What are the best alternatives to youtube-transcript?
The highest-scoring alternative to youtube-transcript is youtube-api from ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills, at 90/100 (grade A) on the Suede Skill Check; youtube-transcript scores 80/100. The table compares 8 video skills in productivity and knowledge work from other publishers, each with a full SuedeAI.directory page.
youtube-transcript and 8 alternatives
Alternatives share youtube-transcript's category and task, come from other publishers and each have a full directory page. Ranked by Suede Skill Check score.
| Skill | Publisher | Suede Skill Check | License | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| youtube-transcript Compared skill | tubeagentkit tubeagentkit/youtube-transcript-skills | 80/100 · B | MIT | Fetches YouTube video transcripts through the metered getyoutubetranscript.com API, and also searches YouTube, resolves channel handles, lists playlist videos, and checks credit balance. |
| youtube-api | ZeroPointRepo ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills | 90/100 · A | MIT | Retrieves YouTube data without Google API quotas or OAuth setup, including transcripts, video metadata, channel info, search results, and playlists. |
| youtube-channels | ZeroPointRepo ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills | 90/100 · A | MIT | Browses a YouTube channel from a handle or URL, listing recent uploads, searching within the channel, and resolving a handle to a channel ID. |
| youtube-data | ZeroPointRepo ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills | 90/100 · A | MIT | Retrieves structured YouTube data without Google API quotas or OAuth, including transcripts, video metadata, channel upload history, search results, and playlist contents. |
| youtube-full | ZeroPointRepo ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills | 90/100 · A | MIT | Provides YouTube access for transcripts, video and channel search, channel browsing, playlists, and within-channel search, for video summaries, quotes, translations, and topic research. |
| youtube-playlist | ZeroPointRepo ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills | 90/100 · A | MIT | Lists and browses the videos in a YouTube playlist from pasted links or IDs, and works through a playlist for transcripts or research. |
| youtube-search | ZeroPointRepo ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills | 90/100 · A | MIT | Finds YouTube videos and channels on any topic, including creators who cover a subject, tutorials, talks, and channel lookups by name or handle. |
| video-transcript | ZeroPointRepo ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills | 87/100 · B | MIT | Extracts video content as text from pasted YouTube links or IDs, for transcribing, summarizing, quoting, translating, or finding out what a video says. |
| youtube-transcript | michalparkola michalparkola/tapestry-skills-for-claude-code | 74/100 · C | MIT | Downloads YouTube video transcripts, captions, and subtitles when given a YouTube URL or a request to fetch or transcribe a video. |
Questions and answers
What is the highest-scoring alternative to youtube-transcript?
youtube-api from ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills, at 90/100, grade A. It earns full points for structural checks, curated-list citations and instruction depth. Retrieves YouTube data without Google API quotas or OAuth setup, including transcripts, video metadata, channel info, search results, and playlists.
How does youtube-transcript compare with its alternatives?
youtube-transcript scores 80/100, grade B. Of the 8 alternatives, 7 score higher and one scores lower; their scores run from 74 to 90. All of them sit in productivity and knowledge work and match the video keyword map.
Are the alternatives to youtube-transcript free?
All 8 alternatives to youtube-transcript are published in public GitHub repositories and cost nothing to download. Every one uses an open-source or open-content license, led by MIT (8), so you can use and adapt the files at no cost under those terms. 7 skills name credentials for an outside service; each full page lists them under Before you install.
Do the alternatives to youtube-transcript work in Claude Code, Codex and Cursor?
Yes. Each of the 8 alternatives to youtube-transcript is a SKILL.md folder in the Agent Skills format, which Claude Code, Codex and Cursor all read. The skills CLI (npx skills add) installs every one of them into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other agents, and each full skill page adds a project-level copy into .claude/skills for Claude Code and .agents/skills for Codex. 7 of them declare compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.