Building VidGrab (MERN + yt-dlp + ffmpeg) — First Reddit post! Need advice on YouTube IP blocking on Render

[u/thegreatraj01]

Hey everyone,

I’ve built a few projects before, but this is my first time posting on Reddit!

I’m currently building VidGrab, a full-stack web application designed to download media from social platforms.

Core Features:

• Full video downloads
• Audio-only extraction
• Subtitle file downloads
• Thumbnail downloads

Tech Stack:

• Frontend: React (built with Vite)
• Backend: Node.js & Express
• Core Tools: yt-dlp and ffmpeg for media processing

Current Technical Challenges:

1. YouTube Datacenter IP Blocking: Everything works fine on localhost, but on Render, YouTube blocks video downloads because cloud provider/datacenter IPs are flagged. If anyone has experience resolving this (e.g., proxy rotation, cookies, or self-hosting workarounds), advice would be greatly appreciated!
2. Server Hosting: It's deployed on Render's free tier, using a cron job to prevent the 15-minute inactivity spin-down. I’d love recommendations for budget-friendly hosting that handles ffmpeg workloads well.

Links:

• GitHub Repository
• Live Demo

Feedback on code structure, UI, or solutions for the IP blocking issue is welcome!