What is Sunshine used for?

Sunshine is a game streaming host you run yourself for Moonlight clients, with low-latency streaming, GPU hardware encoding, a web UI and gamepad emulation. It is a good fit for streaming PC games to a TV or handheld, remote play from a gaming desktop and self-hosted cloud gaming at home.

Is Sunshine open source?

Yes. Sunshine is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at LizardByte/Sunshine and is written mainly in C++.

Yes. Sunshine is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Sunshine?

Yes. Sunshine can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Sunshine an alternative to?

Sunshine is an open-source alternative to GeForce NOW, Amazon Luna, Shadow PC and Boosteroid. Other open-source alternatives to GeForce NOW include Foundation Sunshine and Moonlight.

Is Sunshine actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Sunshine was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v2026.914.233613, published on 15 September 2026. The project has 42k stars on GitHub.

Sunshine: open-source alternative to GeForce NOW

About Sunshine

Sunshine is a streaming host for PC games that you run on your own machine, built to work with Moonlight clients. It provides low-latency, cloud-gaming-style streaming from your own computer, with hardware encoding on AMD, Intel and Nvidia GPUs and a software encoding fallback. It is written in C++, released under the GPL-3.0 license and developed by LizardByte.

You connect from any Moonlight client on a range of devices. A web interface lets you configure the host and pair clients from a browser, whether from the local server or from a mobile device. The documentation includes a feature compatibility table showing which gamepad types can be emulated on FreeBSD, Linux, macOS and Windows, including generic, DualShock 4, DualSense, Switch Pro and several Xbox controllers.

Packaging topics reference Docker, winget, Homebrew, Flathub and pacman. Full documentation is hosted on Read the Docs for stable and beta releases. Sunshine suits gamers who want to play PC games on other screens at home or remotely, and users who prefer an open-source host over a proprietary streaming service.

Key features

Low-latency game streaming to Moonlight clients
Hardware encoding on AMD, Intel and Nvidia GPUs
Software encoding fallback
Web UI for configuration and client pairing
Gamepad emulation including DualShock and Xbox
Linux, macOS, Windows and FreeBSD support

Good fit for

→Streaming PC games to a TV or handheld
→Remote play from a gaming desktop
→Self-hosted cloud gaming at home

Built with: C++; Docker
Tags: game-streaming; moonlight; self-hosted; remote-play; cpp; gaming; streaming; gamepad

Sunshine: questions and answers

What is Sunshine used for?: Sunshine is a game streaming host you run yourself for Moonlight clients, with low-latency streaming, GPU hardware encoding, a web UI and gamepad emulation. It is a good fit for streaming PC games to a TV or handheld, remote play from a gaming desktop and self-hosted cloud gaming at home.
Is Sunshine open source?: Yes. Sunshine is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at LizardByte/Sunshine and is written mainly in C++.
Is Sunshine free?: Yes. Sunshine is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Sunshine?: Yes. Sunshine can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Sunshine an alternative to?: Sunshine is an open-source alternative to GeForce NOW, Amazon Luna, Shadow PC and Boosteroid. Other open-source alternatives to GeForce NOW include Foundation Sunshine and Moonlight.
Is Sunshine actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Sunshine was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v2026.914.233613, published on 15 September 2026. The project has 42k stars on GitHub.