Ryot vs Watcharr
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted media servers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Ryot | Watcharr |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 88 · Excellent | 84 · Excellent |
| Category | Media Servers | Media Servers |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | TypeScript | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,606 | ★ 1,514 |
| First released | 2023 | 2023 |
| Replaces | Trakt, Goodreads | Trakt, Letterboxd |
What are Ryot and Watcharr?
Ryot
Ryot is a self-hosted application for tracking everything you consume, including movies, TV shows, video games, books, podcasts, and fitness. It provides a unified dashboard with metadata from many providers.
- Tracks many media categories
- Unified consumption dashboard
- Fitness tracking included
- Multiple metadata sources
Watcharr
Watcharr is a self-hosted watched list and tracking application for movies, TV shows, anime, and games. It tracks viewing progress and ratings with data from TMDB and IGDB through a clean web interface.
- Movie and TV watch tracking
- Ratings and reviews
- TMDB and IGDB metadata
- Multi-user support
Ryot vs Watcharr: key differences
Ryot is written in TypeScript, while Watcharr is built with Go. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Ryot versus MIT for Watcharr. Watcharr is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Ryot. Ryot has the considerably larger community, at 3,606 GitHub stars versus 1,514.
Why pick each one
Choose Ryot if…
- Very broad tracking
- Active development
Watch out for
- Not a media player
- Setup has options to learn
Choose Watcharr if…
- Clean modern UI
- Tracks many media types
Watch out for
- Tracking only, no playback
- Younger project
Frequently asked questions
Is Ryot or Watcharr better?
Neither is universally better. Ryot has the larger community, while Watcharr is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Ryot and Watcharr free and open-source?
Yes. Ryot is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Watcharr under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Ryot and Watcharr with Docker?
Ryot: yes. Watcharr: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Ryot or Watcharr?
Watcharr has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Ryot. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.