Media Streaming - Video Streaming
Netflix streams a catalogue it licenses; these media servers stream the films and series you keep on your own disks, to a TV, phone or browser. You trade the subscription for storage and some setup, and you watch only what you own. Jellyfin is the most-starred project here, with over 58,000 GitHub stars, a GPL-2.0 licence and a Docker image; it has clients for Roku, Android TV, iOS and Kodi, and serves music, books, comics and photos as well as video, so it suits a household with mixed media. Kyoo is narrower, built for films, series and anime, with dynamic transcoding and automatic watch history, and it ships a Docker image too. Kodi is a media player rather than a server: it plays your library on the device it runs on, from Android and Linux to macOS, iOS and Windows. MediaCMS builds a video portal for publishing and sharing, closer to a small YouTube than a home cinema. Plex and Emby are proprietary and listed for comparison only, so we do not score them.
Showing 6 of 6 tools
Top pick · highest health
Media server for audio, video, books, comics, and photos with a sleek interface and robust transcoding capabilities. Almost all modern platforms have clients, including Roku, Android TV, iOS, and Kodi.
Innovative media browser designed for seamless streaming of anime, series and movies, offering advanced features like dynamic transcoding, auto watch history and intelligent metadata retrieval.
Modern, fully featured open source video and media CMS, written in Python/Django/React, featuring a REST API.
Multimedia/Entertainment center, formerly known as XBMC. Runs on Android, BSD, Linux, macOS, iOS and Windows.
Centralized home media playback system with a powerful central server.
Home media server supporting both DLNA and DIAL (Chromecast) devices out-of-the-box.
We track 6 open-source Netflix alternatives, of which 4 currently score 70 or above on Repoly's GitHub health scale and 3 ship a Docker image. Jellyfin leads on health at 99/100 with 601 commits in the last 90 days; across all 6 projects you are choosing between AGPL-3.0, GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0 and 1 other licences.
Jellyfin edges Kyoo 99 to 94, and most of the difference is stars: 59k stars against 2.6k stars.
The most recent release is Jellyfin v12.4, published 4 days ago. None of the measured options scores under 40. By stack, C# (2), C++ (1) and Python (1) are the most common. Jellyfin, Kyoo, MediaCMS and 1 more are copyleft. Plex and Emby are source-available rather than open source, which limits commercial reuse. Plex and Emby are not hosted on a forge Repoly can read, so they have no measured score yet.
4 of these 6 also appear among the Plex Pass alternatives; Kyoo and MediaCMS are specific to Netflix.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Last commit | Licence | Self-hosting | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jellyfin Steady at 99 since 11 Sep | 99 | 59k | yesterday | GPL-2.0 | Docker image | Long-term use: health 99/100 |
| Kyoo Steady at 94 since 11 Sep | 94 | 2.6k | yesterday | GPL-3.0 | Docker image | Fast development: 365 commits in 90 days |
| MediaCMS Up 14 points since 11 Sep | 90 | 5.2k | 4 days ago | AGPL-3.0 | Docker image | Fresh releases: v9.4.0, 4 days ago |
| Kodi Down 2 points since 11 Sep, no release for 11 months | 79 | 21k | today | GPL-2.0 | Manual (C++) | Community size: 21k stars |
| Plex | 10 | 0 | unknown | ⊘ Proprietary | Manual install | Not measured: proprietary, no public code |
| Emby | 10 | 0 | unknown | ⊘ Proprietary | Manual (C#) | Not measured: proprietary, no public code |
Yes. 4 of the 6 Netflix alternatives we track are on GitHub, led by Jellyfin (github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin, health 99/100, 59k stars) and Kyoo (github.com/zoriya/kyoo, health 94/100). Plex and Emby are proprietary, with no public repository. Each tool page links its repository and shows the health score we recompute from it every night.
Jellyfin scores highest at 99/100, with 601 commits in the last 90 days, 59k stars on GitHub and its latest release (v12.4) published 4 days ago. Kodi has the most raw commit activity at 2105 commits in 90 days.
3 of 6 publish a Docker image or Compose file: Jellyfin, Kyoo, MediaCMS. Docker support contributes 10 of the 100 available health points, because it is the clearest signal that self-hosting is a supported path rather than an afterthought.
On measured health Jellyfin leads, 99 to 94. Jellyfin has 601 commits in 90 days, 59k stars and v12.4 from 4 days ago; Kyoo has 365 commits in 90 days, 2.6k stars and v5.2.1 from 2 months ago. Jellyfin is ahead or level on every term Repoly measures.
None of the 6 tracked alternatives use a permissive licence; 4 are copyleft (GPL, AGPL or similar), which requires publishing changes to any modified version you distribute.
