Your media. Your server.
Your house.

Home Stream is a self-hosted media server for films, television, music and home videos. It reads the library you already have, fills in the artwork and details on its own, and plays it on Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and any browser in the house. Your collection never leaves it.

See it Get the apps

In beta. The source will be published when the project opens up.

Home Stream in a browser: Nosferatu in the featured banner, with films to continue watching below

On every screen in the house

One library, one place you stopped, everywhere. Start a film on the television and finish it on the iPad.

Apple TV

Built for the remote: a home page of what to watch next, every film with its own page, and music with a queue that carries on.

Nosferatu's page on Apple TV
Music on Apple TV, with Mozart featured and the albums below
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari playing on Apple TV

iPhone and iPad

The whole library in your pocket, and anything you choose kept on the device to watch or listen to offline.

Home on iPhone
A film's page on iPhone
Music on iPhone
An album on iPhone
Music on iPad
An album on iPad

Any browser

Nothing to install on a computer. The browser is also where the library is looked after: folders, people, uploads and settings.

A film's details in the browser
Music in the browser
An artist's page in the browser

Shown with public-domain films from 1902 to 1929 and recordings Musopen released to the public domain. The posters and covers were made for these pictures.

What it does

All of this runs today on a Raspberry Pi, against a library of several hundred films and a few thousand songs.

Films and television

Posters, cast, genres and ratings filled in from TMDb. Episodes get their own pictures and summaries, and wherever you stopped is waiting on the home page of every device.

Special features and editions

Trailers, deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes extras sit on the film they belong to. A director's cut sits beside the theatrical one rather than as a second film.

Collections

Franchises gather themselves, including the films you don't own yet. Make your own shelves too, for Christmas or a rainy Sunday.

Music, properly

Albums, artists with photographs and biographies, playlists, favourites and music videos. The queue remembers where you were, on whichever device you pick up.

Home videos

Your family's own films, by year and by the people in them, with a picture for everyone. They stay private to the adults in the house.

Everyone gets their own

Separate history, favourites, watch lists and playlists for each person. A child's account sees only what is rated for their age, and anything unrated stays hidden.

Add from anywhere

Upload films, music and home videos from the browser, and they're filed where they belong. Deleting goes to a Trash you can restore from.

Light and dark

Every screen follows your device's appearance, with artwork kept readable in both.

It adapts to your library

Point it at the folders you already have, including a library you've been building for Plex for years. Home Stream reads titles, years and episode numbers from the names you already use.

  • ●Runs alongside Plex on the same drive, without getting in its way.
  • ●A scan never changes a file. Nothing is moved, renamed or rewritten unless you upload, delete, or correct a match yourself.
  • ●As many folders as you like for each kind, across more than one drive.
  • ●Artwork is kept separately, never written into your folders.
Films/
  Nosferatu (1922).mp4
TV/
  Series Name/
    Season 1/
      S01E01 - Episode Title.mp4
Music/
  Artist Name/
    Album Name/
      01 - Track Title.mp3
Home Videos/
  Beach day.mov

Running it

A small, quiet server that stays out of the way. It's written in Swift, keeps everything in one SQLite file, and is happy on hardware you already own.

Raspberry Pi friendly

Runs as a container on a Raspberry Pi 5 with a USB drive, or on a Mac. It comes back by itself after a power cut, and updating is a new image.

Private by default

Reachable on your home network and nowhere else. Nothing about your library is uploaded, and nobody outside the house needs an account.

Easy to sign in, hard to break into

Invite the family with a code, and sign in a television by typing the code it shows into your browser. Add a second step to your sign-in for extra protection.

Get the apps

Apps for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, talking to the same server your browser does.