Best open-source alternatives to Netflix

Jellyfin is a free software media server aimed at people who want to manage and stream their own media without depending on proprietary platforms. The README positions it as an alternative to Emby and Plex, with a backend server that serves media to end-user devices through multiple apps. The project is designed for self-hosted use and development on major operating systems, and it provides guidance for running from source, using the command line, or launching through IDEs. It also includes a hosted web client option, API documentation, and links to installation, quick start, contributing, and community resources, making it suitable both for end users setting up a personal media server and developers working on the codebase.

Kodi is a free and open source home theater and media center application aimed at people who want a polished, couch-friendly way to browse and play their digital media. It runs as a native app on major desktop, mobile, and TV platforms, and is positioned both as a general media player and as an HTPC-focused entertainment hub. The project emphasizes local media management and network playback. It can play many audio and video formats, stream from home networks or the internet, and automatically build a media library with metadata such as covers, descriptions, and fanart. Kodi also supports a skinning engine, playlists, slideshows, weather information, visualizations, and a large add-on ecosystem for extending functionality.

Kyoo is a self-hosted media server aimed at streaming movies, TV series, and anime. It positions itself as an alternative to Jellyfin and Plex, with a focus on reducing maintenance for server operators by avoiding strict folder structures and manual metadata editing. The project emphasizes built-in functionality rather than plugins, and its feature set centers on media playback and discovery improvements such as dynamic transcoding, subtitle handling, preview thumbnails, and robust parsing of oddly named anime files. It also offers a web client, an Android client in progress, and a live demo for viewers to try before deploying it themselves.

cmyflix is a lightweight media library project written in C that aims to provide a simple, self-hosted “DIY Netflix” experience. It is positioned as a fast, minimal alternative to more feature-heavy systems such as Plex, Streama, or Emby, and is especially targeted at NAS devices and small hardware like Raspberry Pi or Odroid. The project scans organized TV and movie folders, builds JSON databases containing file locations and metadata, and uses those databases to generate static web pages that can be served by any web server. It depends on external tools and libraries for media processing and metadata, and it expects users to arrange their media into specific directory structures for TV shows and films.

Home media server supporting both DLNA and DIAL (Chromecast) devices out-of-the-box.