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Developer Andrej Karpathy says he built HackerTube, a YouTube-style site drawing on 6,454 videos recommended in Hacker News comments from 2007 to 2026. He says an AI coding assistant handled most of the collection, filtering and deployment work; details about the site’s ongoing operation and its recommendation methods have not been independently established.
Developer Andrej Karpathy says he has launched HackerTube, a YouTube-style site built around videos recommended in Hacker News comments, after using an AI coding assistant to collect and filter the links and build and deploy the service. His report says the site includes 6,454 videos mentioned across roughly 40,000 comments between 2007 and 2026, offering an alternative way to browse YouTube without relying on a visitor’s account history.
In a post dated October 31, 2026, Karpathy said HackerTube grew out of frustration with the videos and recommendations he was seeing on YouTube. He described asking the AI assistant Opus 5.5 to help make a video site from links recommended on Hacker News, or HN, a technology-focused discussion forum. The post presents the project as a personal experiment, not a formal partnership with YouTube or Hacker News.
Karpathy said the process collected Hacker News comments, filtered them, used another AI model, Sonnet, in a workflow to remove spam, and identified about 40,000 comments recommending YouTube videos. From those comments, he reported a library of 6,454 videos spanning 150 topics. The post does not provide an independent audit of the collection or describe how it defines a recommendation.
The site uses a YouTube-like interface and, according to Karpathy, includes custom recommendations, keyboard shortcuts and video data that users can export. He said it does not require accounts and keeps browsing state in the local browser session. He also reported that the site uses a version of each video’s thumbnail taken at the 50% point, rather than the uploaded thumbnail. Those product details come from his account; the report does not include independent testing of the service.
A Different Route to Video Discovery
HackerTube is a small experiment in changing the source of video recommendations: instead of selecting videos from a viewer’s watch history, it starts with links shared in Hacker News discussions. That makes the site a curated archive of what commenters recommended over time, rather than a direct replacement for YouTube’s full catalogue or recommendation system.
The project’s relevance also lies in its account of how it was made. Karpathy says an AI coding assistant performed much of the data processing and software work, while he handled a Google Cloud API key, arranged a virtual private server and bought the domain. That is his description of this particular workflow, not evidence that similar projects can reliably be built with the same effort or without technical oversight.
For users, the reported absence of accounts and use of browser-local state offer a different privacy and personalization model from services that depend on logged-in histories. But the source does not explain what information the site itself collects, how long it will remain available, or whether its video set will be updated. Those limits matter when judging how useful or durable the service is.
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From HN Links to a Video Library
Hacker News is a discussion site where users submit links and comment on technology, science and other subjects. Videos can appear in those discussions as recommendations, but they were not originally assembled there into a dedicated YouTube-style catalogue. Karpathy’s project repackages those references into a separate browsing interface.
Karpathy dated the initial idea to a Friday night when he said YouTube’s recommendations were not serving his preferences. He wrote that he gave Opus 5.5 the task the following morning. In a later edit to the same post, he described using Claude Code on a Mac and said he used Opus 5.5 at medium effort as his default. He characterized his role as directing the assistant rather than writing code or running terminal commands himself.
He said the remaining manual tasks were creating a Google Cloud API key to retrieve YouTube video metadata, starting a VPS and purchasing the domain. After the server was running, he said he gave the assistant its IP address and asked it to update, deploy, secure, harden and optimize the code. The post estimates the project took about two hours, but does not detail what work was included in that estimate or whether the time spent waiting for the assistant was counted.
Questions About the Collection and Service
The available account is Karpathy’s own post. It does not include independent confirmation of the 6,454-video count, the roughly 40,000 comments processed, or the 150-topic classification. It also does not explain the filtering criteria in enough detail to assess which recommendations were excluded, how duplicates were handled, or how accurately the automated process identified spam and genuine video recommendations.
The post does not establish whether every listed video remains available, whether the site is still operating after publication, or how often its catalogue will be refreshed. It describes custom “ForYou” recommendations but gives little detail on how they are generated. No information is provided about the project’s operating costs, moderation process, or any response from YouTube or Hacker News.
Whether HackerTube Keeps Growing
Karpathy’s post describes HackerTube as available at hackertube.org and says its data can be exported so users can create their own version. It does not announce a release schedule, planned features or a commitment to keep the service running. The next concrete questions are whether the site remains accessible, whether its video catalogue is maintained, and whether Karpathy shares further details about its data-processing and recommendation methods.
Until those details are available, the project is best understood as a personal, AI-assisted experiment in reorganizing links from Hacker News—not as a verified measure of video quality or a comprehensive record of recommendations on the forum.
Key Questions
What is HackerTube?
HackerTube is a YouTube-style video site that Karpathy says was built from YouTube links recommended in Hacker News comments. He described it as a separate way to browse those videos, not a replacement for YouTube.
How many videos does the site include?
Karpathy reported a collection of 6,454 videos, drawn from roughly 40,000 comments posted between 2007 and 2026 and grouped across 150 topics. Those figures are from his post and have not been independently verified in the provided source material.
How did Karpathy say he built it?
He said he used Claude Code with Opus 5.5 and Sonnet to process comments and build the site. He reported handling a Google Cloud API key, a virtual private server and the domain purchase himself, while the assistant did much of the remaining development and deployment work.
Does HackerTube require a user account?
Karpathy said it does not require accounts and that it stores browsing state in the local browser session. The post does not provide a full account of the site’s data collection or privacy practices.
Will the collection be updated?
The post does not say whether HackerTube will add new links or how often its collection will be refreshed. It does say users can export the site’s data to create their own version.
Source: karpathy.bearblog.dev
