The Story of ytct.com: Building Something That Truly Mattered
Some projects end before they should, but that does not take away their impact. ytct.com was one of those projects. It started as a small idea, became a product that helped thousands of people, and ended up teaching me more than any tutorial or course ever could.
Where It Began
ytct.com, short for youtubechanneltranscript.com, began as a passion project. The main idea came from Mohamed Adany, and I handled the full implementation. It was a tool that allowed users to generate transcripts for YouTube videos and even entire channels — fast, accurate, and without the clutter of ads or paywalls.
What began as a side experiment slowly grew into something bigger. Within a year, ytct.com crossed 22,000 users, which still feels surreal to say out loud.
What Made It Special
We built ytct.com to solve a simple but real problem: accessing video transcripts easily and efficiently. Researchers, educators, and content creators used it daily to save time and collect information faster.
Features That Defined It
- Ad-Free Transcriptions that kept the experience clean and focused
- Multilingual Support for international users
- Bulk Channel Downloads that saved hours of manual work
- Fast and Reliable Performance powered by smart caching and efficient APIs
The project had no funding or team — just passion, consistency, and a shared goal to build something that worked well and looked professional.
The Technical Journey
Behind the scenes, ytct.com was a deep technical challenge. Managing high traffic, optimizing Node.js performance, and working around YouTube’s evolving API limits forced me to think creatively. I learned more about API rate limits, error handling, and scaling servers in those months than in entire semesters.
One memorable moment was fixing the 410 error in ytdl-core, a dependency that suddenly broke thousands of requests overnight. I still remember debugging through logs, rewriting parts of the pipeline, and watching the service come back to life.
Those late nights were exhausting, but they are the kind of moments that make you fall in love with engineering all over again.
The Hard Decision to Close It
Eventually, the costs caught up. The platform started attracting more users than our small setup could handle. Server bills rose quickly, and without marketing or monetization, keeping it alive became difficult. Around the same time, Google restricted and removed access to several YouTube API endpoints, which directly affected how ytct.com functioned.
We tried to find workarounds, but the project was fighting against too many constraints. Shutting it down was one of the hardest decisions I have made.
What It Meant to Me
ytct.com was more than just a project. It was proof that with enough curiosity and effort, one person can build something useful that reaches thousands of people worldwide. It gave me a deep respect for product design, scalability, and the importance of sustainable growth.
Even though the website is no longer live, it remains one of the projects I am most proud of. It reminded me why I started building software in the first place — to create tools that help people and make their work easier.
Looking Back
If I could go back, I would spend more time on sustainability and marketing. But even with its short run, ytct.com will always be close to my heart. It taught me how to build, ship, and maintain something real — and that experience is worth more than any number of users.
Some projects end, but their lessons stay with you. ytct.com was one of those projects.