Open-source Plex 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.

Navidrome is an open-source music server written in Go. You point it at your own folder of audio files and it serves the collection through a web player and through mobile apps, much like a personal streaming service. It is compatible with the Subsonic API family, so many existing Subsonic and OpenSubsonic client apps can connect to it.

The project says it handles very large music collections and can stream almost any audio format. It is light enough to run on small hardware such as a Raspberry Pi, and its topics also mention Airsonic and Madsonic, older servers it can stand in for. A live demo is available so you can try the interface first, and the maintainers recommend using tagged releases rather than the unstable master branch.

Navidrome is GPL-3.0 licensed and installed following the instructions on its website. For people who prefer not to run a server, PikaPods has partnered with the project to offer an officially supported cloud-hosted option, with part of the revenue helping fund development. It appeals to music collectors who want to keep control of their libraries instead of relying on a commercial 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.

Stremio Web is the browser-based front end of Stremio, a media center that brings video entertainment together in one place. Content is discovered through catalogs supplied by addons, and a user's library and Continue Watching list follow their Stremio account across devices.

The interface covers casting to Chromecast, subtitles from addons or local files with adjustable styling, a keyboard-driven player, and community translations into more than 50 languages. It can be installed as a standalone progressive web app. Behind the scenes, the UI is a React application, while state and addon logic live in stremio-core, a Rust engine compiled to WebAssembly and run in a Web Worker.

The code is released under the GPL-2.0 license. To work on it you need a recent Node.js and pnpm, and the repository documents a development server, production build, tests and linting, along with a Docker option. A hosted copy of the web app is available at web.stremio.com.

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.

Gonic is a free-software music streaming server that implements the Subsonic server API, so it works with the many apps that speak that protocol. It is written in Go, which keeps it lightweight enough for devices such as a Raspberry Pi, and ARM images are provided. It is licensed under GPL-3.0.

You can browse your collection by folder, which keeps your directory tree intact, or by tags read with taglib for formats including mp3, opus, flac, ape, m4a and wav. It supports on-the-fly audio transcoding with caching through ffmpeg, the Subsonic jukebox mode for gapless server-side playback, podcasts, multiple users with their own playlists and preferences, and scrobbling to last.fm and ListenBrainz. Artist biographies and similar artists come from the last.fm API.

A web interface handles configuration, such as connecting last.fm, managing users and starting library scans. The project lists tested clients including DSub, Symfonium, Amperfy, Tempus, Strawberry and Ultrasonic. Installation is possible from source, with Docker or with systemd, and the default login is admin, which you should change after the first sign-in.