Most YouTube summarizer tools rely entirely on YouTube's built-in captions. The moment a video has no subtitles - Hindi podcasts, regional content, older videos, creator-disabled captions - they return nothing.
So I built one that doesn't break.
**How it works:**
→ Step 1: Try caption extraction (fast, free)
→ Step 2: If captions are missing, automatically fall back to ASR audio transcription
→ Step 3: Pass transcript to your LLM of choice (Groq, Gemini, or OpenAI) for summarization
**What you get in the output:**
- Structured summary
- Timestamped key points with deep-linked YouTube URLs (click to jump directly)
- \transcriptSource` field telling you whether captions or ASR was used`
- Optional full transcript
**Free to use** — no per-result fees. Works with Groq and Gemini free tiers.
🔗 https://apify.com/quotidian_vulture/youtube-summarizer
Would love any feedback — especially from folks who process non-English or caption-less content. Happy to answer questions about the architecture too.