PeerTube is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

decentralized Decentralization or decentralisation is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group. Conce ...

ActivityPub ActivityPub is an open, decentralized social networking protocol based on Pump.io's ActivityPump protocol. It provides a client/server API for creating, updating, and deleting content, as well as a federated server-to-server API for deliver ...

federated video platform powered by

WebTorrent WebTorrent is a peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming torrent client written in JavaScript, from the same author, Feross Aboukhadijeh, of YouTube Instant, and the team at WebTorrent and on GitHub, for use in web browsers, as well as a WebTorrent Desk ...

, that uses

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

technology to reduce load on individual servers when viewing videos. Started in 2017 by a programmer known as ''Chocobozzz'', development of PeerTube is now supported by the French non-profit

Framasoft Framasoft is a popular education social network created in November 2001 by , Paul Lunetta, and Georges Silva. Since 2014, it is supported by a nonprofit organization of the same name based in Lyon, France. Mainly focused on free software valori ...

. The aim is to provide an alternative to centralized platforms such as

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Vimeo Vimeo, Inc. () is an American video hosting, sharing, and services platform provider headquartered in New York City. Vimeo focuses on the delivery of high-definition video across a range of devices. Vimeo's business model is through software as ...

, and

Dailymotion Dailymotion is a French video-sharing technology platform owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg and Hearst Digital Media. It is among the earliest known platforms to support HD (720p) resolution video. ...

. As an ActivityPub platform, it is part of the federated network known as the

Fediverse The fediverse (a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe") is an ensemble of Federation (information technology), federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing (i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websit ...

Operation

Each PeerTube instance provides a website to browse and watch videos, and is by default independent from others in terms of appearance, features and rules. Several instances, with common rules (e.g. allowing for similar content, requiring registration) can form federations, where they follow one's videos, even though each video is stored only by the instance that published it. Federations are independent from each other and asymmetrical: one instance can follow another to display their videos without them having to do the same. Instances' administrators can each choose to mirror individual videos or whole friend instances, creating an incentive to build communities of shared bandwidth. Videos are made available via

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

to download, but playback favors a peer-to-peer playback using HLS and

. Users connected to the platform act as relay points that send pieces of video to other users, lessening the bandwidth of each to the server and thus allowing smaller hardware to operate at a lower cost.

Origins and history

PeerTube was created by a web developer known as ''Chocobozzz'' as a peer-to-peer alternative to

, utilizing the

protocol to share videos. He was contacted in 2017 by Framasoft, which had a campaign called ''Contributopia'', the goal of which is to create alternatives to centralized platforms. In order to support him and his work, notably on improving the design and usability, Framasoft hired the developer. In 2018, Framasoft launched a crowdfunding on which raised €53,100 — more than double the initial goal of €20,000. The first beta of PeerTube was released in March 2018 and the first stable version in October 2018. In June 2018, only a few months after the first beta, 113 instances are publicly available on the web that together host more than videos. In June 2018, as a result of its videos disappearing amid changes regarding the monetization of

channels, the

Blender Foundation The Blender Foundation is a Dutch nonprofit organization (Stichting) responsible for the development of Blender, an open source 3D content-creation program. The foundation has distributed the animated films '' Elephants Dream'' (2006), ''Big Bu ...

began experimenting with hosting a PeerTube instance to distribute copies of the foundation's videos. In May 2020, Framasoft published a roadmap of the software for the later half of the year and created a fundraising campaign requiring €60,000 for aiding the development. Five months later (on October 2020), PeerTube announced that they reached their fundraising goal of €60,000 after a €10,000 donation from

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...

. Throughout the later half of 2020, PeerTube has added features such as global search, improved playlists, and more moderation tools. End 2020, the

meta-search engine A metasearch engine (or search aggregator) is an online information retrieval tool that uses the data of a web search engine to produce its own results. Metasearch engines take input from a user and immediately query search engines for results. S ...

Sepia Search Sepia Search is a video search engine for PeerTube. It is developed by the French association Framasoft. Overview Sepia Search was launched in September 2020, by the Framasoft association, to serve as a single portal to search for video on hu ...

was launched by Framasoft, allowing a global search on all PeerTube instances at once. To-date (2021) Sepia Search totalises close to 800 individual instances. In January 2021, Framasoft announced the release of PeerTube v3.0 with the help of the successful fundraising campaign. The release highlighted peer-to-peer

live streaming Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...

as the major feature of the release. On April, the 28th of 2022, the ''

European Data Protection Supervisor The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is an independent supervisory authority whose primary objective is to monitor and ensure that European institutions and bodies respect the right to privacy and data protection when they process pers ...

'' (EDPS) launched the official ActivityPub video platform EU Video of the EU institutions, bodies and agencies (EUIs), based on PeerTube.

Technology

PeerTube uses

technology. Each server hosts a

torrent Torrent or torrents may refer to: * A fast flowing stream Animals * Torrent duck, a species of the family Anatidae * Torrent fish * Torrent frog, various unrelated frogs * Torrent robin, a bird species * Torrent salamander, a family of sala ...

tracker and each web browser viewing a video also shares it. This allows to share the load between the server itself and the clients as well as the bandwidth used through

P2P P2P may refer to: * Pay to play, where money is exchanged for services * Peer-to-peer, a distributed application architecture in computing or networking ** List of P2P protocols * Phenylacetone, an organic compound commonly known as P2P * Poin ...

technology. The system works via a federation of instances run by independent entities. Each PeerTube server can host any number of videos by itself, and can additionally federate with other servers to let users watch their videos in the same

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

. This federation permits collectively hosting a large number of videos in a unified platform, without having to build an infrastructure comparable to that of the web giants. Each server is operated by and stays under the sole administration of a distinct entity. PeerTube uses the

protocol in order to allow decentralization and compatibility with other

fediverse The fediverse (a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe") is an ensemble of Federation (information technology), federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing (i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websit ...

services, which can prevent

vendor lock-in In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. The use of open standards and alternative ...

and makes it more resilient against

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

. The software relies on the

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...

DBMS In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

and is integrated in popular video platforms like Reddit and

Kodi KODI (1400 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a news/talk format. Licensed to Cody, Wyoming, United States, the station is currently owned by the Big Horn Radio Network, a division of Legend Communications of Wyoming, LLC, and features programm ...

References

External links

* {{Internet censorship circumvention technologies, state=collapsed Peer-to-peer software Video hosting Web applications Free software websites Fediverse French social networking websites Software using the GNU AGPL license Distributed data storage Articles containing video clips Framasoft

Operation

Origins and history

Technology

See also

References

External links