YouTube’s monoculture means one company decides what’s allowed on most of the world’s video. PeerTube federates video hosting across independent instances on ActivityPub, so no single host controls the network.

What you gain

• Federation across instances, with cross-instance search and subscriptions
• Self-host your own channel, choose your moderation policy
• WebTorrent-based delivery cuts bandwidth costs at scale
• Open-source, no ads, no algorithmic pull

What you give up

Discovery is weak; without an algorithm pushing related videos, growth is slow. Instance quality varies wildly; some are well-moderated, others aren’t. Self-hosting video is bandwidth-expensive once you have viewers. Live streaming exists but is rough compared to YouTube Live.

The math

Watching on existing instances is free. Self-hosting starts at $10 to $50/month for a small instance, and bandwidth costs scale with views; a popular video can run hundreds of dollars in transit. YouTube Premium is $144/year.

Who should switch

Educators, indie filmmakers, and organizations that want video infrastructure they control. If your livelihood depends on YouTube AdSense, PeerTube is a mirror, not a replacement.