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HackerTube is a YouTube-style site assembled from videos recommended in Hacker News comments between 2007 and 2026. Its creator says the project filtered roughly 40,000 comments down to recommendations for 6,454 videos across 150 topics; the selection and filtering have not been independently described or verified.
Developer Andrej Karpathy has published HackerTube, a YouTube-style site populated with videos recommended in Hacker News comments, presenting it as an alternative way to browse videos without relying on YouTube’s usual recommendations. In a post dated October 31, 2026, Karpathy said the project was assembled from recommendations found in comments posted between 2007 and 2026.
Karpathy said a workflow downloaded Hacker News comments, filtered them, and used Sonnet to help remove spam and lower-quality material. The process narrowed the collection to about 40,000 comments recommending YouTube videos, which the site uses to list 6,454 videos across 150 topics. These figures and the description of the filtering process come from Karpathy’s account; the post does not provide an independent audit of the dataset.
The creator describes HackerTube as a familiar YouTube-style interface with topic browsing and custom “For You” recommendations. He said its recommendations do not require user accounts, and that browsing state is kept in the local browser session. Other listed features include keyboard shortcuts, use of a video’s 50% thumbnail rather than its uploaded thumbnail, and an option to export the site’s data for use in creating another version.
Karpathy wrote that the site was built with help from Opus 5.5, then deployed to a virtual private server. He said the work, including setting up the site and describing it as secured, hardened and optimized, took about two hours. The post does not give technical documentation or details that would allow those deployment claims to be independently assessed.
A Different Route to Video Discovery
HackerTube turns recommendations made in a public online discussion community into a separate discovery catalogue. That makes it a small-scale example of how an existing archive of links and comments can be repackaged into a purpose-built browsing experience, rather than asking users to start with a platform’s personalized feed.
The project also offers a distinct recommendation model: its source pool is videos that people linked in Hacker News discussions, rather than a viewer’s account history. That may appeal to people who want to explore community-curated links or avoid maintaining a separate recommendation profile. It does not establish that the videos are objectively higher quality, or that the site will suit viewers outside the community whose activity supplies the recommendations.
For developers, the project’s stated export feature could make the underlying collection useful beyond the original site. But the post does not specify the export format, whether all data is available, or what permissions and limits apply to the underlying video links.
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From HN Comments to a Video Catalogue
Hacker News is a discussion site where users submit links and comment on them. Videos can appear in those conversations alongside articles, software projects and other material. Karpathy’s project takes that scattered activity and presents selected YouTube recommendations as a searchable or browsable catalogue, grouped across 150 topics, according to his post.
The announcement was framed as a personal response to dissatisfaction with the videos appearing in Karpathy’s own YouTube recommendations. He described the feed as dominated by exaggerated thumbnails and repetitive topics. That is his assessment, not a measured finding about YouTube’s recommendation system or the experience of viewers generally.
Karpathy said the project started on a Friday night and was built the following morning, and credited Opus 5.5 with carrying out much of the work. The account is a developer’s description of a specific build, not a controlled comparison of AI-assisted development time or a formal evaluation of the site.
Dataset and Site Details Still Unverified
The post does not link to a methodology report explaining how comments were selected, how duplicate recommendations were treated, or what criteria distinguished spam and lower-grade content. It also does not say how many unique Hacker News users contributed the recommendations, how often the collection will be updated, or whether the 6,454-video count changes as links become unavailable.
It remains unclear how HackerTube’s “For You” recommendations are generated, whether users can adjust them, and exactly what information is stored in a browser session. Karpathy says no account is needed and session state remains local, but offers no technical description or independent privacy review in the supplied post. The announcement also makes no claim that the site is affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube or Hacker News.
Access, Updates and Reproducibility
Karpathy’s post directs readers to hackertube.org and says the site’s data can be exported for people who want to build their own version. The next useful indicators will be whether the catalogue remains accessible, whether its collection is refreshed, and whether the creator publishes more detail about its filtering, recommendation logic and export data.
No release schedule, maintenance plan or independent review is provided in the announcement. Until those details are available, HackerTube is best understood as a project built from Karpathy’s described Hacker News comment dataset, rather than a verified ranking of the best videos or a demonstrated replacement for YouTube’s recommendation system.
Key Questions
What is HackerTube?
HackerTube is a YouTube-style video-browsing site that Karpathy says was built from YouTube videos recommended in Hacker News comments.
How many videos does it include?
Karpathy reports 6,454 videos across 150 topics, drawn from recommendations posted between 2007 and 2026. Those figures are from the creator’s announcement and have not been independently audited in the supplied material.
Does HackerTube require an account?
Karpathy says the site does not require user accounts and keeps browsing state in the local browser session. The post does not provide a technical privacy review or further details about stored data.
How were the videos selected?
According to Karpathy, the process downloaded Hacker News comments, filtered them, and used Sonnet in a workflow to remove spam and lower-quality material. The post does not publish the detailed selection criteria or a full methodology.
Is HackerTube affiliated with YouTube or Hacker News?
The supplied announcement does not describe HackerTube as affiliated with or endorsed by either service. It presents the site as an independent project built using video recommendations found in Hacker News comments.
Source: karpathy.bearblog.dev
