What is brainrotguard?

BrainRotGuard lets parents control what their children watch on YouTube. Kids search for videos on a tablet web page and send requests. Parents get a Telegram notification showing the video details and tap Approve or Deny. Approved videos play right away on the child's device. The software uses yt-dlp to fetch YouTube data without an API key and embeds videos from youtube-nocookie.com. It supports multiple child profiles, each with a PIN, separate watch history, and time budgets. Content can be labeled as educational or entertainment with different daily limits. Viewing schedules can be set per day of the week. Channels can be allowlisted for automatic approval or blocked entirely. Word filters hide videos with specific terms in the title. A Telegram bot provides a setup wizard and commands for managing everything. The app runs in Docker with pre-built images for amd64 and arm64, or directly with Python 3.11+. All data lives in one SQLite file. It is MIT licensed and has an Unraid template.

Should you self-host brainrotguard?

brainrotguard scores 49/100 on selfhost.directory (how scoring works) and ranks #10 of 22 in Home Server. It has 396 GitHub stars.

It shipped 12 stable releases in the past year. The latest, v1.33.0, came out on 29 September 2026. New versions land roughly every 4 days.

Setup is moderate: expect some configuration beyond a single command. An official Docker image is available. It is MIT-licensed and written mostly in Python.

Its closest alternative on selfhost.directory is CasaOS (76/100, 37 389 stars). It scores higher overall, so compare the two before you pick. See brainrotguard vs CasaOS side by side.