Nabby

A free, open-source, self-hostable web UI for yt-dlp. Paste a link from TikTok, Facebook, X (Twitter), Reddit, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Twitch, or any of the thousands of other sites yt-dlp supports; pick a format; download the file.

Live at nabby.pro.

What it is

Nabby is a lightweight web interface for yt-dlp. It is designed for journalists, researchers, archivists, educators, and self-hosters who need a simple way to save public media before it disappears. Nabby:

• Supports the full catalog of yt-dlp when self-hosted; the hosted instance (nabby.pro) uses a conservative allowlist.
• Does not support YouTube (by design — see /about and /faq).
• Does not host, index, or redistribute files. Downloads are deleted from the server one hour after they complete.
• Does not require an account.
• Is built with Flask + yt-dlp + ffmpeg, with a subtle Three.js point-cloud background in the UI.

Features

• Paste one URL or many (one per line).
• Format and quality selection up to 1080p, or audio-only (mp3, m4a, opus, wav).
• Live progress via Server-Sent Events.
• Transient storage — 1-hour TTL cleanup thread.
• Minimal, dark, no-JS-framework UI (~80 KB).
• Hostable behind Cloudflare Tunnel (no open ports) or nginx + Let's Encrypt.

Install

Docker Compose (recommended)

services:
  nabby:
    build: .
    container_name: nabby
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    volumes:
      - ./downloads:/app/downloads

git clone https://github.com/NJPTeam/nabby
cd nabby
docker compose up -d
# → http://localhost:5000

Docker (single command)

docker build -t nabby .
docker run -d --name nabby -p 5000:5000 -v $(pwd)/downloads:/app/downloads nabby

From source

git clone https://github.com/NJPTeam/nabby
cd nabby
./run.sh
# → http://localhost:5000

The first run creates a venv and installs Flask + yt-dlp. You'll also need ffmpeg on $PATH.

Production deploy

See the deployment guide on nabby.pro. In short:

• Behind Cloudflare Tunnel (recommended, zero open ports): cloudflared service install <TOKEN> on the host, add a public hostname yoursite.com → http://localhost:5000.
• Behind nginx + Let's Encrypt: proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:5000; with proxy_buffering off; (required for SSE progress) and proxy_read_timeout 3600s;.
• Run under systemd using gunicorn --workers 2 --threads 4 --worker-class gthread.

Configure

Supported sites are allowlisted in app.py via ALLOWED_HOSTS. Extend the set to add sites. Removing the allowlist entirely is possible but not recommended for a public instance; keep in mind that yt-dlp itself supports thousands of sites.

Downloads are stored in ./downloads/<job_id>/ and swept every 5 minutes by a background thread; JOB_TTL_SECONDS (default 3600) controls lifetime.

How it compares

• vs yt-dlp CLI — Nabby is a web form. The CLI is strictly more flexible; Nabby exists for the 90% of downloads where the CLI's power is overkill. See Nabby vs yt-dlp CLI.
• vs MeTube — Nabby is paste-and-grab with no persistent state. MeTube is a queue-based archive. See Nabby vs MeTube.
• vs youtubedl-material — ytdl-material is a full media-library product with accounts and subscriptions. Nabby is a one-shot tool. See Nabby vs youtubedl-material.
• vs cobalt.tools — cobalt is a hosted service with its own extractors. Nabby is self-hostable and runs on yt-dlp. See Nabby vs cobalt.
• vs yt-dlp-webui — yt-dlp-webui is a feature-rich Go dashboard with job management. Nabby is minimal Python/Flask. See Nabby vs yt-dlp-webui.

Status

Nabby is new (October 2026). The hosted instance at nabby.pro is a reference deployment; most users should self-host.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Legal

• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy
• DMCA Policy
• Contact: njpteam.official@gmail.com