Open-source Emby alternatives

Jellyfin is a media system built as free software, giving you control over how your media is managed and streamed. A dedicated server provides movies, shows and other media to end-user devices through multiple client apps. This repository contains the backend server and API, written in C# on .NET, and it is released under the GPL-2.0 license.

It positions itself against proprietary media servers, namely Emby and Plex. It descends from the Emby 3.5.2 release and was ported to the .NET platform for full cross-platform support. The team states there are no premium licenses, paid features or hidden agendas.

Documentation includes a downloads page, an installation guide and a quick start guide, and the server can also be built from source. Translation is handled through a Weblate instance and feature ideas go to a request hub. Jellyfin suits households and enthusiasts who want to host their own media library instead of relying on a commercial media service.

Kodi is a media player and entertainment hub that plays most audio and video formats and organizes them into a browsable library. It is designed to work well on a home theater PC controlled with a remote from the couch, but it also works as an ordinary media player on a regular computer.

Point it at local folders or network shares and it scans the content, building a library with cover art and descriptions. It was designed for network playback, so media can be streamed from elsewhere in the house or from the internet over many protocols. Playlists, slideshows, a weather feature and audio visualizations are included, and the interface can be restyled with skins and extended with add-ons.

Kodi is written in C++ and Python and runs natively on Android, Linux, BSD, macOS, iOS, tvOS and Windows. It is developed by volunteers and run as a non-profit project by the XBMC Foundation, and it is available in more than 70 languages. The repository lists the license as 'Other', so check the project's license files for details.

Ampache is a web-based audio and video streaming application and file manager that lets you reach your music and videos from almost any internet-enabled device. It presents an already organized collection in a useful way rather than reorganizing your files.

Its usefulness depends on extracting correct metadata from embedded tags or file names, and it assumes you manage your files yourself. It runs on web servers including Apache, lighttpd, nginx and IIS, with most testing on Apache, and a documented API supports clients. The development branch, Ampache 8, adds an opt-in Jellyfin-compatible API so third-party clients such as Finamp and Symfonium can browse and stream a library.

The project recommends the stable release 7 branch for most users, notes that the develop branch can be unstable and needs PHP 8.5 or later, and provides a Docker image, wiki and admin and user guides. Ampache is written in PHP and licensed under AGPL-3.0.