this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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I'm building OpenWatch, an open-source self-hosted video platform as an alternative to YouTube. It's designed for content creators who want to back up their content on their own infrastructure (in case of strikes) or for anyone who wants a personal video hosting solution.

The project is in early stages, but I've built out some core features:

  • Home feed
  • Video player with adaptive streaming
  • Playlists
  • Interactions (likes, comments, subscriptions)
  • Creator Studio (dashboard, content management, channel customization)

Tech stack: 

  • Next.js 16
  • Tailwind CSS v4
  • Drizzle ORM (PostgreSQL)
  • FFmpeg
  • HLS.js
  • Zustand
  • Docker

GitHub: https://github.com/openwatch-app/openwatch

Feedback would be helpful, especially around self-hosting considerations and features you'd find useful.

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[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Doesn't matter there we'll never be a replacement for YouTube the cost is to great. Think of the storage they barely remove videos they just stay up there.

[–] boogiebored@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Decentralized video streaming? Like torrenting but encrypted traffic from disparate nodes like Storj? Not that tech, but something in that vein.

Also how Tor works but that would be slow af.

🤔💭

[–] Liketearsinrain@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

That's how peertube works for streaming (not storage), with P2P

[–] ge0rg3e@thelemmy.club -3 points 1 day ago

Doesn’t matter there we’ll never be a replacement for YouTube the cost is to great. Think of the storage they barely remove videos they just stay up there.

I never said it's a YouTube replacement :)

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yea someone argued that "it's not impossible to replace YouTube, [x] also stores massive amounts of videos" where I don't remember what x was, but I'm fairly sure their massive amounts of videos is less than what gets uploaded to YouTube in a day, maybe an hour.