When comparing Airy YouTube Downloader vs youtube-dl, the Slant community recommends youtube-dl for most people. In the question“What are the best YouTube downloaders?” youtube-dl is ranked 2nd while Airy YouTube Downloader is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose youtube-dl is:
It's released to the public domain. Modify at will.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Pause and resume downloads
Pro Download playlists and channels from YouTube
To download YouTube playlist or channels you just need to paste the URL.
Pro Download videos in batch
With Airy it's possible to download multiple videos at once.
Pro Download private, age restricted videos
In Airy menu you can log into your YouTube account (and save your login and password for future, if you'd like) and download age-restricted videos.
Pro Download music straight from the site
Besides video formats, you can download MP3 files.
Pro Open-source
It's released to the public domain. Modify at will.
Pro Ability to download different formats and meta-info
Pro Cross-platform
Works on Windows, Mac OS X and other Unix systems like Linux for example.
Pro Command-line, and light weight
Pro Frequently updated
The developers keep up with YouTube-s meta changes. If the download of a video fails, just update to a new version and it should work.
Pro Works in other places too
Can download from different sources, not just YouTube. (https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html)
Cons
Con Works only with YouTube
Con Not for Linux
Con No GUI
Command Line driven only.