YouTube

The biggest video site, paid for by advertising and subscriptions.

Benchmark review. Giants are reviewed rarely, to show what the tools in the directory are measured against. This one is not listed in the directory, and it is an example, not a recommendation. Scores are our opinion on the six questions, based on public sources and dated October 2026.

www.youtube.com

Image from www.youtube.com, taken 2026-10-29, shown to help you recognise the tool. It belongs to its maker. Ask us to remove it.

YouTube has nearly everything, works on nearly every device and is easy to use, so Delivery is a 5. Advertising pays for it, and its recommendations and autoplay choose much of what plays next, and that is the kind of design our Self-direction question looks at.

Your subscriptions, history and playlists live in a Google account, though Google offers a way to export them, and we have not checked how complete it is, so Lock-in is our estimate. Creators depend on one company's rules and payments, so Power is a 1. As of October 2026 this is our opinion, based on public sources, and if you spot an error, write to hello@toolsforconviviality.org and we will check it and correct it. Compare it with the tools in Video.

Side by side. PeerTube vs YouTube