Shoebill

Shoebill: Open-Source Media Server Software

A clean and feature-rich media server for organizing and streaming personal media libraries, with automatic media identification and metadata retrieval capabilities.

What is Shoebill?

Shoebill is an open-source media server application designed to help you organize, manage, and stream your personal digital media library from any device. It is self-hosted, meaning you install it on your own server or computer rather than relying on a third-party cloud service.

Some key features of Shoebill include:

• Automatic media identification and metadata retrieval from sites like TheMovieDB and TheTVDB
• Support for major media formats including video, music, and photos
• Customizable libraries with options to categorize by genre, release year, etc.
• User management allowing separate accounts for different household members
• Mobile and web apps allow remote streaming from phones, tablets, etc.
• Subtitle support and chapter images for videos
• Plugin extensions for added functionality
• Open source (GPL) codebase supported by a community of developers

By self-hosting your media with Shoebill, you can avoid limitations, ads, and monthly fees of other streaming services. The tradeoff is that setup and management requires more technical skill and effort compared to cloud platforms. But for tech-savvy users with large multimedia libraries, Shoebill can be a powerful free option.

Shoebill Features

Official Links