Both are free, both are open source, and both work by patching an official YouTube APK on your own device rather than handing you a pre-modified app. Nothing on this site distributes either one. What follows is a decision framework, an honest feature comparison, and the maintenance cost each choice actually carries.
Who Should Pick Which
Pick mainline ReVanced if you patch once every few months, want the version most guides and forum answers assume, and would rather not debug a setup nobody else in a thread is running. It is the default for a reason: more contributors, more eyes on the code, more chance somebody has already hit your problem.
Pick ReVanced Extended if you have a specific option in mind that the core set does not offer, you already patch comfortably, and you accept that the fork's continuity rests on one person. The extra patches are real and some of them are genuinely useful. They are not free of consequence.
If you are unsure, start mainline. Switching later costs one uninstall and one patching session, and the reverse move is just as cheap. Committing to the fork first means learning two systems at once when something breaks.
Quick Comparison
| Aspect | ReVanced | Extended (fork) |
|---|---|---|
| Maintainer | ReVanced team | Community fork maintainers |
| Patch count | Core set | Expanded set with additional options |
| Official status | Main project | Community fork |
| Update frequency | Regular | Varies by maintainer |
| Manager | ReVanced Manager | May use different build tools |
| Bus factor | Multiple contributors | Effectively one maintainer |
| Community help available | Large; most guides assume it | Smaller, concentrated in the fork's own channels |
| Settings depth | Fewer toggles, simpler menus | Deep menus that take time to learn |
Honest verdicts on the rows that matter. Patch count favours the fork, clearly. Update frequency is a wash rather than a win for either, because the fork can be faster on a given week and absent on another. Community support favours mainline by a wide margin, and that gap is felt exactly when you least want it, which is when a patch fails at 1 a.m.
What ReVanced Extended Adds
The fork's draw is patch count. It carries customization options the core set leaves out, and some features show up there before the main project adopts them. Its patches can also require different base app versions, so check the fork's documentation before assuming anything carries over.
Typical additions cluster around interface control: hiding elements the core set leaves alone, reorganising player buttons, and exposing more granular toggles for behaviour that mainline decides for you. Whether that is worth a second toolchain depends entirely on whether you would use those toggles or just admire them once and forget.
Setup Effort and Maintenance Burden
Initial setup is comparable. Both routes mean fetching a Manager, supplying a supported base APK, selecting patches, building, and installing. Budget an hour the first time and about fifteen minutes on repeats.
Maintenance is where they separate. Mainline gives you one place to check for compatibility news and a large pool of people reporting the same breakage. With the fork you are tracking a second release channel, and the recommended base version may differ from the one mainline uses, so you cannot reuse a downloaded APK between them without checking. Neither auto-updates. Both need re-patching when you want a newer base app, and both need Play Store auto-updates disabled for the target app so the official version does not silently overwrite your build.
Cost Reality
Both cost nothing in money. The real cost is attention: an hour or two per year of re-patching, plus the occasional evening lost when a YouTube change breaks something and the fix is not out yet. If that sounds tedious, the honest alternative is paying for YouTube Premium, which removes the maintenance entirely in exchange for a monthly subscription.
Common Misconceptions
- "Extended is the newer version of ReVanced." It is not a version. It is a separate project that forked from the same codebase and is maintained by different people.
- "The fork is officially recommended." The ReVanced project does not endorse it. Enthusiasm in forums is not endorsement.
- "More patches means a better app." Applying every available patch raises the odds of a combination that crashes. Both projects behave best with a conservative selection.
- "You can download the finished Extended APK from anywhere." Pre-built APKs circulating on file-sharing sites carry someone else's signature and someone else's modifications. Build it yourself or take it from the fork's own releases.
Our Take
For most people, mainline ReVanced is the better choice, and we would recommend it without much hesitation. The reason is not feature count. It is that troubleshooting is the part of this hobby you actually spend time on, and mainline has more people who have already solved your problem. ReVanced Extended earns its place for users who want specific interface control and are comfortable being their own support desk. Choose it deliberately, not because a comparison table showed a longer list.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. It is a third-party fork maintained by inotia00, built on the same patching approach but developed and released independently. The ReVanced project does not review, endorse, or support it, and problems with the fork should be raised with the fork's own repository rather than the main project's issue tracker.
Not as replacements for the same app, no. Both produce a patched YouTube package and Android will not install two apps sharing a package name. Some users work around this with a patch that renames the package or with a separate user profile, but that is an edge case rather than the normal setup.
Neither reliably wins. The main project has more contributors, so severe breakage tends to be triaged quickly. The fork sometimes ships a fix first because one maintainer can move without coordination. Over a year the difference evens out, and the fork carries the sharper risk: if its maintainer steps away, nothing replaces them.
Usually yes. The fork publishes its own patch bundle and typically its own Manager build, and it may recommend a different base app version than the main project does. Pointing the official Manager at the fork's patches is not a supported configuration and is a common source of confusing failures.
Both are open source and both produce an APK signed on your own device, so the technical model is the same. The difference is oversight. Fewer people read the fork's code, and its release channel is easier to impersonate on unofficial mirrors. Download either only from its own official repository and verify what you install.
Yes, with one caveat. Your subscriptions, history, and playlists live in your Google account, so they follow you. Local settings do not: patch-level choices and in-app preferences reset, and you will need to uninstall the current patched build before installing the other because the signatures differ.