Cardinal Account

Cardinal Accounts (also called "cloud accounts") are the social bridge between Media Server's, and the gateway to all of Cardinal's cloud services. Accounts are free to create and use, and optional paid subscriptions are available that unlock capabilities in your self-hosted apps, and grant you access to Cardinal's other cloud services.

Using a Cardinal Account is entirely optional, and you can use local accounts instead. However, users that use a free or paid cloud account will benefit from these fundamental improvements to their apps:

Stronger Authentication for Your Apps

Using a Cardinal Account enables stronger authentication security for your apps. The cloud authentication paradigm means that your Media Server is relieved of credential management duties, so that you don't have to worry about how passwords are stored or how your users will get their password reset emails.

You'll also have the full power of Cardinal's cloud security infrastructure on your side, enabling multiple extra security layers designed to detect and block bad users. There is a lot that happens when a user clicks the Login with Cardinal button, and it's all designed to keep your data safe.

Social Gateway

(The features described in this section are currently in development).

You can use a single Cardinal Account across all of the Media Server's that you are invited to, allowing you to build a cross-server identity. Whether you're streaming from your server or theirs, your Watch Together chat messages will look exactly the same.

Secure Sharing

(The features described in this section are currently in development).

Sharing your content from your self-hosted applications has traditionally been challenging, requiring configuring firewalls, forwarding ports, and configuring whitelists. When you use a Cardinal Account, you can take advantage of Cardinal's cloud services to securely share your media using trusted relay servers.