Show HN: Kahawai – An open source, modular media system
16 hours ago
- Kahawai is a self-hosted media server for streaming your own movies, series, anime, and music, with per-stream playback decisions (direct play, remux, audio-only, or full transcode) based on client capabilities.
- It never touches media files; it uses measured capabilities from clients (not device model tables) to select the stream that needs the least processing.
- Supports hardware acceleration (VA-API, Quick Sync, NVENC, V4L2, VideoToolbox) with dry-run trust checks, and HDR tone-mapping to SDR on GPU.
- Handles complex subtitles: ASS/SSA with typesetting and embedded fonts, PGS/VobSub as overlays or OCR, with burn-in as last resort.
- Architecture allows separate hub, mediahost, and transcoder roles; mediahosts and transcoders dial out to the hub, working behind NAT without port forwarding.
- Uses SQLite for state, no external databases or accounts required; media roots are mounted read-only and never written to.
- Supports rich metadata for anime (AniDB, AniList, fansub naming conventions, ED2K hashes) and music (EBU R 128 loudness normalization).
- Web interface is compiled into the server binary; public versioned API with OpenAPI 3.2 contract.
- Installation via Docker (preferred), macOS, or Arch Linux AUR; supports one-command doctor to list hardware capabilities.
- Compared to Jellyfin/Plex/Emby: Kahawai is pre-release with foundational differences, not a drop-in replacement.