video-host
Bilibili
China's largest video platform, hosting hundreds of millions of videos. For an archives researcher it matters as a possible home for reuploads and Chinese-language material that exists nowhere else. There is no keyless English-facing API, and search from outside China is gated by geo-checks and captchas, so this is a follow-the-link resource: open the site and search there.
No programmatic check, opens the archive’s own search.
Why it’s useful & how it works
Bilibili is China's dominant video platform and an essential stop when hunting for Chinese-language material or reuploads of content that has been removed elsewhere globally. For researchers outside China, on-site search is hampered by geo-checks and captcha challenges, and there is no keyless English-facing API. Echo links you directly to Bilibili's search page where you can try a query; a VPN set to a Chinese location may improve access.
What’s inside
Hundreds of millions of videos, with over 117 million daily active users and roughly 4.8 billion daily video views as of 2024. The platform hosts content from over 10 million active creators.
API access
no keyless EN-facing API; web search gates on geo/captcha
What we measured
Our own probes, not the archive’s own claims. Re-run periodically; every reading below is dated.
Reachability
- Direct request
- Responded HTTP 200 643 ms
- Through a datacenter proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 1.2 s
- Search, direct
- Responded HTTP 200 1.1 s
- Search, through a proxy
- Responded HTTP 200 1.9 s
Reachability measured 2026-08-22.
Access
May require solving a captcha before it responds.