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ykdl vs yt-dlp: catalog facts
ykdl	yt-dlp
Best for: People who download videos from mainland Chinese services	Best for: Saving a video or its audio track from the command line
Free Free; the repository lists an MIT license.	Free Released into the public domain under the Unlicense; there is nothing to buy.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Focuses on video sites in mainland China Offers installation through several package managers and PyPI	Supports thousands of sites, listed in the project’s own supportedsites page Fine-grained format selection, subtitle, thumbnail and metadata embedding All 4 strengths for yt-dlp Supports thousands of sites, listed in the project’s own supportedsites page Fine-grained format selection, subtitle, thumbnail and metadata embedding Ships as a standalone binary for Windows, macOS and Linux, and as a pip package Frequent releases, so broken extractors are usually fixed quickly
FFmpeg is needed to merge media files mpv is listed as the default media player	Command line only; the graphical tools around it are separate projects Merging separate video and audio streams needs FFmpeg installed All 3 limitations for yt-dlp Command line only; the graphical tools around it are separate projects Merging separate video and audio streams needs FFmpeg installed Site changes break downloads until the next release, and some sites block datacentre addresses
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: MIT	License: Unlicense
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Offline features available
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for ykdl github.com/LifeActor/ykdl Catalog checked October 8, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for yt-dlp github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2026.08.19 Catalog checked September 20, 2026

“Not stated” means we have not confirmed it. Features can vary by device and plan.