TunelioAbout Tunelio
Tunelio is a developer-first YouTube media API. One request returns a direct MP4 or MP3 download URL, rich metadata, or a timestamped transcript — no queues, no polling, and no extraction infrastructure for you to babysit.
What we do
Running yt-dlp in production means cookies that expire, proof-of-origin tokens, flagged data-center IPs, breaking changes every few weeks and an ffmpeg step for every file. Tunelio runs that extraction fleet for you: call GET /create with a YouTube URL and a quality, and a signed download URL comes back in the same response — typically in about 400 ms.
The same API key gives you GET /info for metadata and every available format, and GET /transcript for timestamped subtitles as JSON, SRT or VTT.
Who it is for
Telegram and Discord bot builders, SaaS teams that need reliable media resolution, and data or ML pipelines that turn videos into transcripts. Pricing is credit-based: new accounts get 100 free credits, and paid plans start at $9 per month.
How we operate
Tunelio is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to YouTube or Google. The API resolves publicly available media on demand and stores no video files; you are responsible for using it in line with YouTube’s Terms of Service and the copyright law that applies to you.
The service has been live since 2026 and is run by a small engineering team that also writes the guides on this site from first-hand experience operating YouTube extraction at scale.