About Phlix
Open-source media, on your terms. Built by self-hosters, for self-hosters.
Our Philosophy
Phlix exists because we believe your media should stay on your hardware. No subscriptions, no mandatory cloud, no watching your viewing habits being monetized.
We built it in PHP because that's what we know, and because PHP runs everywhere. Workerman gives us true async I/O without the complexity of Node.js or the overhead of Java.
The plugin system uses semantic versioning and a clear contract — so your plugins keep working across upgrades, and third-party developers can build with confidence.
How We Compare
| Phlix | Plex | Jellyfin | Emby | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| License | BSD-3 | Proprietary | GPL v2 | Proprietary |
| Self-hostable | ✓ 100% | Partial | ✓ 100% | Partial |
| Plugin system | ✓ Versioned contract | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hub/remote access | ✓ Self-hostable | ✓ ( subscription) | ✗ | ✓ ( subscription) |
| Tech stack | PHP 8.3+ / Workerman | .NET | C# / .NET | C# / .NET |
License
Phlix is BSD-3-Clause licensed. That means you're free to use it, modify it, build on it, and even sell it — as long as you preserve the copyright notices.
The license is intentionally permissive. We want Phlix to be a foundation, not a constraint.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — same job, different stack. Phlix is built in PHP 8.3+ on Workerman, ships with a versioned plugin contract, and includes a hub for accessing remote servers behind NAT without a third-party tunnel.
No. Run Phlix on your LAN and use the Phlix Hub's reverse-tunnel relay to reach it from your phone or Roku at a friend's house. You can self-host the hub, or use the public one.
Anything FFmpeg can read. Direct play when the client supports it; transcoded HLS otherwise. Per-device quality profiles pick the right bitrate automatically.
Yes — React Native, available on iOS and Android. Currently in beta.
Yes. Implement LifecycleInterface, ship a manifest, drop it in the plugins directory. See phlix-plugin-example for the smallest working starter.
BSD-3-Clause across the board.
Get in Touch
Questions, bug reports, feature requests — we track everything on GitHub. Pull requests welcome.