Show HN: Twitter Viewer – View Profiles,Search Tweets,Download Videos (No Login)
twitterwebviewer.comHey HN! Happy New Year! I built Twitter Viewer because Twitter now requires login to view public content, which creates unnecessary barriers for researchers, journalists, and casual users.
What it does: View any public Twitter profile & tweets (no account needed) Search tweets by keywords Download Twitter videos in MP4 format 100% anonymous (no tracking, no data collection)
Tech Stack: Next.js 14 (App Router) for SSR and fast loading Tailwind CSS for styling Hosted on Vercel with Edge runtime Twitter API integration (via proxy)
Why I built this: Since Twitter changed its policy in 2023, you can't even view a single tweet without creating an account. This is frustrating for people who just want to quickly check a profile or share a link.
The tool has been in private beta for a month with positive feedback. I'm launching publicly today and would love your thoughts!
Live: https://twitterwebviewer.com
Happy to answer any questions about the implementation or features! Want to share a quick behind-the-scenes pain point I didn’t mention in the post: When I first launched, Vercel’s bill wasn’t just $200—they actually flagged the account for “unusual bandwidth usage” (video hosting) and threatened to suspend it. That’s why we switched to proxy links—scary moment for a solo founder! Adding a direct link here for easier access (especially for mobile users): https://twitterwebviewer.com Does your server actually have all the tweets and an index? Or when you search does the query go to Twitter’s api? Good question! The queries go directly to Twitter's API (via a third-party provider).
No local index or stored tweets—everything is fetched in real-time when you search or view a profile. We do cache responses temporarily to avoid hitting rate limits, but the cache expires quickly.
The benefit of this approach:
• Always up-to-date (real-time data)
• No storage costs or maintenance
• Simpler architecture
The downside:
• Dependent on API availability
• Rate limit considerations
I considered building a local index but decided against it for now—wanted to ship fast and keep it simple. Might revisit if the API approach becomes problematic.