, or container orchestration platform such as Docker Swarm or Kubernetes. Its JavaScript-light front end keeps page weight and resource consumption low, which suits low-powered self-hosting hardware.
Tube is released under the permissive MIT license and is completely free to download, self-host, and modify. There are no subscription tiers, per-user fees, storage caps, or paid upgrade path, because the project is not operated as a commercial product. All costs associated with running Tube come from the infrastructure a user chooses to host it on, such as a VPS or home server, plus whatever storage and bandwidth that infrastructure requires.
Tube is a free, open-source, self-hosted video sharing application written in Go that lets users run their own YouTube-style video platform on their own infrastructure.
Tube is developed by James Mills, an open-source software engineer known online as prologic, building on an earlier project originally created by developer Davy Wybiral.
Yes. Tube is released under the MIT license and is free to download, self-host, and modify with no subscription fees.
Tube can be deployed using prebuilt cross-platform binaries or the official Docker image (prologic/tube), and can run on a home server, VPS, or container platform.
No. Tube stores video metadata in YAML files alongside the media rather than relying on a traditional database server.
Yes. Tube supports multiple separate collections, each with its own RSS feed.
Tube is not a hosted YouTube alternative but a self-hosted tool; it is best compared to other self-hosted video platforms like PeerTube rather than commercial hosted services.
No. As a small open-source project, support is handled through the project's repository and community rather than a formal commercial support plan.