youtube-transcript-api and Youtube-Transcript-API
The first is a lightweight, zero-dependency library for retrieving existing YouTube captions, while the second is a full-featured commercial service that adds transcription and translation capabilities beyond what YouTube natively provides—making them competitors for caption extraction but with the second offering additional services the first cannot provide.
About youtube-transcript-api
jdepoix/youtube-transcript-api
This is a python API which allows you to get the transcript/subtitles for a given YouTube video. It also works for automatically generated subtitles and it does not require an API key nor a headless browser, like other selenium based solutions do!
Supports multi-language transcript retrieval with priority-based fallback, subtitle translation, and metadata filtering to distinguish between manually-created and auto-generated captions. Extracts transcripts by directly parsing YouTube's client-side data structures rather than relying on browser automation, returning structured objects with timing information and optional HTML formatting preservation. Provides both programmatic Python API and CLI interfaces for integration into data pipelines or content analysis workflows.
About Youtube-Transcript-API
Youtube-Transcript-Dev/Youtube-Transcript-API
YouTube Transcript API — Extract, transcribe, and translate YouTube videos at scale. Supports captions, audio transcription (ASR), batch processing, and 100+ languages. https://youtubetranscript.dev
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