In development · Installed software
Free-WAN
Your media library, on your hardware, reachable from anywhere — with no port forwarded and nothing exposed.
People who own their files and would like to keep it that way.
- Built on
- TypeScript + Docker
- Runs locally
- On hardware you already own
- History
- 115 commits, in the open record
What it is
A self-hosted media server for video and image libraries spread across many drives. It runs locally in Docker and is reachable from anywhere over Tailscale — no port forwarding, no cloud, no subscription.
Browser-native video direct-plays; anything else is transcoded to HLS on the fly. The library is unified across drives with full-text search and faceted filtering, categorised automatically from your folder structure, and fully brandable.
Capabilities
What it actually does.
People who own their files and would like to keep it that way.
Adaptive playback
Adaptive playback — direct play where possible, on-the-fly HLS transcoding where not
Unified searchable library
Unified searchable library spanning multiple drives, auto-categorised from folder structure
Embedded and sidecar subtitles
Embedded and sidecar subtitles, playback speed, and resume-where-you-left-off
Reachable anywhere
Reachable anywhere over Tailscale with no ports forwarded
How it works
3 moves, end to end.
This is how Free-WAN works, not a set of steps you can follow yet — it is in development and not distributed.
Install it
Free-WAN runs on your machine. There is no account to make and no service to depend on.
Point it at your work
It reads what you already have, in the formats you already keep it in.
Keep the result
Output stays where you put it. Nothing is uploaded to make the feature work.
Specification
Made of, and made when.
Read from the repository at build time rather than typed onto a marketing page.
- State
- In development
- Discipline
- Applications
- Shape
- Installed software
- Started
- Jun 2026
- Last change
- Aug 2026
- Commits
- 115
- TypeScript
- Docker
- ffmpeg
- HLS
- Tailscale
- TypeScript 95%
- JavaScript 5%
Related work
Built alongside Free-WAN
Next
Get Free-WAN
Ask about availability, a build for your platform, or a licence.