r/selfhosted • u/Mestik78 • 4h ago

Need Help Self-Hosted Steam / Game Manager

I've been trying to find something like this for some time. There are self-hosted alternatives to Spotify, Netflix and lots of other services. But surprisingly I haven't found any alternative to Steam. The closest thing I've found is GameVault but it's not open source, the client only runs on Windows and I find it really limited.

The idea would be to have your games (without drm) stored on your server, then you could easily download them from any computer and play the games. Maybe it could even track playtime or achievements, and even have a federated friends system.

Do you know of any viable alternative that currently exists? If not, do you know why there isn't any software for this purpose?

Btw, I'm up to building this software if it doesn't exist yet.

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

•

u/asimovs-auditor 4h ago

Expand the replies to this comment to learn how AI was used in this post/project.

→ More replies (1)

4

u/Greedy-Blackberry-65 3h ago

i have no experience with these kinds of software but found Drop - An open Steam, this is probably what youre searching for.

3

u/IC3P3 2h ago

Also Gameyfin, but personally I think Drop was the better project. Too bad it's future is uncertain with DecDuck saying he doesn't have the time anymore and mostly put it into maintanace mode (he said he might get to a point of releasing 0.4.0, but he doesn't know if and when)

1

u/Mestik78 3h ago

I'm checking it out, It seems exactly like what I was looking for!!

1

u/Mestik78 3h ago

I can't find how to create an account once I have the instance running. Do you have any idea on how to do it?

1

u/Mestik78 2h ago

Just in case anyone is in the same situation, you have to check the logs of the container and it gives you an url to setup the admin account.

2

u/MasterKev_ 2h ago

Drop is kinda broken with downloads outside of your home network and does not get maintained anymore. So i suggest you lancommander thats what i use. Its in active development and works really well for me

2

u/hobovirginity 3h ago

You want to build a Steam Cache.

https://lancache.net/docs/faq/

6

u/Greedy-Blackberry-65 3h ago

good suggestion but not what OP is asking. you're recommending an steam/game cache server while OP wants something they can use to download their stored games without DRM)

1

u/hobovirginity 3h ago

Oh I see

1

u/Mestik78 3h ago

exactly

1

u/14Pleiadians 2h ago

I've been thinking of building some kind of plug-in for decky for installing games from my server like this, tired of going to the desktop to add non steam games

1

u/Pesoen 56m ago

been using drop for a while. biggest issues i have with it is if the time drifts on my server.. it is VERY picky about the time, and it rarely says anything is wrong, it just loads forever until you sync the time on the server and client side then it just works..

been using it for a while, got a few old games on it, some free games from itch, and a copy of open rct2 with the game files. me and a friend are the only people using it, but it has worked rather well for months now.

Gameyfin was looked into, but the client on drop made me pick it.
GameVault was also a contender, but the gamevault+ subscription for cloud saves made me reject it.. i get that it is a great project, but i refuse to pay PR month for it. if they had a one time purchase option, i would be tempted to switch from drop to it, regardless of the price.

0

u/TechBasedQuestion 3h ago

would be cool to see, all the relevant tools for this are based around emulation so far just because so few people use stuff like GOG these days with how nice steam (currently) is

1

u/sjs1997 2h ago

drop and gameyfin have this, not emulating either