TL;DR
Get the latest gadgets delivered free with Prime
- Fast, free delivery on millions of items
- Prime Video, Amazon Music and more included
- Member-only deals all year
HackerTube is a new YouTube-style site built from videos recommended in Hacker News comments. Its creator says the project collected 6,454 videos from 40,000 filtered comments, spanning 2007–2026 and 150 topics. The selection and technical details come from the creator’s account; independent verification and the site’s longer-term operation are not established by the source.
HackerTube, a YouTube-style site populated with videos recommended in Hacker News comments, was published by developer Andrej Karpathy on October 31, 2026. Karpathy says the collection includes 6,454 videos found across 40,000 selected comments dating from 2007 to 2026, offering an alternative way to browse videos without relying on a user-specific YouTube account.
In a post on his personal blog, Karpathy described building the site after deciding that YouTube’s recommendations and thumbnails were not serving his viewing preferences. He said he tasked the AI coding model Opus 5.5 with creating a YouTube clone based on videos recommended on Hacker News, and identified the resulting site as hackertube.org.
According to Karpathy, the process gathered Hacker News comments, filtered them, and used Sonnet in a workflow to remove spam and what he called low-grade material. The final dataset, he said, contains about 40,000 comments that recommend a YouTube video, yielding 6,454 distinct videos across 150 topics. The post does not provide a separate audit of the filtering or video counts.
Karpathy says HackerTube presents the collection in a familiar video-site interface and uses what he describes as a 50% thumbnail rather than the uploaded thumbnail. He also lists custom “For You” recommendations, keyboard shortcuts, and an option to export the site’s data so users can create their own version. He says it does not require user accounts and keeps state in the browser’s local session.
A Feed Built from Community Links
HackerTube tests a different source for video discovery: links that people chose to share in Hacker News discussions, rather than a recommendation profile built around an individual’s viewing history. That makes the project relevant to viewers seeking a curated starting point assembled from community activity, and to developers exploring how existing public discussions can be turned into searchable collections.
The site is also a small example of how AI tools can accelerate a personal software project. Karpathy credits Opus 5.5 and Sonnet with helping to build and filter the collection, and says the work took about two hours. That timing is his account of this project, not an independently measured benchmark or a guarantee that other developers could reproduce the result in the same time.
HackerTube does not establish that its recommendations are broadly better than YouTube’s, or that the selected videos are objectively higher quality. Its value depends on whether users find Hacker News recommendations useful, how the filtering performs, and whether the site remains available and current.
Products Worth Considering
Logitech MX Mechanical Wireless Illuminated Performance Keyboard – Clicky
Logitech MX Keys S Wireless Keyboard, Graphite
Bose QuietComfort Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones, Sandstone
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
From HN Comments to Video Catalog
The project draws on Hacker News, a technology-focused community where users submit links and discuss them in comment threads. Video links shared there can sit alongside conversations about technology, science, culture, and other subjects. Karpathy says the HackerTube collection covers 150 topics and spans nearly two decades, from 2007 through 2026.
Rather than presenting the comments as a discussion archive, the site reportedly extracts video recommendations and places them in a YouTube-like interface. The result is a catalog shaped by what commenters chose to recommend, not a record of YouTube’s own ranking decisions. Karpathy’s post describes the project as a personal alternative to the recommendations he encountered on YouTube; it does not report a partnership with YouTube or Hacker News.
The creator also says users can export the site’s data to help an AI agent produce a personalized version. The post does not specify the export format, licensing terms, or whether every video remains available on YouTube. Those details matter for anyone seeking to reuse or maintain the collection.
How the Collection Was Checked
The figures and descriptions available here come from Karpathy’s account; the source material does not include an independent review of the dataset, filtering process, recommendation logic, or site features. It is not clear how the 40,000 comments were selected, how duplicate links were handled, or what criteria the workflow used to classify spam and low-grade material.
The post also does not explain how HackerTube’s “For You” recommendations are generated, how often the collection is updated, or whether browsing behavior is recorded beyond the stated local-session storage. The accuracy of the claim that no account is needed, and the site’s current availability, are not independently confirmed by the supplied material.
It is also unclear whether the project has permission or licensing arrangements for its interface, dataset, or use of linked videos. The source describes a catalog of YouTube links; it does not say that HackerTube hosts or copies the videos themselves.
Availability and Future Updates
Karpathy’s post presents hackertube.org as a published site, but it does not announce a release schedule, maintenance plan, or next technical milestone. Readers interested in trying it can check the site directly, while keeping in mind that features and availability may change after publication.
Further reporting could establish whether the site is still operating, how its recommendations and export work in practice, and whether the dataset will be updated as new videos appear in Hacker News discussions. Until then, the project’s scope, build time, and claimed features remain based on the creator’s description.
Key Questions
What is HackerTube?
HackerTube is a YouTube-style browsing site that Karpathy says is populated with videos recommended in Hacker News comments.
How many videos does it include?
Karpathy reports 6,454 videos, selected from about 40,000 comments across 150 topics and covering 2007–2026. Those figures have not been independently verified in the supplied source.
Does HackerTube host the videos?
The source describes a catalog of YouTube videos and recommendations, but does not say that HackerTube hosts copies of the videos. The site’s precise technical setup is not detailed.
Does it require an account?
Karpathy says the site works without user accounts and stores state in the local browser session. That feature is described in his post and has not been independently checked here.
How was the site built?
Karpathy says he used Opus 5.5 and a workflow involving Sonnet to gather and filter Hacker News comments, then create the site. He estimates the work took about two hours.
Source: karpathy.bearblog.dev
