Installation

After installation take a look at the Post-install steps.

Note: Any PaaS or SaaS provider/software (Heroku, YunoHost, Repli...) are unsupported. Use them at your own risk. They WILL cause problems with Invidious and might even suspend your account for "abuse" since Invidious is heavy, bandwidth intensive and technically a proxy (and most providers don't like them). If you use one and want to report an issue, please mention which one you use.

Hardware requirements

Running Invidious and Invidious companion requires at least 20GB disk space, 2GB of free RAM, as long as it is restarted regularly, as recommended in the post-install configuration. Public instances should ideally have at least 60G disk space, 4GB of RAM, 2vCPU, a 200 mbps link and 20TB of traffic (no data cap/unlimited traffic is preferred).

Compiling Invidious requires at least 2.5GB of free RAM (We recommend to have at least 4GB installed). If you have less (e.g on a cheap VPS) you can setup a SWAP file or partition, so the combined amount is >= 4GB.

MIGRATION NEEDED (NEW): Invidious companion

Invidious companion replace both inv-sig-helper and youtube-trusted-session-generator. You don't need to execute youtube-trusted-session-generator anymore.

Docker

The Invidious docker image is only available on Quay because, unlike Docker Hub, Quay is Free and Open Source Software. This is reflected in the docker-compose.yml file used in this walk-through.

Ensure Docker Engine and Docker Compose are installed before beginning.

Docker-compose method (production)

This method uses the pre-built Docker image from quay

Note: Currently the repository has to be cloned, this is because the init-invidious-db.sh file and the config/sql directory have to be mounted to the postgres container (See the volumes section in the docker-compose file below). This "problem" will be solved in the future.

Make sure to run the newer Docker Compose V2: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/linux/. It should already be installed if you can successfully run the command docker compose (with a space between the two words).

Execute these commands:

git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious.git
cd invidious

Generate two secret keys, one for Invidious (HMAC_KEY) and one for Invidious companion (invidious_companion_key)
```
pwgen 16 1 # for Invidious (HMAC_KEY)
pwgen 16 1 # for Invidious companion (invidious_companion_key)
```

Edit the docker-compose.yml with this content:

version: "3"
services:

  invidious:
    image: quay.io/invidious/invidious:latest
    # image: quay.io/invidious/invidious:latest-arm64 # ARM64/AArch64 devices
    restart: unless-stopped
    # Remove "127.0.0.1:" if used from an external IP
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:3000:3000"
    environment:
      # Please read the following file for a comprehensive list of all available
      # configuration options and their associated syntax:
      # https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/blob/master/config/config.example.yml
      INVIDIOUS_CONFIG: |
        db:
          dbname: invidious
          user: kemal
          password: kemal
          host: invidious-db
          port: 5432
        check_tables: true
        invidious_companion:
        # URL used for the internal communication between invidious and invidious companion
        # There is no need to change that except if Invidious companion does not run on the same docker compose file.
        - private_url: "http://companion:8282/companion"
        # IT is NOT recommended to use the same key as HMAC KEY. Generate a new key!
        # Use the key generated in the 2nd step
        invidious_companion_key: "CHANGE_ME!!"
        # external_port:
        # domain:
        # https_only: false
        # statistics_enabled: false
        # Use the key generated in the 2nd step
        hmac_key: "CHANGE_ME!!"
    healthcheck:
      test: wget -nv --tries=1 --spider http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/v1/trending || exit 1
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 2
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: "1G"
        max-file: "4"
    depends_on:
      - invidious-db

  companion:
    image: quay.io/invidious/invidious-companion:latest
    environment:
    # Use the key generated in the 2nd step
       - SERVER_SECRET_KEY=CHANGE_ME!!SAME_AS_INVIDIOUS_COMPANION_SECRET_KEY_FROM_INVIDIOUS_CONFIG 
    restart: unless-stopped
    # Uncomment only if you have configured "public_url" for Invidious companion
    # Or if you want to use Invidious companion as an API in your program.
    # Remove "127.0.0.1:" if used from an external IP
    #ports:
    #  - "127.0.0.1:8282:8282"
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: "1G"
        max-file: "4"
    cap_drop:
      - ALL
    read_only: true
    # cache for youtube library
    volumes:
      - companioncache:/var/tmp/youtubei.js:rw
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true

  invidious-db:
    image: docker.io/library/postgres:14
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - postgresdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./config/sql:/config/sql
      - ./docker/init-invidious-db.sh:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/init-invidious-db.sh
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: invidious
      POSTGRES_USER: kemal
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: kemal
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U $$POSTGRES_USER -d $$POSTGRES_DB"]

volumes:
  postgresdata:
  companioncache:

Note: This compose is made for a true "production" setup, where Invidious is behind a reverse proxy. If you prefer to directly access Invidious, replace 127.0.0.1:3000:3000 with 3000:3000 under the ports: section.

Run the docker composition:

docker compose up -d

Docker-compose method (development)

This method builds a Docker image from source Playback won't work without Invidious companion configured.

git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious.git
cd invidious
docker-compose up

Manual Installation

Linux

Install Crystal

Follow the instructions for your distribution here: https://crystal-lang.org/install/

Note: Invidious currently supports the following Crystal versions: 1.14.x / 1.15.x / 1.16.x.

Install the dependencies

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S base-devel librsvg postgresql ttf-opensans

Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt install libssl-dev libxml2-dev libyaml-dev libgmp-dev libreadline-dev postgresql librsvg2-bin libsqlite3-dev zlib1g-dev libpcre3-dev libevent-dev fonts-open-sans

RHEL based and RHEL-like systems (RHEL, Fedora, AlmaLinux, RockyLinux...)

sudo dnf install -y openssl-devel libevent-devel libxml2-devel libyaml-devel gmp-devel readline-devel postgresql librsvg2-devel sqlite-devel zlib-devel gcc  open-sans-fonts

Add an Invidious user and clone the repository

useradd -m invidious
su - invidious
git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
exit

Set up PostgreSQL

systemctl enable --now postgresql
sudo -i -u postgres
psql -c "CREATE USER kemal WITH PASSWORD 'kemal';" # Change 'kemal' here to a stronger password, and update `password` in config/config.yml
createdb -O kemal invidious
exit

Set up Invidious

su - invidious
cd invidious
make

# Configure config/config.yml as you like
cp config/config.example.yml config/config.yml 

# edit config.yaml to include invidious companion

edit config/config.yaml

add:
invidious_companion:
  # URL used for the internal communication between invidious and invidious companion
  - private_url: "http://localhost:8282/companion"
# IT is NOT recommended to use the same key as HMAC KEY. Generate a new key!
invidious_companion_key: "CHANGE_ME!!"

# Deploy the database
./invidious --migrate

exit

Systemd service for Invidious

cp /home/invidious/invidious/invidious.service /etc/systemd/system/invidious.service
systemctl enable --now invidious.service

Set up Invidious companion

# wget from a binary release
# https://github.com/iv-org/invidious-companion/releases/tag/master

wget https://github.com/iv-org/invidious-companion/releases/download/master/invidious_companion-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz

# or compile it using https://docs.deno.com/runtime/
git clone https://github.com/iv-org/invidious-companion.git
deno task compile

# launch it manually
SERVER_SECRET_KEY=CHANGE_ME!!SAME_AS_INVIDIOUS_COMPANION_SECRET_KEY_FROM_INVIDIOUS_CONFIG ./invidious-companion

See more docs about the environment variables: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious-companion/wiki/Environment-variables

sudo wget https://github.com/iv-org/invidious-companion/raw/refs/heads/master/invidious-companion.service -O /etc/systemd/systemd/invidious-companion.service
sudo systemctl enable --now invidious.service

MacOS

We recommend installing Docker desktop and then following our guide about Docker which will make the installation easier.

But if you are more experienced, you may follow the community installation guide about MacOS

Windows

Crystal, the programming language used by Invidious, doesn't officially support Windows yet but you can still install Invidious:

By installing Docker desktop and then following our guide about Docker.
By installing Windows Subsystem for Linux and then following our guide about Linux.
By installing Windows-specific builds of Crystal. Be wary, as we don't currently have records of Invidious being tested on those "unsupported" builds yet.
Not official supported by Invidious developers!

Is your platform not listed (Podman, BSD, LXC and more)?

Take a look at the community installation guide: here

Post-install configuration:

Highly recommended

Detailed configuration available in the configuration guide.

You must set a random generated value for the parameter hmac_key:! On Linux you can generate it using the command pwgen 20 1.
Because of various issues, Invidious must be restarted often, at least once a day, ideally every hour.
If you use a reverse proxy, you must configure Invidious to properly serve request through it:

https_only: true : if you are serving your instance via https, set it to true

domain: domain.ext: if you are serving your instance via a domain name, set it here

external_port: 443: if you are serving your instance via https, set it to 443

use_pubsub_feeds: true: if you are serving your instance on the internet, allow for faster notification of new videos (detailed explanation).

use_innertube_for_captions: true: if you are serving a public instance or you are hosting Invidious in a datacenter, allow to unblock captions (detailed explanation).

Advanced (improve performance)

For performance reasons, you may configure Invidious companion to be served directly under your reverse proxy for serving the video streams.

This will greatly improve your playback when used by multiple users.

Uncomment public_url for the parameter invidious_companion: in Invidious config.yaml and configure it like this:

Configure the public_url to be the same as the domain used for Invidious or on a separate domain (if you want) with the path /companion.
Examples: https://MYINVIDIOUSDOMAIN/companion or https://COMPANION.MYINVIDIOUSDOMAIN/companion.

Then configure your reverse proxy:

Update Invidious

Updating a Docker install

docker-compose pull
docker-compose up -d
docker image prune -f

Update a manual install

su - invidious
cd invidious
git pull
make
exit
systemctl restart invidious.service

Usage:

./invidious

Logrotate configuration

echo "/home/invidious/invidious/invidious.log {
rotate 4
weekly
notifempty
missingok
compress
minsize 1048576
}" | tee /etc/logrotate.d/invidious.logrotate
chmod 0644 /etc/logrotate.d/invidious.logrotate