A side-by-side look at the YouTube Transcripts, Search & Summaries and TranscriptYT MCP servers: transport, auth, tools, quality signals, and the config to install either one in Claude, Cursor, Windsurf or VS Code.
Verdict: choose YouTube Transcripts, Search & Summaries for social media work over a hosted endpoint; choose TranscriptYT for social media. You can also run both side by side in one mcpServers block.
APIFY_TOKEN.get_transcript, search_videos, get_video_chapters.Rows where the two servers differ are marked.
| Spec | T TranscriptYT | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Social Media | Social Media |
| Quality signal | 53/100 · Good | 39/100 · Fair |
| Install command | Confirmed | Not confirmed yet |
| Transport | Remote HTTP/SSE | — |
| Auth | No auth required | No auth required |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| Required env vars | APIFY_TOKEN | None listed |
| Verified owner | Community listing | Community listing |
| GitHub stars | 0 | — |
| Directory activity | 0 views 0 installs 0 upvotes | 0 views 0 installs 0 upvotes |
| Tools | 4 | Not listed |
| Full listing | View YouTube Transcripts, Search & Summaries | View TranscriptYT |
get_transcriptReturns the transcript plus metadata: title, channel, duration, views, publish date, category, the **available caption languages** and whether the returned track is **auto-generated**. Output can be plain text, `[m:ss]`-timestamped paragraphs, `{start, duration, text}` segments or SRT. YouTube can…search_videosSearches YouTube through the same InnerTube search API the website uses. Returns id, title, channel, duration, views, relative publish time, description snippet, thumbnail, live flag and badges. Fetches more pages automatically up to `limit`.get_video_chaptersReturns chapters with start and end times and deep links. Uses the creator's chapters from the description or YouTube's chapter markers. If there are none, it derives topic segments from the transcript and titles each one with its distinctive keywords and a representative sentence.summarize_transcriptBuilds a structured **extractive** summary without an LLM: a TL;DR, de-duplicated key points, keywords and keyphrases, bullets per chapter, and notable quotes. Each item has a timestamp and a `…&t=123s` link.No tool names declared yet. Check the project README from the listing page.
Paste either block (or both) into your client config, e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json. We only show a config when the install command is confirmed.
{
"mcpServers": {
"youtube-transcripts-search-summaries": {
"url": "https://parallelstudio--youtube-transcripts-mcp.apify.actor/mcp"
}
}
}
No confirmed install command for TranscriptYT yet — follow the setup steps linked from its listing page rather than a guessed package name.