The Media Server is the heart of the Cardinal ecosystem, and powers all of your self-hosted apps.

Features

Get all Cardinal apps for free with Cardinal Media Server. Comes with a dashboard and everything needed to run your apps. No sign up required.

For audiophiles and casuals alike, with a set of features that long time music collectors will love.

Collect, curate, and rediscover your music every day with Cardinal Music's modern interface and powerful audio playback features.

Made to handle the era of camera ubiquity, and the lifetime of photographs that comes with it.

Archive a lifetime of photographs, and keep them safe from prying eyes. Only you can be trusted as the keeper of your photos and videos.

Embrace your inner projectionist and never worry about your favourite show leaving again.

Take back the future of movie and TV streaming in your home, and get that familiar online streaming experience for your own media.

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](https://cardinalapps.io/pricing) 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.

Information on how Cloud Accounts integrate with your Media Server.

Use a Cardinal Account

Secure authentication, and cloud gateway for your self-hosted Cardinal apps.

Cloud Services

Pricing Q&A

Early Adoption Phase

Login with Cardinal

Create a free cloud account for access to Cardinal's cloud services in your self-hosted apps.

Local Accounts

Local accounts allow you to access your Media Server's offline features.

Admin Dashboard

Includes a powerful web dashboard for operating your Media Server.

RBAC

Includes a Role-Based Access Control layer so you can control exactly what your users can access.

Media File Indexing

Index your music, photos, movie, and TV files without having to change your folder structure.

Libraries

Create libraries on the fly, and browse your media in slices that are more meaningful to you.

Open API

Ships with an open, documented API that your own apps can integrate with.

Explore Your Music

Browse artists, releases, and tracks. Sort, reorder, and filter. All with a modern, fast web UI.

Photo archive

Use a powerful interface to scrub through decades of photographs.

Your own theater

Enjoy your own movies & TV with that familiar online streaming experience.

Smart suggestions

Get better suggestions over time as Cardinal Music adapts to your listening habits.

Music Artists

Browse and filter the music artists in your Media Server.

Music Releases

Browse and filter the music releases in your Media Server.

Music Tracks

Browse and filter the music tracks in your Media Server.

Playlists

Make playlists for any occasion, and get smart playlist suggestions.

Playback history

Keep a complete history of everything you've listened to.

Genres

Browse and play your music according to genre.

Forum Badge

Get a forum badge with your subscription.

Self-Hosted Apps

Cardinal is free to use; no account required.

Relay access

Avoid exposing your Media Server to the internet by using Cardinal's secure relay servers.

Privacy First

Stay off the grid, or opt into Cardinal's cloud services. The choice is yours.

Web scale at home

Designed around being container-first, with plug-and-play support for PostgreSQL.

Modern web apps

Comes bundled with the Music, Photos, and Cinema web apps.

Collections

Group your movies & TV by series and saga to browse by collection.

Custom TV channels

Create and manage custom TV channels, each with their own program lineup.

Face detection

Free, as in free beer

There is no cost to use Cardinal's self-hosted apps. They are yours to use for free, forever.

HEIC support

View HEIC photos on any device, even ones that don't support the format natively.

No Ads

Your apps will never contain ads. Enjoy clean, crisp interfaces without annoying distractions.

No signup needed

Cardinal's cloud accounts are optional, and you have access to all of the features without one.

OCR support

Use optical character recognition to make text in photos searchable.

Photo albums

Favourites

One click keeps all your favourites nearby.

Transcoding

Transcode your video and audio for greater client device support.

Use your photos from Google Photos

Cardinal fully supports the format exported by Google Takeout, so that you can make the move.

Pricing

Cardinal is free to use; no account required.

Pricing Q&A

Why purchase while features are still in development?

Is technical support available?