Best Self-Hosted Media Servers in 2026
Software for hosting, streaming, and managing personal media libraries including movies, TV shows, music, and photos.
The top-rated pick is Immich with 99,948 GitHub stars.
5 self-hosted media servers — ranked by GitHub stars. Browse all
Immich
High performance self-hosted photo and video management solution with automatic backup, facial recognition, and AI-powered search.
Google Photos
Jellyfin
Free and open-source media server for movies, TV shows, music, and photos — a fully self-hosted alternative to Plex.
Plex
MediaCMS
Modern, fully featured open source video and media CMS built with Django and React for self-hosted video sharing.
YouTube
Hound
A self-hosted media server for watching, tracking, and managing movies and TV shows with P2P streaming support.
Plex
Parados
A simple, lightweight home media server for UNIX systems.
PlexWhy self-host?
Self-hosting puts you in control. You own your data, avoid vendor lock-in, and eliminate recurring subscription costs. For teams handling sensitive data or operating under strict compliance requirements, running your own infrastructure is often the only viable option.
Want to compare all open source options including cloud-hosted ones? See the best open source media servers →