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Top 10 Piped Youtube Apps To Watch YouTube without Ads

Hazem Abbas

Feb 25, 2025 — 10 min read

Table of Content

Piped is like the cool, privacy-respecting unofficially community popular cousin of YouTube. It lets you watch all your favorite YouTube videos without Google snooping on what you’re doing or bombarding you with ads. Think of it as a stripped-down version of YouTube—same videos, none of the junk. Piped uses YouTube’s backend (where the videos are stored) but ditches the annoying stuff like targeted ads, creepy recommendations, and those pesky tracking scripts that follow you around the internet.

You can either use one of the community-run versions of Piped or set it up yourself if you’re into self-hosting. It’s all about giving people control over how they watch videos without being at the mercy of Big Tech.

Why is Piped So Popular?

Let’s be real—Piped hits all the right notes for anyone who’s fed up with how bloated and invasive YouTube has become. Here’s why people love it:

Privacy First: Nobody likes being spied on, right? With Piped, there’s no tracking, no data collection, and definitely no creepy “recommended videos” based on things you didn’t even mean to search for.
No Ads, Period: Remember those unskippable 30-second ads that make you want to throw your phone out the window? Yeah, Piped gets rid of all that nonsense.
No Algorithm Messing With Your Brain: Ever noticed how YouTube keeps shoving weird or overly dramatic videos in your face? That doesn’t happen with Piped. The interface is clean and simple, so you only see what you choose to watch, not what some algorithm thinks will keep you hooked.
Lightning-Fast and Lightweight: If you’ve ever waited forever for YouTube to load because of all the extra junk running in the background, you’ll appreciate how fast Piped feels. No heavy scripts slowing things down—it’s smooth sailing from start to finish. It is an ideal option for who try to save their bandwidth!
Open Source = Trustworthy: Since Piped is open source, anyone can check the code to make sure it’s legit. Plus, you can tweak it however you want or even host your own version.
Big Tech Fatigue: People are tired of handing over their data and money to massive corporations. Piped gives us a way to take back control while still enjoying the content we love.

Open-source free Piped clients and players

Here are the best open-source Piped clients and players, that you can download, install and use for free.

1- Piped

Piped is a web-based self-hosted YouTube alternative, but it is without ads, without tracking scripts, and with full playlist support. Moreover, it supports feed, PWA, 4K and requires no connection to Google's Server.

2- Youtube Viewer

This is a terminal-based lightweight application for searching and playing videos from YouTube. It works smoothly on Windows, Linux and macOS. But I recommend it for advanced users only.

But if you are keep to try it as a desktop normal app, well the developers built a custom GUI version that uses GTK, it also runs smoothly on Linux and macOS.

However, If you are looking for a Windows app, I recommend other apps in this list.

3- Pipeline

Pipeline is a free and open-source app that enables you to watch YouTube, LBRY, and PeerTube videos in one place. You can subscribe to channels, play YouTube videos for free with local clients as MPV or any other video player, and import data from NewPipe!

4- NewPipe

NewPipe is my favorite and my to-go piped app on Android. It is like YouTube, but better, especially with one click I can download any video as video or audio file.

5- LibreTube

LibreTube is an open-source alternative frontend for YouTube designed for Android. It’s similar to NewPipe, but unlike NewPipe, LibreTube has a single, unified version that’s always kept up-to-date with the latest features and improvements.

Its features include:

No Ads
User Accounts
Subscriptions
Subscription Groups
User Playlists
Playlist Bookmarks
Watch/Search History
SponsorBlock
DeArrow
ReturnYouTubeDislike
Downloads

6- PipePipe (Android)

PipePipe is a yet another open-source Android app to let you browse YouTube, NicoNico and BiliBili freely.

It is different than other apps as it focuses on comments, playlists and other cool features that include:

SponsorBlock (YouTube & BiliBili)
ReturnYouTubeDislike
Bullet comments / Live Chats
Search filters
Search & sort in local playlists
Filter out unwanted items by keywords/channels/...
Music player mode & Background playing
Sleep timer
Fullscreen gestures
Login to watch restricted / premium contents

7- Sluis (Web Self-hosted)

Sluis is a new optimized frontend for Piped, a privacy-focused Youtube alternative.

8- Yattee (macOS, iOS and tvOS)

Yattee is a free and open-source privacy oriented video player for iOS, tvOS and macOS. Its features include:

Native user interface built with SwiftUI with customization settings
Player queue and history
Player component with custom controls, gestures and support for 4K playback
Fullscreen, Picture in Picture and background audio playback
SponsorBlock, configurable categories to skip

9- Kiku

This is a free Electron application for playing music from youtube on desktop. The application supports using local api, invidious and piped as source.

Features

Select from source you like (Youtube, invidious, piped)
Automatical fallback to another source when one source failed
Available on Windows, Mac and Linux thanks to electron
Translation available

10- ReacTube

ReacTube, is a simple, single page, privacy friendly & distraction free YouTube front-end based on Piped APIs. ReacTube does not contain features like subscriptions, library, registrations etc.

It is designed in order to just search and watch, i.e. to be focused and particular about what user wants to watch rather than wasting time with recommendations or handling subscriptions etc. Its aim is to provides a simple and smooth user experience with features including:

PWA
Trendings
Search Results
Streaming videos
Dark Mode

11- MusicPiped

This is a free and open-source materialistic Music player that streams music.

12- Invidious

Invidious is an open source alternative front-end to YouTube.

Invidious

Invidious is an open source alternative front-end to YouTube.

Invidious

13- ytify

ytify is the fastest (56KB to load) and the lightest (7.5K LOC only) centralised audio streaming web application built with an unprecedented hybrid [HTML + SolidJS] approach for maximum efficiency.

Listen to Podcasts, Audiobooks, Music, Livestreams and other Audio focused YouTube Videos, even under the lowest network conditions.

Features

Queuing Features 🚦
Effortlessly queue up videos or playlists for uninterrupted playback.
Create & Share Playlists 🎷
Build your own custom playlists (Collections) outside of YouTube and share them globally with a simple link.
YouTube Playlist Integration 🎶
View, queue, and import YouTube playlists into your collections—or subscribe to them directly.
Dynamic Theming 🎨
Modern UI adapts to stream thumbnails with a sleek High Contrast Mode for better readability.
Install as an App (PWA) 📱
Use Ytify like a native app on your device and play YouTube links straight from your OS share menu.
Radio Mode 📻
Automatically fetch similar streams and create a playlist perfect for music lovers.
Personal Library 📚
Access your history, favorites, channels, subscriptions, and both custom + YouTube playlists—all in one place.
Download Audio ⬇️
Save any audio stream offline with a single tap using the download button.
Synced Lyrics 🎼
Enjoy immersive, synced lyrics while listening to your favorite tracks.
For You Recommendations 🎻
Get personalized audio suggestions based on your favorites—generated locally with zero privacy concerns.
Parental Controls 👨‍👦
Customize the app by disabling specific features to suit your family’s needs.

14- ViewTube

ViewTube is an alternative YouTube frontend that lets you watch, search and discover YouTube videos without ads or tracking. It's built to be mobile and desktop friendly, with dark and light themes, and a touch-friendly video player with gestures. You can create an account separately from YouTube, read comments, watch playlists, subscribe to channels and receive push notifications for new uploads.