PeerTube Scraper - Federated Video Search & Data

Scrape PeerTube videos across the fediverse in bulk. Extract title, description, duration, views, likes, channel, instance host, category, language and thumbnail to CSV/JSON. No API key, no login.

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What does the PeerTube Scraper do?

This Actor turns any PeerTube search into a structured dataset. You give it by federated search or by single instance, it walks the result pages one after another, and it writes one clean row per video into your dataset — ready to export as JSON, CSV or Excel, or to pull straight from the Apify API.

PeerTube instances share one documented, keyless REST API, and SepiaSearch federates search across thousands of them. The Actor queries that API directly, so a single run reaches the whole network instead of one server. Pagination is followed automatically until it runs out of results, hits your page limit or hits your Max items cap, whichever comes first. Every row is de-duplicated across the whole run, so you are never billed twice for the same video.

There is no API key, no login and no browser involved. That keeps runs fast and cheap, and it means you can schedule the Actor without worrying about credentials expiring.

Who is it for?

• Media researchers studying video distribution outside the big platforms.
• Content teams monitoring how a topic is covered across independent video hosts.
• Archivists cataloguing open video collections with their licences.
• AI teams collecting openly licensed video metadata.
• Developers building discovery tools on top of the fediverse.

Use cases

• Search the whole PeerTube network for a topic and export every match.
• Catalogue an instance's entire library with durations and view counts.
• Track which channels publish most in a subject area.
• Filter by licence to find openly reusable video.
• Build a federated video dataset for analysis or discovery.

Why use this PeerTube Scraper?

• 🔑 Keyless — no account, no API token, no cookies to paste.
• 📦 23 fields per video — everything the result page exposes, already typed.
• 📄 Real pagination — it walks page after page instead of returning the first screen.
• 🎯 Precise caps — Max items stops the run exactly where you want it, so the bill is predictable.
• 📊 Export anywhere — JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, plus the Apify API and integrations.
• 💸 Pay per result — you pay for rows you actually receive, with no platform fees to calculate.

What data can you extract?

Every run produces one row per video, with these fields:

Field	Type	Description
videoId	string	Video UUID, unique across the network
title	string	Video title
videoUrl	string	Full watch URL on its home instance
description	string	Video description when published
durationSec	number	Duration in seconds
views	number	View count
likes	number	Like count
dislikes	number	Dislike count
commentsCount	number	Number of comments on the video
isLive	boolean	Whether the video is a live stream
nsfw	boolean	Whether the video is flagged not safe for work
category	string	Category label
licence	string	Licence label, e.g. Creative Commons
language	string	Language label
channelName	string	Publishing channel name
channelUrl	string	Channel URL
accountName	string	Owning account name
instanceHost	string	Instance the video is hosted on
thumbnailUrl	string	Thumbnail image URL
publishedAt	string	ISO timestamp the video was published
query	string	Search term or instance this row came from
page	number	Result page the video appeared on
scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp of extraction

Output example

{
  "accountName": "Mausmaki",
  "category": "Education",
  "channelName": "#ALLABOUTFILMS",
  "channelUrl": "https://tube.xy-space.de/video-channels/all.about.films",
  "commentsCount": 0,
  "description": "Fork Films presents a Feature Documentary\r\n\r\nDECADENCE : Decline of the Western World\r\n\r\nwatch the full film here : https://vimeo.com/ondemand/deca\u2026",
  "dislikes": 0,
  "durationSec": 133,
  "instanceHost": "tube.xy-space.de",
  "isLive": false,
  "language": "English",
  "licence": "Unknown",
  "likes": 0,
  "nsfw": false,
  "page": 1,
  "publishedAt": "2023-03-05T14:47:25.814Z",
  "query": "documentary",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-12T10:21:17.707Z",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://tube.xy-space.de/lazy-static/thumbnails/d343a828-c535-458c-99fa-e53b1d9e1052.jpg",
  "title": "Decadence : Decline of the Western World - Documentary Trailer",
  "videoId": "6db63517-c4ad-4fe9-88b4-92b045e2d77c",
  "videoUrl": "https://tube.xy-space.de/videos/watch/6db63517-c4ad-4fe9-88b4-92b045e2d77c",
  "views": 33
}

How to use

Option A — by federated search

{
  "instance": "sepiasearch.org",
  "maxItems": 600,
  "maxPagesPerSearch": 6,
  "searchTerms": [
    "documentary",
    "tutorial"
  ]
}

1. Open the Actor and fill in the federated search field.
2. Set Max pages per search and Max items to bound the run.
3. Click Start, then export from the Output tab.

Option B — by single instance

{
  "instance": "framatube.org",
  "maxItems": 500,
  "maxPagesPerSearch": 10,
  "searchTerms": []
}

Paste one or more PeerTube URLs into Start URLs and the Actor paginates each of them independently.

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
instance	string	sepiasearch.org	sepiasearch.
searchTerms	array	–	What to search for.
maxPagesPerSearch	integer	5	How many result pages to walk for each search.
maxItems	integer	300	Stop after this many videos.
maxConcurrency	integer	2	Parallel requests.
proxyConfiguration	object	{"useApifyProxy": true}	Proxy used to fetch pages.

Tips for best results

• Leave Instance on SepiaSearch to search the whole network; set a host to crawl one instance's library.
• A search term is required for federated search but optional when reading a single instance.
• PeerTube returns up to 100 results per request, so large exports need few requests.
• licence is unusually useful here — much PeerTube content is Creative Commons and reusable.
• instanceHost tells you which server holds the file, which matters for download planning.
• Sort by views after export to separate reach from volume.
• Schedule a run on the same query to watch a topic spread across the network.
• isLive marks streams, which usually have no meaningful duration.
• Keep Max concurrency low — most instances are small and volunteer-run.
• Pair with the Odysee and Dailymotion scrapers for coverage of independent video platforms.

Integrations

Send results straight into the tools you already use: Google Sheets, Slack, Zapier, Make, Airtable or any Webhook. You can also schedule the Actor to run hourly, daily or weekly and have each run append to the same dataset, which is how you build a price or availability history rather than a one-off snapshot.

API usage

Run the Actor and collect results from any language. Replace <YOUR_TOKEN> with your Apify API token.

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/logiover~peertube-video-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"instance": "sepiasearch.org", "maxItems": 600, "maxPagesPerSearch": 6, "searchTerms": ["documentary", "tutorial"]}'

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '<YOUR_TOKEN>' });
const run = await client.actor('logiover/peertube-video-scraper').call({"instance": "sepiasearch.org", "maxItems": 600, "maxPagesPerSearch": 6, "searchTerms": ["documentary", "tutorial"]});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('<YOUR_TOKEN>')
run = client.actor('logiover/peertube-video-scraper').call(run_input={"instance": "sepiasearch.org", "maxItems": 600, "maxPagesPerSearch": 6, "searchTerms": ["documentary", "tutorial"]})
for item in client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Use with AI agents (MCP)

This Actor is available through the Apify MCP server, so an AI agent can call it as a tool. Point your agent at https://mcp.apify.com and it can run the PeerTube Scraper on demand — for example: "Pull the first 500 videos from PeerTube and summarise the price distribution." The agent receives the same structured rows you would get from the UI.

FAQ

Do I need a PeerTube account or API key?

No. The Actor reads publicly available pages only. There is nothing to authenticate and no credentials to rotate.

How many videos can I get in one run?

As many as the search exposes. Raise Max pages per search and Max items together; the run stops at whichever limit it reaches first.

Why did I get fewer rows than I asked for?

The search ran out of videos. That is normal for narrow queries — broaden the search or add more searches to one run.

Are results de-duplicated?

Yes. Each video is emitted once per run, even when it appears on several pages, so you are never billed twice for the same record.

Why are some fields empty?

PeerTube does not publish every attribute for every video. Empty means the source did not show it, not that extraction failed.

What export formats are supported?

JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML and RSS from the Output tab, plus the Apify API and any integration you connect.

How fast is it?

It is pure HTTP with no browser, so a page of results typically takes a second or two. Raise Max concurrency carefully — the source rate-limits aggressive crawling.

Can I schedule it?

Yes. Use the Apify scheduler to run it on any interval and append each run to the same dataset for time-series analysis.

Does it work behind a proxy?

It uses Apify Proxy automatically. You can switch groups or supply your own proxies in Proxy configuration.

How often does the data change?

PeerTube updates continuously. Re-run whenever you need current data; the Actor always reads the live pages, never a cache.

Is the output schema stable?

Yes. Field names and types are fixed, so downstream pipelines will not break between runs.

What if the site changes its layout?

Open an issue on the Issues tab and it gets fixed. The Actor is actively maintained.

Is it legal?

This Actor reads only publicly available pages on PeerTube — the same content any visitor sees without logging in. It does not bypass authentication, does not collect private data and does not attempt to defeat access controls. You are responsible for how you use the output: respect the source's terms of service, applicable copyright, and data-protection law such as GDPR where personal data is involved. Scraping public data is generally lawful in the EU and the US, but the responsibility for the downstream use of that data sits with you.

Related scrapers

• Odysee Scraper — Independent video platform
• Dailymotion Scraper — Video metadata at scale
• YouTube Search Scraper — YouTube results and metadata
• Bilibili Scraper — Chinese video platform