Show HN: Twitter Viewer – View Profiles,Search Tweets,Download Videos (No Login)

8 months ago (twitterwebviewer.com)

Hey 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!

6 comments

PeterAnderson

Reply
PeterAnderson  7 months ago

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!

n1xis10t  8 months ago

Does your server actually have all the tweets and an index? Or when you search does the query go to Twitter’s api?

  • PeterAnderson  8 months ago

    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.