Track Alternative Front Ends Updates Daily
Overview of alternative open source front-ends for popular internet platforms (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
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Jul 20, 2023
Overview / Reddit
- Libreddit (⭐4.8k): Alternative front-end for Reddit. Themed around Reddit's new design - Lightweight, no JavaScript, no ads, no tracking
Overview / Imgur
- Omgur (⭐12): Omgur is a free and open-source alternative Imgur front-end focused on privacy. Inspired by the Invidious, Nitter, and Teddit projects.
- No JavaScript or ads
- All requests go through the Omgur backend, client never talks to Imgur
- Prevents Imgur from tracking your IP or JavaScript fingerprint
- Lightweight
- Self-hostable
- imgrs (⭐2): Imgrs is a free and open-source alternative Imgur front-end focused on privacy. It's a Rust rewrite of a previous Imgur proxy project, Omgur.
Overview / Discord
- openasar (⭐1.9k): An open-source alternative of Discord desktop's app.asar
Overview / Google Translate
- SimplyTranslate: Provide fast and private translations to the user without wasting much overhead for extensive styling or JavaScript. Supports Google Translate, DeepL, ICIBA and LibreTranslate.
- Home page and public instances: https://simple-web.org/projects/simplytranslate.html
Mar 14, 2023
Overview / YouTube
- Poketube (⭐74): The privacy-friendly youtube front-end built with the InnerTube API
- Official instance: https://poketube.fun
Overview / Bandcamp
- Tent: A simple alternative front-end for Bandcamp that does not require JavaScript and proxies all requests
Overview / Mastodon
- Tootle: simple GTK-based Linux Mastodon client
- Fedilab: multi-account Android Mastodon client
Overview / Medium
- Libmedium (⭐30): Alternative front-end to Medium.com
- Official website: https://libmedium.batsense.net
Overview / Other services
- Wikiless (⭐87): A free open source alternative Wikipedia front-end focused on privacy
- Official instance: https://wikiless.org/
- Public instances: https://github.com/Metastem/wikiless (⭐87)
Redirection / Other services
- Redirector (⭐1.2k): Web browser extension (Firefox, Vivaldi, Chrome, Opera, Edge) to redirect URLs based on regex or wildcard patterns.
Feb 22, 2023
Overview / YouTube
- TubeArchivist (⭐2.8k): A self hosted YouTube media server
Feb 05, 2023
Overview / Other services
- Pastewin (⭐11): Free alternative Pastebin front-end
Jan 27, 2023
Overview / Spotify
- spotifyd (⭐9k): unix daemon, using librespot.
Overview / Medium
- Scribe: Alternative front-end to Medium.com
- Official website: https://scribe.rip
Overview / IMDb
- libremdb (⭐174): A FOSS alternative front-end to IMDb.
- Official instance: https://libremdb.iket.me/
- Public Instances: https://github.com/zyachel/libremdb#instances (⭐174)
Overview / Quora
- Quetre (⭐342): A libre front-end for Quora
- Official website: https://quetre.iket.me/
- Public instances: https://github.com/zyachel/quetre#instances (⭐342)
Apr 19, 2022
Overview / Spotify
- librespot (⭐3.9k): Requires Spotify Premium Account - librespot is an open source client library for Spotify. It enables applications to use Spotify's service to control and play music via various backends, and to act as a Spotify Connect receiver. It is an alternative to the official and now deprecated closed-source libspotify. Additionally, it will provide extra features which are not available in the official library
Apr 15, 2022
Overview / YouTube
- YouTube.js (⭐2.6k): Full-featured wrapper around the Innertube API, which is what YouTube itself uses
- oleksis/youtube-dl-gui (⭐1.2k): Cross-platform front-end GUI of the popular youtube-dl written in wxPython
Overview / Google Translate
- Crow Translate (⭐1.4k): Simple and lightweight cross-platform translator that allows translation using LibreTranslate, Lingva, Google, Bing, and Yandex, as well as text-to-speech using Google
Overview / Mastodon
- Sengi (⭐473): cross-platform multi-account Mastodon & Pleroma desktop client
- TheDesk (⭐260): cross-platform Mastodon & Misskey desktop client
- Tusky (⭐2.2k): lightweight Android Mastodon client
- Pinafore (⭐1k): Alternative web client for Mastodon, focused on speed and simplicity Unmaintained
- Hyperspace (⭐178): cross-platform Mastodon client for the fediverse written in TypeScript and React In maintenance mode (⭐178)
Overview / Telegram
- Telegram-FOSS (⭐2.2k): Unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram client for Android
Apr 13, 2022
Related projects / Other services
- 12ft.io / 12ft Ladder: 12ft Ladder is a free service for reading news articles. Prepend 12ft.io/ to the URL of any paywalled page, and we'll try our best to remove the paywall and get you access to the article. It is similar to Outline.com which is not available anymore.
- Note: The source code of 12ft Ladder is not available under a free/open-source license.
Apr 09, 2022
Overview / Discord
- gtkcord4 (⭐627): A lightweight Discord client written in Golang which uses GTK3 for the user interface
Apr 03, 2022
Overview / YouTube
- OpenVideoDownloader aka jely2002/youtube-dl-gui (⭐5.8k): A cross-platform GUI for youtube-dl made in Electron and node.js
- LibreTube (⭐5.7k): Android frontend for YouTube, based on Piped
- BlackHole (⭐5.8k): Android music player app for YouTube Music and Spotify made with Flutter
Overview / Spotify
- spotube (⭐3.5k): A lightweight and free Spotify crossplatform-client which handles playback manually, streams music using Youtube & no Spotify premium account is needed
- SpotX (⭐7.7k): Modified Spotify Client for Windows (Windows Only) - Blocking ads and updates for the desktop version of Spotify, disabling podcasts and more
- kotify (⭐34): Requires Spotify Account - Multiplatform desktop client for Spotify focused on library organization for power users. Relies on official Spotify client for playback
Overview / Apple Music
- Cider (⭐6.5k): Cross-platform Apple Music experience based on Electron and Vue.js written from scratch with performance in mind
Overview / Twitch
- streamlink-twitch-gui (⭐2.5k): Multi platform Twitch.tv browser for Streamlink
- Twire (⭐871): Alternative and open source Twitch client for Android
- Xtra (⭐693): Twitch player and browser for Android
- ElectronPlayer (⭐449): Electron Based Web Video Services Player. Supports Netflix, Youtube, Twitch, Floatplane, Hulu and more
Overview / Google Search
- SearXNG (⭐4.9k): SearXNG is a free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from various search services and databases. Users are neither tracked nor profiled (SearXNG is a fork of searx)
- LibreX (⭐632): Privacy respecting free meta search engine (free as in freedom)
- Small and simple meta search engine, fetches and anonymizes results from Google only, has API support, allows redirects to Invidious/ Bibliogram/ Nitter/ Libreddit
Overview / Facebook Messenger
- Caprine (⭐6.7k): Unofficial and privacy-focused Facebook Messenger app with many useful features
Overview / Shazam
- SongRec (⭐977): Open-source Shazam client for Linux, written in Rust
Overview / Other services
- Librarian: Alternative frontend for LBRY / Odysee.com
- Public instances: https://codeberg.org/librarian/librarian#instances
Related projects / Other services
- Youtube Vanced: Youtube replacement app for the Android platform: YouTube Vanced is the stock Android YouTube app, but better. It includes adblocking, true amoled dark mode and a lot more. Use the Vanced Manager to install YouTube Vanced with ease.
- Official website with install instructions: https://vancedapp.com
- Note: The source code of Youtube Vanced is not available under a free/open-source license.
- For an explanation about the origin of Youtube Vanced see here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Vanced/comments/o3xm9m/if_youtube_vanced_isnt_open_source_and_doesnt/h2ec7wf/
- Vanced was forced to shut down by Google due to legal reasons. The project https://github.com/revanced tries to continue its legacy
Mar 12, 2022
Overview / YouTube Music
- th-ch/youtube-music (⭐3.7k): YouTube Music desktop app based on Electron bundled with custom plugins (including built-in ad blocker and downloader)
Overview / Reddit
- Dawn (⭐444): Open-source Reddit app
- Available on F-Droid
- Forked from Dank: https://github.com/saket/Dank (⭐819)
- kddit: uWSGI frontend for Reddit.com written in Python
- Official instance: https://kddit.kalli.st
Overview / Reuters
- Neuters (⭐52): An alternative front-end to Reuters.com. It is intented to be lightweight and fast, and was heavily inspired by Nitter
- Official instance: https://neuters.de
Mar 04, 2022
Overview / Reddit
- junipf/reddit-frontend (⭐26): A reddit front-end written in React
- Official instance: https://jpf-reddit.netlify.app
Mar 01, 2022
Overview / Reddit
- Roffline (⭐67): A self-hosted offline Reddit server. It allows you to browse Reddit posts (including any media in the post) while offline. It is targeted at people that have intermittent internet
Feb 27, 2022
Overview / YouTube Music
- ytmdesktop (⭐2.9k): Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, and Linux) desktop app for YouTube Music. Has a (proprietary?) remote control app for Android
- Beatbump (⭐786): An alternative frontend for YouTube Music created using Svelte/SvelteKit, powered by Cloudflare Workers
- Official instance: https://beatbump.ml/
- AudioTube: Client for YouTube Music. Plasma-mobile project with an interface designed for Linux phones
Redirection / Other services
- libredirect (⭐2.5k): A web extension that redirects popular sites to alternative privacy-friendly frontends and backends. Actively maintained fork of Privacy Redirect that supports Youtube, Youtube Music, Twitter, TikTok, Imgur, Reddit, Searx, Google Translate, Google Maps, Wikipedia, and Medium
Feb 23, 2022
Overview / YouTube
- ytcast (⭐684): Cast YouTube videos to your smart TV from the command line. This program does roughly the same thing as the "Play on TV" button that appears on the player bar when you visit youtube.com with Chrome or when you use the YouTube smartphone app
Overview / Twitter
- Fritter (⭐1.3k): A free, open-source Twitter client for Android
Feb 22, 2022
Overview / YouTube
- yattee (⭐1.5k): Alternative YouTube frontend for iOS, tvOS and macOS built with Invidious and Piped, supports sponsorblock
Overview / Imgur
- Rimgu: Self-hosted alternative frontend/ proxy for Imgur
Feb 03, 2022
Overview / YouTube
- Piped (⭐4.9k): An alternative privacy-friendly YouTube frontend which is efficient by design - Lightweight, no ads, no tracking
- Official instance: https://piped.video
- Public instances: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped/wiki/Instances (⭐4.9k)
- Installation guide for self-hosting: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Documentation/blob/main/content/docs/self-hosting/index.md (⭐23)
Overview / Reddit
- Troddit (⭐484): A web client for Reddit
- Official instance: https://www.troddit.com
Overview / Google Search
- Searx (⭐13k): Searx is a free privacy-respecting internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services. Users are neither tracked nor profiled. Additionally, searx can be used over Tor for online anonymity
- Public instances: https://searx.space
Jan 30, 2022
Overview / Imgur
- Rimgo: Self-hosted frontend for Imgur ritten in Go
- Public instances: https://codeberg.org/video-prize-ranch/rimgo#instances
Overview / Other services
- NoPaste (⭐263): NoPaste is an open-source website similar to Pastebin where you can store any piece of code, and generate links for easy sharing
Jan 28, 2022
Overview / YouTube
- ytdl-gui (⭐246): A simple-to-use, cross-platform graphical interface for youtube-dl
- uYouPlus (⭐5.5k): uYouPlus (uYou+) is an alternative YouTube app for Apple's iOS and iPadOS
- SmartTubeNext (⭐12k): SmartTubeNext is an advanced YouTube app for Android TVs and TV boxes, free and open source. It is not a live TV client and does not support "YouTube TV"
- ytcc (⭐160): Command line tool to keep track of your favorite playlists on YouTube and many other places. Can import youtube subscriptions from Google Takeout and provide them as an RSS feed for your favorite reader
- smtube (⭐36): Stand-alone YouTube video player
- Website: https://www.smtube.org
- SMTube is part of SMPlayer
- SMPlayer website: https://www.smplayer.info
- SMPlayer repository: https://github.com/smplayer-dev/smplayer (⭐422)
- minitube (⭐331): Lightweight youtube client with a kid-friendly interface. Can make playlists from search keywords
Jan 22, 2022
Overview / YouTube
- mps-youtube (⭐7.6k): Terminal based YouTube player and downloader
Jan 17, 2022
Overview / TikTok
- ProxiTok (⭐1.3k): Open source alternative frontend for TikTok made with PHP
- Official instance: https://proxitok.pabloferreiro.es/
Jan 14, 2022
Overview / YouTube
- pipe-viewer (⭐283): A lightweight application (fork of straw-viewer) for searching and playing videos from YouTube.
Jan 11, 2022
Overview / Hacker News
- Hackers (⭐654): a native iOS app for Hacker News
- Available to download on the Apple AppStore: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hackers-for-hacker-news/id603503901
Overview / Other services
- MediathekViewWeb (⭐802): Video content of German public-service television broadcasters (e.g. ARD, ZDF)
- Official instance: mediathekviewweb.de
- PrivateBin (⭐5.2k): Zero knowledge encrypted paste-bin. A minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data. Data is encrypted/decrypted in the browser using 256 bits AES
Dec 24, 2021
Call to Action
- Do you know any other free/open-source projects that are not included in the overview yet? (front ends, alternatives to websites, apps, etc.)
- Just create an issue (⭐4.5k) and let me know. I'm always looking for new free/open-source projects to add.
Overview / YouTube
- CloudTube: Alternative front-end for Invidious
- Official instance: https://tube.cadence.moe
- Installation guide for self-hosting: https://git.sr.ht/~cadence/tube-docs/tree/main/item/docs/cloudtube/Installing%20CloudTube.md
- FreeTube (⭐7.3k): Open source YouTube desktop player for privacy on Windows, Mac and Linux
- Official Instance: https://freetubeapp.io/
- Invuedious (⭐34): An alternative frontend for invidious built with vue.js
- Official instance: https://bocchilorenzo.github.io/invuedious
- TubeSync (⭐1.2k): TubeSync is a PVR (personal video recorder) for YouTube. It syncs YouTube channels and playlists to a locally hosted media server
- ytfzf (⭐3.3k): A POSIX script that helps you find Youtube videos (without API) and opens/downloads them using mpv/youtube-dl
Overview / Reddit
- Xeddit (⭐11): A Xamarin.Forms app for Reddit
- Official instance: xeddit.com
- Example: /r/Privacy on Reddit and Xeddit
Overview / Spotify
- spot (⭐2k): Gtk/Rust native Spotify client for the GNOME desktop. Only works with premium accounts
Overview / Google Translate
- Lingva Translate (⭐1.1k): Alternative front-end for Google Translate, serving as a free and open-source translator with over a hundred languages available
- Official instance: lingva.ml
- Public instances: https://github.com/TheDavidDelta/lingva-translate#instances (⭐1.1k)
- SimplyTranslate Mobile (⭐127): Unofficial Android client of SimplyTranslate.
- Available on F-Droid
- InstaLate: Distraction-free translation for Android, to be used directly from within any app. Supports Beolingus, DeepL, Dict.cc, GNU CIDE, Heinzelnisse, LibreTranslate, Linguee, WikDict and Wiktionary.
- Available on F-Droid
- DeepL Android (⭐306): Unofficial Android client for DeepL
- Available on F-Droid
Overview / Facebook
- SlimSocial (⭐281): Android, alternative front-end for Facebook, built with Java
- Frost (⭐980): An extensive and functional third party app for Facebook (Android app)
Overview / Apple AirPlay
- RPiPlay (⭐4.6k): An open-source AirPlay mirroring server for the Raspberry Pi. Supports iOS 9 and up.
- air-pi-play (⭐1.4k): Turn a Raspberry Pi into an Airplay server using RPiPlay to enable screen mirroring on tvs, monitors and projectors.
Overview / Hacker News
- Hackerweb (⭐1.2k): A simply readable Hacker News web app
- Official instance: https://hackerweb.app
- About Hackerweb: https://hackerwebapp.com
- Hckrnws (⭐67): A custom front-end for a better reading experience of HackerNews
- Official instance: https://www.hckrnws.com
Redirection / Other services
- Farside (⭐425): Farside provides links that automatically redirect to working instances of privacy-oriented alternative frontends, such as Nitter, Libreddit, etc. This allows for users to have more reliable access to the available public instances for a particular service, while also helping to distribute traffic more evenly across all instances and avoid performance bottlenecks and rate-limiting.
- UntrackMe: UntrackMe transforms Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and Medium and Wikipedia links to links of open source, privacy friendly front-ends. Converts Google Maps links to OpenStreetMap links. Removes tracking parameters from any url. Then delegates the action to other apps that are capable of handling them. (Android app)
Related projects / Other services
- Matrix.org's Synapse (⭐11k): End-to-end-encrypted messaging. Matrix reference homeserver. See also matrix.org.
Dec 20, 2021
Overview / YouTube
- Invidious (⭐12k): Invidious is an alternative front-end to YouTube - Lightweight, no ads, no tracking, no JavaScript required
- Home page: https://invidious.io
- Invidious instances: https://docs.invidious.io/instances/
- Invidious instances API: https://api.invidious.io
- Installation guide for self-hosting: https://docs.invidious.io/installation/
Overview / Reddit
- Teddit: Alternative Reddit front-end focused on privacy - Lightweight, no ads, no JavaScript, unofficial API
- Official instance: https://teddit.net
- Public instances: https://github.com/teddit-net/teddit#instances (⭐224)
- Github mirror repository (⭐224)
- Example: /r/Privacy on Reddit and Teddit
- Infinity (⭐3.4k): Reddit client for Android
- Available on F-Droid
- Slide (⭐1.8k): Open source, ad free Reddit browser for Android
- Available on F-Droid
Overview / Spotify
- Spotiqueue (⭐79): Minimalistic queue-oriented macOS-native client for Spotify, with Guile Scheme scriptability
Overview / Google Search
- Whoogle Search (⭐7.6k): A self-hosted, ad-free, privacy-respecting metasearch engine for Google
- Public instances: https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search#public-instances (⭐7.6k)
Overview / Other services
- vaultwarden (⭐26k): Password manager. Unofficial Bitwarden compatible server written in Rust, formerly known as bitwarden_rs
- snapdrop (⭐16k): Similar to Apple's Airdrop but in your browser. A Progressive Web App for local file sharing
- hedgedoc (⭐4k): Collaborative markdown editor. A platform to write and share markdown
- etherpad-lite (⭐14k): Collaborative rich text editor. A modern really-real-time collaborative document editor
- gitea (⭐37k): Lightweight git server. Git with a cup of tea, painless self-hosted git service
Oct 12, 2021
Overview / Imgur
- Imgin: Minimal Imgur front end
- Official instance: https://imgin.voidnet.tech
- Example album on Imgur.com: https://imgur.com/a/GD6p5Fi
- Same album on Imgin: https://imgin.voidnet.tech/a/GD6p5Fi
Sep 04, 2021
Overview / YouTube
- yt-dlp (⭐51k): A youtube-dl fork with additional features and fixes
Overview / Other services
- ArchiveBox (⭐16k): Open source self-hosted web archiving. Takes URLs/browser history/bookmarks/Pocket/Pinboard/etc., saves HTML, JS, PDFs, media, and more
Aug 17, 2021
Overview / Spotify
- psst (⭐7.7k): Fast and multi-platform Spotify client with native GUI
Jul 22, 2021
Overview / YouTube
- youtube-local (⭐350): Browser-based client for watching Youtube anonymously and with greater page performance
- yt-local: Browser-based client for watching Youtube anonymously without forcing javascript (Fork of youtube-local (⭐350))
- SkyTube (⭐2k): An open-source YouTube app for Android
Jun 29, 2021
Overview / Reddit
- Snew (⭐90): Open-source client for Reddit forked from the Reddit source code
Jun 28, 2021
Related projects / Other services
- Pluja's Awesome Privacy (⭐9.3k): A curated list of services and alternatives that respect your privacy because privacy matters.
May 27, 2021
Overview / YouTube
- ytmdl (⭐2.8k): A simple app to get songs from YouTube in mp3 format with artist name, album name etc from sources like iTunes, LastFM, Deezer, Gaana etc.
Apr 27, 2021
Related projects / Other services
- StreetComplete (⭐3.3k): Easy to use OpenStreetMap editor for Android
Apr 04, 2021
Overview / YouTube
- NewPipe (⭐25k): A libre lightweight streaming front-end for Android
Feb 20, 2021
Overview / YouTube
- Youtube-viewer (⭐1.1k): Lightweight YouTube client for Linux
- Invidious-viewer (⭐15): Python application to watch YouTube videos through the Invidious API, in the terminal (requires MPV player and libmpv.so, provided by Linux distro)
- Youtube-dl (⭐122k): Command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and other video sites
- Alltube (⭐2.9k): Web GUI for youtube-dl
- Vividl (⭐425): Modern Windows GUI for youtube-dl
- Tartube (⭐1.5k): A GUI front-end for youtube-dl, partly based on youtube-dl-gui and written in Python 3 / Gtk 3
- Plumber (⭐54): Local and remote video trimmer, can trim parts of video without downloading whole video, utilizes youtube-dl, allows conversion to GIFs
- ViewTube (⭐755): An alternative front-end for YouTube, written in Vue.js, uses Plyr video player; supports SponsorBlock, multiple Invidious instances support, chapters
Overview / Twitter
- Shitter (⭐196): Android, alternative front-end for Twitter, built with Java
- Harpy (⭐2k): Android, alternative front-end for Twitter, built with Flutter/Dart
- Twidere X (⭐970): Android, alternative front-end for Twitter, built mostly with Kotlin, in early stage
- Tweeterr (⭐6): A tool to use Twitter from the command line on the fly
- Tweet-app (⭐65): Desktop Twitter client only for tweeting. Timeline never shows up
- Tweepy (⭐9.8k): Twitter for Python
Overview / Reddit
- RedditClient (⭐15): Alternative front-end for Reddit, built with Angular
- Eddrit (⭐21): Alternative front-end for Reddit, inspired by Nitter, built with Python & Starlette
- Top of Reddit (⭐23): Top Reddit posts every day
Overview / Hacker News
- HNTopLinks (⭐30): Top Links on Hacker News
Redirection / Other services
- Privacy Redirect (⭐1.7k): A simple web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, & Google Maps requests to privacy friendly alternatives
Related projects / Other services
- uBlock Origin (⭐37k): An efficient blocker for Chromium and Firefox. Fast and lean
Jan 30, 2021
Overview / Twitter
- Nitter (⭐7.9k): Alternative Twitter front-end - Lightweight, no ads, no tracking, no JavaScript required
- Official instance: nitter.net
- Public instances: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances (⭐7.9k)
- Example: Troy Hunt on Twitter and Nitter
Overview / Reddit
- Updoot (⭐63): Android, alternative front-end for Reddit
Overview / Hacker News
- HN-search (⭐476): Algolia Hacker News search