Sunshine | LizardByte
A LizardByte project
Categories:
Sunshine is a self-hosted game stream host for Moonlight clients, allowing gamers to stream games from their powerful PC to phones, tablets, TVs, and more with low latency and no cloud fees.
🚀 Overview
Sunshine, developed by LizardByte, transforms your gaming PC into a personal cloud gaming server. It pairs seamlessly with Moonlight clients across devices like Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Xbox, and others, delivering high-quality, low-latency streams right to your screen wherever you are.
This project solves the issues of costly cloud gaming subscriptions, limited game libraries, privacy concerns, and dependency on third-party services by enabling fully self-hosted streaming on your own hardware. It supports hardware encoding from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia GPUs for optimal performance, with software encoding as a fallback.
Built for gamers and tech enthusiasts who value control, open-source software, and the freedom to play their full library anywhere without compromises.
✨ Key Features
- Self-hosted game streaming: Run on your own hardware—no monthly fees to cloud providers.
- Hardware encoding support: AMD (AMF), Intel (QuickSync), Nvidia (NVENC) GPUs for low-latency performance; software encoding available.
- Web UI configuration: Easy setup, client pairing, and management from any browser on local or remote devices.
- Broad compatibility: Works with Moonlight clients on PCs, mobiles, consoles (Xbox, Switch, etc.), TVs, and more.
- Controller emulation: Emulates Xbox, PlayStation, Switch controllers for flexible input.
- Cross-platform: Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD; Docker support.
Optional: Ongoing developments include audio enhancements, fractional framerates, and platform-specific optimizations.
🛠 Tech Stack
- Frontend: Vue.js, HTML/CSS/JS (web configuration UI)
- Backend: C++ (core server and streaming)
- Build: CMake, Shell scripts
- Platforms: Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD
- Container: Docker
- Auth: None (PIN-based client pairing)
- Hosting: Self-hosted
👥 Who Is This For?
This project is useful for:
- Gamers with high-end PCs wanting to stream to multiple devices without subscriptions
- Self-hosting enthusiasts building private cloud gaming setups
- Moonlight users needing a robust, open-source streaming host
📸 Screenshots / Demo
- Live demo: N/A (requires self-hosting and installation)
- GitHub: https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine
- Project page: https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine
🔥 Project Status
- 🟢 Actively building
Last updated: 2026-03-24
❓ FAQ
Is this project free?
Open Source (yes, GPL-3.0). Free to download, use, and modify. Donations appreciated via Patreon or PayPal.
Is the source code available?
Yes — https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine
Can I contribute?
Yes—file issues or PRs on GitHub, contribute translations via CrowdIn, or join discussions in the support channels. See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.
📬 Contact & Links
- Website: https://app.lizardbyte.dev/Sunshine
- GitHub: https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/LizardByteDev
- Email: N/A (use GitHub/discussions)
- Docs: https://docs.lizardbyte.dev/projects/sunshine/en/latest/
- Support: https://docs.lizardbyte.dev/latest/about/support.html
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