In Active Development

Self-hosted streaming,
built with care.

A modern media server with reliable playback, clean design, and respect for your privacy. No ads. No hardware tax. Free for local use.

Weekly dev updates. Unsubscribe anytime.

What Dubby gets right

Everything you'd expect from a modern media server — and a few things you wouldn't.

Plays Everything

Seven playback tiers from direct play to full transcode. Dubby always finds a working mode — no "format not supported" screens, ever.

HDR & Dolby Vision

HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG passthrough with automatic tone-mapping fallback. TrueHD and Atmos audio pass straight through.

Skip Intro & Credits

Audio fingerprinting detects intros across episodes automatically. One tap to skip — no subscription required.

Seek Preview Thumbnails

Scrub through any file and see exactly where you are. Trickplay sprites generated automatically — free, not behind a paywall.

Native TV Apps

Apple TV and Android TV apps built with native playback engines, D-pad navigation, and full HDR support. Not a web wrapper.

GPU Transcoding, No Paywall

Intel QSV, NVIDIA NVENC, AMD VAAPI, Apple VideoToolbox. Full hardware acceleration included for every user.

Discover & Request

Browse trending content and request new movies or shows directly from the app. Built-in Seerr integration — no extra setup.

Smart Metadata

TMDB, TVDB, Trakt, and MDBList enrichment. Artwork, cast, ratings, and subtitles fetched and organized automatically.

Ahead-of-Time Optimization

Pre-transcode your library for instant playback on any device. A smart coverage matrix builds the minimum set of variants needed.

Backup & Restore

Scheduled backups with retention policies. Download archives, upload them to a new server, restore with one click.

Multi-User Profiles

Separate watch progress, language preferences, and library permissions per user. Invite-only registration with role-based access.

Private by Default

No ads. No data selling. No cloud account required. Telemetry is opt-out and transparent. Your server, your rules.

See it in action

Screenshots from the current development build.

Deploy in minutes

If you've run a Docker container before, you're good.

docker-compose.yml

services:
  dubby:
    image: dubbytv/dubby:beta
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      - BETTER_AUTH_SECRET=${BETTER_AUTH_SECRET}
      - REDIS_URL=redis://valkey:6379
    volumes:
      - ./data:/data           # Config & database
      - /media:/media:ro       # Your media library
    depends_on:
      - valkey

  valkey:
    image: valkey/valkey:latest

Copy the compose file. Add a .env with your secret.

Run docker compose up

Open localhost:3000

How Dubby compares

A quick look at where things stand across the major media servers.

Yes Partial No

Feature	Dubby	Plex	Emby	Jellyfin
Free for local use
No ads or tracking
Privacy by default
Open source
Modern, polished UI
Adaptive playback engine
HDR & Dolby Vision
HDR tone-mapping (free)
HW transcoding included
Trickplay previews (free)
Skip intro (free)
Native TV apps
Media requests built-in
Ahead-of-time optimization
Podcast support
Backup & restore
Prometheus monitoring

Comparison accurate as of March 2026. Hover cells with a cursor for details. Features may change as all projects evolve.

Self-hosted streaming, built with care.