Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Mux Video

PeerTube is a free and decentralized video hosting and streaming platform designed as an alternative to centralized video services. It lets anyone run their own instance while still connecting to a wider network through federation, so videos and creators can be discovered across servers.

Key Features

• ActivityPub federation for following accounts and sharing videos across instances
• WebRTC-based P2P video delivery to reduce server bandwidth usage
• Video uploading, channels, subscriptions, comments, and tagging
• Live streaming support (including permanent streams)
• Embeddable web player and RSS feeds for channels and videos
• Instance customization and administration tools, with community-controlled moderation

Use Cases

• Hosting a community or organization video platform without relying on a central provider
• Publishing and federating creator channels across the Fediverse
• Live streaming events while offloading delivery with P2P-assisted streaming

PeerTube combines independent hosting with federation, enabling a network of interoperable video platforms. It is well-suited for communities that want control over moderation, discovery, and infrastructure while remaining connected to a broader ecosystem.

MediaCMS is an open source video and media content management system for building a branded media portal with uploading, organization, playback, and sharing features. It combines a Django-based backend and a modern web UI, and is designed for teams that need control over media workflows and permissions.

Key Features

• Supports multiple media types: video, audio, images, and PDF
• Publishing workflows for public, private, unlisted, and custom visibility
• Role-based access control (RBAC) with groups and per-media permissions
• Adaptive streaming with HLS and multi-profile transcoding for multiple resolutions
• Enhanced web player with playback speed and quality selection
• Chunked, resumable uploads for large media files
• Video editing tools such as trimming and segment creation
• Subtitles/closed captions support, including multilingual subtitle files
• Search with live search experience plus organization via categories, tags, and playlists
• REST API for integrations and automation

Use Cases

• Internal or sensitive media portals for organizations that cannot use public platforms
• Educational video libraries for schools and universities
• Community or member portals with curated playlists and controlled access

Limitations and Considerations

• Video transcoding and HLS generation can be resource-intensive and may require careful capacity planning
• Some advanced capabilities (for example transcription) depend on external components and integrations

MediaCMS is a solid choice for creating a private or public media platform with modern playback, flexible publishing workflows, and strong permission controls. It fits well for small to medium portals and can scale with the right transcoding and storage setup.

OvenMediaEngine (OME) is a low-latency live streaming server designed for large-scale, high-definition delivery. It can ingest live inputs via multiple broadcast protocols, optionally transcode them, and deliver streams to viewers using WebRTC and Low-Latency HLS.

Key Features

• Multi-protocol ingest and pull, including WebRTC, SRT, RTMP, RTSP, and MPEG-2 TS
• Sub-second playback via WebRTC and low-latency delivery via LL-HLS
• Embedded live transcoder with adaptive bitrate (ABR) output
• Origin-edge clustering model for scalable deployments
• DVR (live rewind), file recording, and dump-to-VOD workflows
• WebRTC signaling over WebSocket and support for WebRTC over TCP with embedded TURN
• Access control features including signed policies and admission webhooks
• Monitoring and REST API for automation and operational integration

Use Cases

• Low-latency interactive live events and auctions using WebRTC playback
• Large-scale live broadcasting with ABR output and edge distribution
• Streaming platform backends that need to accept RTMP/SRT and deliver LL-HLS/WebRTC

Limitations and Considerations

• Some advanced capabilities (for example certain DRM workflows) may require careful client/player compatibility and licensing considerations
• Operational tuning (ports, UDP reachability, TURN behavior, origin-edge topology) is important to achieve consistent sub-second latency

OvenMediaEngine is well-suited for teams building their own live streaming infrastructure where ultra-low latency and protocol flexibility are key. It combines ingest, transcoding, and delivery in one server to simplify building scalable real-time streaming services.

Edit Mind is a local-first video indexer that analyzes your video library with AI to generate rich metadata and embeddings for semantic search. It helps you find specific moments by querying spoken words, detected objects, faces, and more, then jump to or export matching scenes.

Key Features

• Automated video ingestion via watched folders and background job processing
• AI analysis including transcription, object/text detection, face recognition, and scene-level metadata
• Multi-modal embeddings (text, visual, audio) stored in a vector database for similarity search
• Natural-language query understanding to retrieve relevant videos and scenes
• Web interface to browse results, preview scenes, and export/stitch clips
• Supports multiple AI backends, including local models and Ollama (plus optional cloud NLP)

Use Cases

• Search personal or team video archives for specific topics, people, or moments
• Quickly locate key scenes for editing, highlights, and compilations
• Build “smart collections” that auto-group videos by semantic criteria

Limitations and Considerations

• Actively developed and not yet production-ready; features may be incomplete and bugs can occur
• AI analysis can be compute-intensive and may require significant CPU/GPU resources for large libraries

Edit Mind fits creators and teams who want privacy-preserving, searchable video libraries without relying on external hosting. Its pipeline approach and vector search make it especially useful for finding precise moments across large collections.

MistServer is a full-featured open-source streaming media toolkit for OTT, live and VOD workflows. It provides a modular controller-based architecture, a web management interface and an API for automation and integration.

Key Features

• Broad protocol support for ingest and egress including HLS (CMAF/TS), MPEG-DASH, RTMP, RTSP, SRT, RIST and WebRTC for low-latency delivery.
• Wide container and codec compatibility (MP4, MKV, TS, FLV; H.264, H.265/HEVC, AV1, VP8/VP9 and common audio codecs) with configurable transmuxing and live MP4/recording options.
• Low-latency capabilities via WebRTC (including WHIP/WHEP variants), SRT and LL-HLS plus options for segmenting/transmuxing for different player targets.
• Modular runtime: MistController discovers and runs Mist* binaries, web UI listens on port 4242 and a programmable API and trigger system enable automation and integration.
• Built for building from source with Meson/Ninja; optional ffmpeg integration for encoding/transcoding processes and optional libsrt/librist support; official Docker assets and prebuilt binaries are provided.

(mistserver.org)

Use Cases

• OTT streaming platform: multi-protocol delivery (HLS/DASH) for adaptive bitrate delivery to browsers, mobile apps and set-top boxes.
• Ultra/low-latency streaming and preview: WebRTC, SRT or RIST for real-time monitoring, remote production and interactive streams.
• VOD hosting and live-to-VOD workflows: on-the-fly transmuxing, recording to MP4/MKV/TS and integration with storage and analytics pipelines.

Limitations and Considerations

• Feature variance between editions: the open-source edition omits several Pro features (DRM, some access-control features, certain recording/analytics/process tools), so production needs requiring DRM or enterprise support should verify edition capabilities.

(mistserver.org)

MistServer is practical for developers and integrators who need a flexible, protocol-rich media server with programmatic control and multiple output formats. It is optimized for Linux-based deployments and provides tooling for compilation, container deployment and integration.

Subatic is a lightweight video hosting and streaming platform designed for deployable, S3-compatible object storage backends. It separates upload storage, transcoding, and metadata (PostgreSQL) so instances can scale and integrate with existing object stores or MinIO.

Key Features

• Uploads raw files to S3-compatible object storage (MinIO or other S3 endpoints)
• Transcoding pipeline that produces HLS-friendly output (separate transcoder component)
• Uses PostgreSQL for video metadata and state
• Docker Compose based deployment with health checks and service dependencies
• Webhook notifications and shared webhook token for transcoder integration
• Optional SQS support for processing queues and job orchestration
• Configurable analytics integrations (Umami, Plausible, Google Analytics toggles)
• Configurable max file size, CORS considerations for cloud object stores

Use Cases

• Internal company or team video portal for training, demos, and documentation videos
• Public or private self-hosted alternative to hosted video platforms for cost control
• Lightweight media backend that integrates with S3-compatible storage and CDN caching

Limitations and Considerations

• Transcoding is handled by a separate transcoder component; full streaming requires deploying both services
• Documentation and advanced deployment guides are limited in places and may require manual configuration for production hardening
• Focuses on HLS output; other streaming formats (e.g., DASH) are not a primary feature

Subatic is suited for users who need a simple, modular video hosting stack that integrates with S3-compatible storage and standard streaming workflows. It prioritizes a minimal architecture that can be extended with external storage, queuing, and CDN layers.

ClipBucket V5 is an open-source PHP script that lets you launch a self-hosted video sharing site (a YouTube/Netflix clone) within minutes. It supports playlists, collections, private messages, and multi-language interfaces, with built-in video processing and a modern admin UI.

Key Features

• UHD 4K video resolutions and HLS conversion
• TMDB integration for metadata
• Chromecast support
• Subtitles and multi-language support
• Multi-server hosting and database update system
• AI NSFW check
• Visual comments editor
• Easy installation scripts and translations
• Remote play

Use Cases

• Build a self-hosted video sharing site for a media team with user channels, playlists, and collections
• Create a private organizational video portal with multilingual support and social features
• Offer a self-hosted video/photo site for a school, business, or community with Docker-based deployment options

Limitations and Considerations

• There have been security advisories in 2025; patches were released in version 5.5.2 to address CVE-2025-62709, CVE-2025-65113. Always upgrade to the latest release
• Running media-heavy sites requires substantial server resources (storage, CPU, bandwidth); Docker-based deployments are supported and recommended for easier management

Conclusion: ClipBucket V5 is actively maintained as a self-hosted video platform with modern features (4K/HLS, multi-language, TMDB integration, subtitles, Chromecast). Proper hosting setup and timely security updates are essential to maintain a robust deployment.

tube is a lightweight YouTube-like video sharing server focused on simple self-hosting and minimal dependencies. It serves videos from one or more folders, supports uploads, and can automatically transcode content for broad browser compatibility.

Key Features

• File-based video library (no database); metadata can be read from media files and optional sidecar files
• Built-in uploader with optional password protection for uploads
• Automatic transcoding using FFmpeg to MP4 (H.264 video / AAC audio), with optional additional lower-quality renditions
• Automatic thumbnail generation
• Multiple library locations/collections with configurable URL prefixes
• RSS feed generation for the video library
• Minimal frontend with no required JavaScript for playback; customizable HTML templates and CSS

Use Cases

• Personal or small-community video hosting without relying on third-party platforms
• Publishing videos with an RSS feed for subscribers
• Hosting a simple “drop files in a folder” media library with optional uploads and automatic transcoding

Limitations and Considerations

• Transcoding relies on FFmpeg and can be CPU-intensive; large uploads require appropriate timeout and size limits
• Output is primarily targeted at MP4 H.264/AAC; alternative codecs may require customization or contributions

tube is well-suited for users who want a straightforward video sharing experience with automatic processing and a simple operational model. Its file-based approach keeps deployment and maintenance lightweight while still providing core features expected from a basic video platform.

FileFlows is a self-hosted, visual workflow automation tool focused on processing files—commonly media—based on events like new/changed files in watched folders. It lets you build flows (pipelines) that analyze, transform, move, and notify, using a library of reusable nodes and tools.

Key Features

• Visual flow builder for creating file-processing pipelines (node/graph based)
• Watch folders and triggers to automatically run flows on new or modified files
• Media-centric processing steps (e.g., transcode/remux, probe/inspect media)
• Integration with external tools (commonly FFmpeg) via dedicated nodes/scripts
• Conditional logic and routing (decisions, branching, filtering)
• Central dashboard for job history, status, and troubleshooting
• Runs as a server with workers/nodes to scale processing across machines

Use Cases

• Automatically transcode and standardize video libraries when new files arrive
• Validate, rename, and organize downloads into a consistent folder structure
• Generate derivatives (e.g., lower-bitrate versions) and route outputs to storage

Limitations and Considerations

• Feature set is oriented toward file/media pipelines; it’s not a general-purpose iPaaS
• Effective use typically requires familiarity with media tooling (e.g., FFmpeg) and codecs

FileFlows fits teams and home labs that want repeatable, automated processing for incoming files with a visual pipeline approach. It’s especially useful for media libraries where consistent encoding, structure, and automated handling reduce manual work.