Ocelot Media Server [W.I.P.]

This project is still in development and will be for a while. I am working on a roadmap that should give you insight into how long it will take to finish.

Purpose

A free and open-source alternative to Plex Media Server that should look beautiful

Goal

Reach full feature parity to Plex and possibly even Jellyfin.

• Users
  • Login with email and password
  • Create an admin user
  • Create secondary users
    • Have customized permissions for each user
• Encoding (ffmpeg)
  • Generate .m3u8 file
  • Generate .ts files dynamically
  • Direct Play
  • Thumbnails
  • Subtitles
• Library
  • Add directories
  • Scan and add metadata for directories
    • Scan directory for files
    • Match scanned files for metadata
      • Search metadata from external API's
    • Scan all folders on startup for changes
    • Detect changes while server is still running
  • Control permission for which users have access to which libraries
• Allow custom plugins
  • Themes
• Logging
  • Show user data (such as who's watching etc.)
  • Analytics

Questions

Here I'll answer some questions about the project preemptively

What is the project status?

As of right now, the project is in an extremely early status. The need for both a client and a server to be built together means that this will be an extremely long process. Not to mention that I am a college student and don't have too much free time to work on this.

What devices will the client support?

A client is currently being worked on using Electron and React so that there is a consistent desktop/web experience for people of all Operating Systems. For mobile devices, I will use React Native so that the SDK library can be shared across both apps, reducing the work required. Thus the list of current targets I aim to support are iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, Linux, and WebOS. This is not a finalized list as I want a TV app as well but I am not completely sure of how I can implement that.

Why not fork Jellyfin, a project that intends to have the same goal?

During my personal experience moving from Plex to Jellyfin, I encountered a few hurdles and friction that left me less than satisfied. Not to say Jellyfin isn't an amazing project because it is and will be probably superior to this project for a very long time, but I would like to create something aesthetically pleasing, fast, and written in Golang.

Then why not just make a client for Jellyfin?

I have worked on and tried to build a client for Jellyfin, which has taught me a lot about how media streaming but ultimately I believe I can make a viable alternative free of the tech debt from Emby/Jellyfin. Also, I don't have a lot of experience with C# and would personally like an alternative built in Go.

Development started on April 29, 2024, by Siddhant Madhur