this post was submitted on 10 May 2026
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Hello all! I have never selfhosted before, but I have a pretty extensive digital library of videogames (ROMs from a couple dozen retro systems among other executables) that my friends have expressed interested in having access. What's the ideal software for giving them access to the library hosted on my drives? I'm picturing something like a selfhosted Steam where they see all of the games and can search via retro system, game tags, by name, etc. and each of could keep track of separate user accounts by playtime, favorites, recently played, etc. I use RetroArch and a few standalone emulators myself connected to RetroAchievements, so I figured they would need to download any emulators on their ends and then just pick and play the games as they see fit without having to have their own copies of the games.

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[–] ArchEngel@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Gameyfin might be close to what you are looking for, my friends and I use it for our DRM free games.

[–] WR5@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Does this work with both retro games (ROMs) in addition to modern games?

[–] ArchEngel@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Its much closer to a Dropbox/google cloud folder with game installers in it than it is to some of the other suggestions.

Like Steam or Epic or GOG, you click download, and it downloads the game files and installer, which you can then use to play the game.

So in the case of ROMs you would be better off with the other options, as this would just download the ROM file, and you would then have to figure out your own emulation situation from there.

[–] WR5@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

Ah okay gotcha. It's still a pretty nice user interface for them to browse and download so it may be a good option for native games rather than emulated. Thank you for the suggestion!

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

That sounds like exactly what I've been looking for for a while. Thank you!