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 site built from YouTube videos recommended in Hacker News comments between 2007 and 2026. Its creator says the project collected 40,000 recommendations and organized 6,454 videos across 150 topics, then used AI coding tools to build and deploy the site. The collection and its curation methods have not been independently verified.
Developer Andrej Karpathy has published HackerTube, a YouTube-style site built around videos recommended in Hacker News comments. Karpathy says the project gathered 6,454 videos from recommendations posted between 2007 and 2026, giving users an alternative way to browse a collection shaped by the forum’s commenters rather than YouTube’s standard recommendation feed.
In a post dated October 31, 2026, Karpathy said he started the project after finding YouTube’s recommendations unhelpful for his own viewing. He described the site as a personal alternative, not as a replacement for YouTube or a formally reviewed collection. The reported dataset includes videos across 150 topics.
Karpathy said the collection was assembled by downloading Hacker News comments, filtering them, and using a Claude Code workflow with a Sonnet model to remove spam and identify comments recommending YouTube videos. He put the resulting pool at about 40,000 comments, from which the site’s 6,454-video catalogue was drawn. These figures and the process are described by the creator; the post does not provide an independent audit of the dataset.
The site presents the videos in a familiar YouTube-like interface. Karpathy says it offers topic browsing, custom recommendations without user accounts, keyboard shortcuts, and an option to export site data for use in building another version. He also describes using a reduced-size thumbnail treatment. The underlying videos remain YouTube videos; the report does not say that HackerTube hosts copies of them.
A Different Route to Video Discovery
HackerTube tests a narrower approach to recommendation: use links that people chose to share in a public discussion forum, then make that collection easier to explore. For viewers frustrated with feeds tailored to watch history or platform-level engagement, the site offers a distinct starting point. Its recommendations are grounded in past community links, rather than a user-specific history, according to Karpathy.
The project also illustrates how AI coding tools can help one person assemble a small web product from data collection through deployment. Karpathy says he relied on Claude Code and Opus 5.5 for the work, while handling a Google Cloud API key, a virtual private server and domain purchase himself. That account describes his experience; it does not establish how quickly other developers could reproduce the work or independently confirm the security and quality of the deployed site.
The collection’s character will depend on who posts in Hacker News, what those users recommend, and which links survived filtering. A forum-derived catalogue is not necessarily representative of YouTube as a whole or of viewers generally. Its value is more specific: it makes one community’s historical recommendations available through a dedicated browsing interface.
Products Worth Considering
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless Noise-Cancelling Headphones with Spatial Audio, Black
Apple Watch Series 12 GPS 46mm
Logitech MX Mechanical Wireless Illuminated Keyboard, Tactile Quiet, Graphite
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
From Forum Comments to Catalogue
Hacker News is a discussion site where users submit links and comment on them. Video recommendations can appear within those comments rather than in a central catalogue, which makes them difficult to browse as a unified collection. HackerTube’s stated aim is to extract those references and display them in one place.
Karpathy’s account gives a brief timeline: he began the idea on a Friday night after becoming dissatisfied with his YouTube feed, then worked on the site the following Saturday. He says the project took about two hours, with the AI coding assistant handling most implementation and deployment tasks while he completed the setup work. The post does not detail the exact search period, selection rules beyond filtering and spam removal, or the software architecture.
How the Collection Was Filtered
The available account does not provide a public methodology detailed enough to reproduce the filtering or verify the 40,000-comment and 6,454-video totals. It is unclear how duplicate links, deleted or unavailable videos, repeated recommendations, and comments with ambiguous references were handled. The creator says spam was removed but does not describe the criteria.
It is also unclear how the site’s custom recommendations are generated, how often the catalogue will be updated, or whether the project has any formal review process for content quality. Karpathy describes the videos as quality content, but that is his characterization rather than an independently assessed standard. The source account does not report user numbers, operating costs, or any measured comparison with YouTube’s recommendations.
Site Access and Future Updates
HackerTube is presented as available at hackertube.org, and Karpathy says users can export the site’s data to create their own version. The post does not announce a schedule for new data collection, a maintenance plan, or further product milestones. Any changes to the collection or recommendation features remain to be confirmed by the creator.
Readers can assess the project directly by browsing the site and its available data export. Until its selection process and catalogue are documented in more detail, the published totals and descriptions should be treated as creator-reported figures.
Key Questions
What is HackerTube?
It is a YouTube-style browsing site built around videos that Karpathy says were recommended in Hacker News comments. The videos themselves are YouTube links, according to the project description.
How many videos are in the collection?
Karpathy reports 6,454 videos across 150 topics, identified from roughly 40,000 comments. Those figures come from his account and have not been independently verified in the supplied report.
Does HackerTube require an account?
Karpathy says the site’s custom recommendations work without user accounts and that browsing state is kept in the local browser session. The source does not provide further technical details about data handling.
How was the site built?
Karpathy says he used Claude Code and Opus 5.5 for implementation and deployment, with a Sonnet workflow used to filter comments. He says he personally created a Google Cloud API key, set up a server and bought the domain.
Will the collection be updated?
The announcement does not specify an update schedule or confirm that new Hacker News recommendations will be added. That remains unclear.
Source: karpathy.bearblog.dev
