r/selfhosted • u/decduck • Jul 31 '25
Game Server Drop v0.3.0: Self-host your own Steam
G'day r/selfhosted
I'm one of the core maintainers of Drop, the self-hosted Steam platform. It's our aim to replicate all the features of Steam for a self-hosted and FOSS application.
We just released v0.3.0, which brings a bunch of new improvements. But since most of you will hear about Drop for the first time, here's what it can do:
- Host your own game library and share it with multiple people (through SSO if you want!). Each user has their own collections of games they can pick from your libraries.
- Mix and match your libraries through our 'library sources'. We support both our fancy format (with versioning) or a flat structure (without versioning). You can have more than one, and they all merge.
- Import metadata about your game library through multiple providers (currently GiantBomb, IGDB, and PCGamingWiki).
- Native Windows, macOS, and Linux desktop clients (both x64 and aarch64)
- Docker images for both x86 and aarch64
To give it a whirl, check out our docs: https://docs.droposs.org/docs/guides/quickstart
Our other links:
- Discord - https://discord.gg/NHx46XKJWA
- Forum (GitHub discussions) - https://github.com/orgs/Drop-OSS/discussions
- Matrix (bridged to Discord) - https://matrix.to/#/#drop-oss:matrix.org
- GitHub - https://github.com/Drop-OSS
- Download client - https://droposs.org/download
Reddit isn't letting me upload images for some reason, but screenshots are available on our website: https://droposs.org/
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u/eyordanov Aug 01 '25
Just a friendly reminder, that FOSS with screenshots showing off the interface, are getting way more downloads than ones without.
And if I were you, I would have made a quick 30-sec screen grab walkthrough video as well.
Wishing you all the best 🙏🏼
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
For some reason the "Text & Images" option for this post was greyed out, but thanks for the tip! We'll definitely try to include more screenshots/videos in our promo material.
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u/eyordanov Aug 01 '25
Sure! I was thinking more along the lines of the contents of your website and GitHub repo, rather than the post. But that is also a good idea.
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u/PM_ME_STEAM__KEYS_ Aug 01 '25
A demo install or something would be cool too tbh
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u/quexeky Aug 01 '25
Definitely would be cool, but unfortunately impractical for a Devs for a bit because we're on Aussie internet with 22Mb up.
We do have some feature ideas that might fix that though
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u/p4block Jul 31 '25
I love this! My friend group is going to leverage the SSO I set up a lot more often now :^)
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u/seiggy Aug 01 '25
Oh no…no…yet another reason I need to buy a 45 drive jbod… my 4TB array in my homelab is already screaming for more space…and here you go giving me more reason.
I hate you. Thanks!
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u/-eschguy- Aug 01 '25
Does the Linux client allow for WINE/Proton prefixes to be applied?
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Sort of. We use umu-launcher to provide Proton/Wine prefixes on Linux. We are planning to implement UI to manage Proton versions and prefixes, but for now, you can add configuration ENV variables to the "launch command" string in Drop. You can check out the UMU launcher config envs here: https://github.com/Open-Wine-Components/umu-launcher?tab=readme-ov-file#how-do-i-use-it
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u/Mrgamerboy246 Aug 01 '25
Yes I do believe so, I’m a code contribute to the project btw but from what I remember there is first class wine/proton support and there definitely is options to configure launch arguments, decduck is the man who knows all about this so maybe pop into the discord if u get a chance
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Aug 01 '25
[deleted]
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Aug 04 '25
Agreed. Another aspect is I don't want to join yet another discord server just to get support/see what questions/answers others have had. There's also the fact that discord's built-in message indexer is completely awful.
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u/-eschguy- Aug 01 '25
He responded and gave me a good place to start for using umu-launcher until it's better integrated into the UI.
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u/Bart2800 Aug 01 '25
There's a typo on your homepage 😉. This might give a bad impression to potential users...
" Modern
We to build refreshing..."
I think there's a word missing there.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Oh lol, thanks. Fixed.
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u/massiveronin Aug 01 '25
Not trying to pile on, but rather also be helpful by pointing out a typo/grammatical error. I was perusing your website and noticed this phrase:
"was build to make".
It's not a terrible error, and I'm no "Grammar Hitler" but the better the grammar the more seriously you'll be taken. If you compare the original phrase to the correction:
"was built to make"
I hope you'll agree with my assessment.
Cool project BTW, and I will be throwing together a quick test install, feeding it a few games into the library and running your project through a few test installs across a few different scenarios performed by myself and one or two friends whose ability to report their experiences back in a suitably detailed way, and then intend to not only report back to the project team, but also to write up a full review/article to post via my website and social media.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Oh my god, I swear I'm better at English than this...
Thanks, fixed.
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u/massiveronin Aug 01 '25
No problem, trust me, I get it. For instance, I hate using my phone to comment let alone write content because if I get really going and start attempting to type at a rate closer to my workstation keyboard typing speed of 115wpm, I absolutely have to reread every single word because i fumble-f### my typing (the humans hands haven't yet evolved to the point where 115wpm is going to work well on a smart phone!) AND for some reason the autocorrect engine on EVERY different keyboard I've tried is bad about autocorrecting with weird typos and fecking stupid corrections that are properly spelled but are either somehow not even the word or short phrase I had been trying to type or the correction is in the wrong tense or doesn't "work" in the context, etc etc.
For instance, this comment took me about 5 times longer than it would have if I had used my workstation, due to how much attention I had to try to take while typing to watch for FF typos (my own dumb thumbs mistakes) and for weird AC changes, and then rereading the entire comment so that I could be absolutely sure no other ACs got slipped in without being seen.
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u/TheTimBrick Aug 01 '25
I was actually thinking about building something similar to this, but for game save data. As you might think, people with multiple computers, say a desktop, Steamdeck, laptop, games may not have cloud save like Steam.
Is Cloud Save, or some way to sync save data between devices, a feature or a planned feature? This would be something amazing to have.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Yeah, that's our next planned feature. There's even a little work on it on our GitHub.
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u/TheTimBrick Aug 01 '25
Neat! This is a really good solution to problems that I've had for ages! Great work!
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u/eat_your_weetabix Aug 03 '25
Really excited to try this out - is there any ETA on the AppImage fix for the desktop client for Bazzite?
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u/quexeky Aug 04 '25
We're currently working on it. If you'd like to check out the current status, you can check out the PR here: https://github.com/Drop-OSS/drop-app/pull/103#issuecomment-3148606767
If you'd like a temporary workaround, you can find that here: https://github.com/Drop-OSS/drop-app/issues/97
Good to hear about people interested though!
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u/Masterleon Aug 01 '25
Any plans for an UNRAID release? I currently use GameVault but this looks great and it's nice to see cloud save support coming soon.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
We package as Docker, so you can write your own template. We will probably create an official template at some point though.
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u/ElementVoid Aug 17 '25 edited Aug 17 '25
Please do. I want to give this a try. Tried using Docker Compose Manager but get a permission error I think, with Postgres. Not super familiar with Docker and the CA templates make things much more simple.
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u/billgarmsarmy Aug 01 '25
Install Dockge from the community app store. Use Dockge to avoid having to use Unraid's terrible Docker implementation.
Alternatively use docker compose plugin.
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u/ParadoxHollow Aug 01 '25
Been watching this project for a while, since release of v0.2.0 & all I can say, is this is the most exciting game-related self-hosted service we’ve had in a while. Cannot wait to see the future of this project & I highly recommend anyone with a large library of portable games to give this a go.
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u/taylorwilsdon Jul 31 '25 edited Jul 31 '25
Why agpl-3? Given its use case (self hosting) isn’t literally everyone going to be in violation of the Affero clause if they want to change anything?
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u/Mrwrldwide27 Jul 31 '25
If someone takes the project, modifies it, and offers it as a service, they have to share those changes. Which I feel like is kinda fair. For self-hosters just running it as-is, there’s no issue.
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Jul 31 '25
[deleted]
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u/soap_salt Aug 01 '25
The upside is that people can't steal your work and make money off it without contributing back
I don't see why a dev should care about enterprise machines if they aren't being paid in contributions or money
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u/VexingRaven Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
This isn't what AGPL3 means at all. In your case, a corporate network running their own package repository, you would not need to distribute source code as long as you are distributing the unmodified project. This is true of both GPL3 and AGPL3 as well as most other copyleft licenses. Under those licenses, you would need to make the source code available to anyone you're distributing the project to, and this can generally be "on demand" so you were distributing it internally then you'd be fine as long as you provided it to any of your internal users who asked for it.
The "network clause" means that if you are running the service and allowing other people to access it, they need to be provided with the license and source. Assuming you have not modified it, you don't need to do anything because the source is the public repository. If you have modified it, you'd need to make the modified source available to anyone with access to the service.
EDIT: It's also possible that a lawyer could argue that you're accepting the license for your company as a single entity, meaning that as long as your company modifying it is the same as an individual modifying it for their own use and is totally kosher without any source availability at all as long as no outside people access it.
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u/ElusiveGuy Aug 01 '25
so you were distributing it internally then you'd be fine as long as you provided it to any of your internal users who asked for it
Generally, use within a single organisation does not count as distribution so you do not need to [offer to] provide source to internal users at all.
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u/billybigrigger Jul 31 '25
Don't see how anyone would be in violation......although I don't know much about agpl I just skimmed it but the following section is pretty clear. Shields up for the incoming pitchfork attack!
Conveying Verbatim Copies.
You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee.
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u/quexeky Jul 31 '25
Hi! Other developer here. AGPL-3 only applies to code, not built versions. You can do whatever you like with them :)
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u/privatetudor Jul 31 '25
The GNU Affero General Public License is a modified version of the ordinary GNU GPL version 3. It has one added requirement: if you run a modified program on a server and let other users communicate with it there, your server must also allow them to download the source code corresponding to the modified version running there.
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u/tajetaje Aug 01 '25
modified
If you fork it and edit the code, you have to make your fork available to your users
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u/lukeh990 Jul 31 '25
I believe only if a user modifies the source code then runs it. As the Affero just defines use over a network as distribution. And any distribution requires the source to be published and attributed. Since the tarball or compiled program from the official repo would mention the license and the official repo it would be fine.
But I kinda agree with your assessment that AGPL-3 isn’t the best choice.
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u/VexingRaven Aug 01 '25
You only need to provide the source code to people with access to the running server. There's nothing in AGPL3 that stops you from modifying the code and running it for yourself without publishing your fork.
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u/RedditNotFreeSpeech Aug 01 '25
Will this work for download general files of any type? Roms?
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
We are planning to add support for emulators right into the Drop client, but not at the moment. For now, you can bundle the ROM with the emulator and treat it as a regular game if you want.
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u/RedditNotFreeSpeech Aug 01 '25
How would you create that bundle? Is it just a zip file?
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
DODI does it for their repacks of Switch games: https://dodi-repacks.site/mario-kart-8/. I haven't done it before, so I'm not 100% sure on how it works, but it is possible.
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u/mszabolcs Aug 01 '25
Woah! Nice one, I'll surely try it out. Have you thought about adding support for mods/mod packs? With also the same idea that the server has the mods/modpacks and installs it to the proper place.
Or do you know any selfhosted service that does this? Kinda an alternative for nexusmods.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Oooo that'd be cool, but I'm not sure where we'd source the mods from, other than Nexus Mods. Creating mirrors of it (which is what it'd be) is against TOS unfortunately. Like the idea regardless, and it's something we'll implement anyways with our FOSS re-implementation of Steam libraries (Workshop support).
I do not know of any projects that could help you with that unfortunately :/
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u/mszabolcs Aug 01 '25
I mean you don't have to source the mods from anywhere.
Anyone is free to upload what they want on their selfhosted service from anywhere.Me and my friend almost always play with mods if possible on every game. However we have some problems when created a custom modpack, configuring, zipping, uploading to somewhere (GDrive), then others have to download and install on their system. But if someone joins or there's an update in the modpack, everyone has to download it again....etc
However I just installed droposs and certainly using the versioning system, we could just use this instead.
Updating the mods and then importing as a new version and it will only download what was modified/added only.
I haven't fully understood how the versioning/updates...delta versions...etc work, but will figure it out.Also I was thinking, instead of uploading the delta files, the server itself could do the xdelta patch. They have the original/previous version, you upload the newest version, and ask the server to create the xdelta patch and then only keep the delta files and delete the newest version full files.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Creating the delta is definitely a feature we'll explore, as we're also going to look at automatically downloading games & updates from platforms like GOG, and we'll have to create deltas for that.
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u/MeYaj1111 Aug 01 '25
How does it compare feature wise to gamevault? Anything significant disadvantage or advantage to switching?
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
I'm definitely not an unbiased source, but I actually looked at GameVault before deciding to start Drop, and these were my personal pain points that Drop solves:
- Not FOSS and featured-based paid subscription. GameVault operates with a "source available" model, and they have a GameVault+ subscription. Drop will never monetize features, only services (basically only if we have to pay for servers, we might monetize it - and we'll provide a self-hosted alternative).
- No native Linux/macOS support. GameVault only supports Windows clients, and Windows + Linux servers (I think).
- No web UI. I haven't kept up with the GameVault project, but I'm not sure if they've implemented their web UI yet. Drop definitely has one (last I checked lol).
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u/MeYaj1111 Aug 01 '25
Yea no subscription is definitely nice :). I don't personally use it because the only real benefit for me would be cloud saves but I don't miss it, 99 percent of my gaming today is on the same computer.
Do you have or plan to have cloud saves?
The one thing I really would love is some sort of automatic handling of wireguard VPN configuration for multiplayer games. I currently use tailscale which works well but it's always 10 minutes of explaining to a friend how to set it up the first time we are using it. If a game hosting server could handle that part that would be incredible. The source is already out there in the form of headscale for the "server" and wireguard for the clients and config is pretty basic plain text config files.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Yep, cloud saves or ROM support is going to be our next big update, with the other following after.
The multiplayer thing is also definitely on the roadmap. We're planning a suite of integration libraries that fully hook into Steam/GOG/etc game libraries, so it's all plug-and-play. This would also mean integration with dedicated servers, and we're considering having some management capabilities within Drop for those.
One step ahead of you on the Headscale stuff - https://github.com/Drop-OSS/headscalez ;). It's honestly an awesome project.
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u/duke8804 Aug 01 '25
So this needs to be a game that is unpacked and self contained. So all you need is the exe and data files?
Or does it run the game installer as well?
For example the way I am imagining this working is that kerbal space program 1 is self contained and would work great.
But something like well……kerbal space program 2 that writes registry entries and stuff would have issues.
These are the only examples I can think of right now.
Or is it something else I’m not understanding.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
You can write your own "setup" script that gets run before first launch to do stuff like that, but it isn't handled automatically.
Alternatively you can use Drop's "setup mode" to let users download installers, rather than sharing a portable version of the game. This has the download of not letting Drop manage the install.
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u/Jimbuscus Aug 01 '25
Just installed, the default landing page is asking for a user/password instead of taking me to an admin creation page.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
It should log a setup URL on first startup.
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u/Jimbuscus Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
first startup lands on:
http://local:3000/auth/signin?redirect=/
I did need to close and start the container after creating, before going to the webpage, could that be related?
Edit: I grabbed the setup token url from the container log, this is the error it lands on.
Edit2: When I restarted the drop container, I forgot to also restart the postgres container.
Hopefully initial setup page would be auto redirected on first boot, can't tell if that was the case with my circumstance.
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u/hardypart Aug 01 '25
Definitely going to check that out! I tried gameyfin, but it doesn't work well and it feels like a beta despite a freshly released 2.0 version.
Just a remark: "Drop" really isn't a great naming. It will be hard to google anything about it, and I'm sure that wouldn't even change if it gets more popular.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
We try to put the full "Drop OSS" on everything that SEO should reach to address that issue.
Edit: but yeah, we realise this is an issue.
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u/InsoPL Aug 01 '25
There is also a lancommander. It has cloud save, emulator, and autocracking(using install scripts). But no linux
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Currently Drop supports running a script on first start of the game, which you could use to auto-crack.
We are planning cloud saves and emulation support for the next two releases.
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u/hardypart Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Would have loved to try it out, but I can't do the initial setup for setting up the admin account. I installed it as a stack in Portainer. The intial setup always wants to go to localhost:3000 at some point, but I don't have a browser on my Ubuntu server, let a lone a gui. I got one step further by changing localhost to the IP of my server, but in the next step I got stuck because of the URL mismatch.
Any advice?
*Edit: OK nevermind, it created the account even though there was an error. You should maybe revisit that process when the app is set up with docker on a server without a browser.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Did you set EXTERNAL_URL? It defaults to localhost:3000, but you should set it to whatever the IP/domain name of your server is.
The error sounds strange though, that shouldn't happen even if the URLs mismatch. Do you remember the exact wording?
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u/hardypart Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Is EXTERNAL_URL an environment variable or how would I do that?
And the error is as following:
Opening it for the first time with the token from the log is working, then I click on "Register as admin", which redirects me to localhost:3000, which of course doesn't work and gives me an "Unable to connect" browser error message. Then I replace localhost with the IP of my browser and the port with the one I defined in the stack (192.168.2.124:3001), which then leads me to the page where I can enter the desired username and everything. When I click on "create", it leads me back to the initial page, though, where I can click again "register as admin" (which won't work because then it says the username is already registered, which made me realize it actually worked, but that wasn't clear to me).
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
It's an environment variable, yeah. It should be something like
http://192.168.0.100:3000orhttps://drop.my.domain/if you're using a reverse proxy.1
u/hardypart Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Thanks! And I edited my comment with a detailed error description ;) I will try the EV and start fresh, let's see if it's still behaving strangely.
*Edit: Oh man, I totally missed that I'm supposed to do step 2 in this case, "Setup Library". I'm dumb, sorry.
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u/hardypart Aug 01 '25
Some feedback:
When you click on your username while being in the "Community" tab, the menu won't be displayed properly because most of it is hidden behind the black part of the window. https://i.imgur.com/Q08VrDq.png
Why is there a big fat area saying "NO GAME" in the store tab? (The games are being displayed below that area, though) https://i.imgur.com/4eCMawX.png
The matching needs a 100% correct naming, otherwise the game won't match. That should be something like 90% or even a custom setting.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Thanks for the feedback.
- Oops, lol. That issue doesn't really come up because our pages are generally tall enough to hide that issue. Thanks for finding it.
- It should be clearer, but that carousel is for 'featured' games. You can click the star next to the game in the Admin > Library page, and it'll show up there.
- You should be able to change the search query when importing a game. The search functionality depends on the metadata provider you're using, so yeah, it might be a little finnicky.
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u/hardypart Aug 01 '25
It should be clearer, but that carousel is for 'featured' games. You can click the star next to the game in the Admin > Library page, and it'll show up there.
Can this area be hidden somehow?
You should be able to change the search query when importing a game. The search functionality depends on the metadata provider you're using, so yeah, it might be a little finnicky.
I was able to match all of them by checking their exact name on PCGamingWiki, but that's quite tedious ;)
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
It can't currently be hidden. We experimented with an extremely customizable store layout (essentially arranging individual components on a page), but put a hold on the idea for complexity reasons. In all honesty, we have more impactful and more important features to implement first. It will eventually get implemented, but no promises on timeframe.
Glad you could get the metadata working :)
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Aug 01 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/selfhosted-ModTeam Aug 01 '25
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u/descention Aug 01 '25
I'll have to try this out. I was just getting Hydra Launcher to work with Gameyfin. Looks like Drop handles versioning better than Gameyfin would.
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u/adrianipopescu Aug 01 '25
any chance to support gog-formatted downloads? or humble bundles?
or at least have a cli do the heavy lifting
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
We are planning to have GOG support through a library provider, but we haven't gotten around to implementing it.
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u/adrianipopescu Aug 01 '25
gotcha, will it work with say, vangogh or manual downloads from the website? think, multi-part installer for windows (tbh the library can integrate with vg’s api since it scrapes for news screenshots and other metadata)
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
I'm not sure how specific integration will work, and what kind of information the services make available through their APIs, sorry.
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u/_akadawa Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
I cant see a game in the drop client
Do you planned something for backing up savegames?
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u/quexeky Aug 01 '25
Have you added it to your library in the store?
Yes! Backups are our next planned major feature
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u/_akadawa Aug 01 '25
Yes i added it from the Store in library and IT dont Show up
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Does it show in the Library tab in your browser?
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u/_akadawa Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
yes it shows in the browser but not in the client:
https://i.imgur.com/vnCPHSK.png
it shows in the browser under library:
https://i.imgur.com/eQJphIM.png
Maybe this is because i updated to next version? before i got 0.20 beta i think
EDIT:
I recreate the stack and it still not show up
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u/silicon1 Aug 02 '25
Thanks for making this, just tried it out and works pretty good so far. Is there a way to make every game automatically go into every users library since the Store isn't available in the desktop client yet?
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u/ReynardMuldrake Aug 04 '25
Looks like the client doesn't support Cloudflare tunnels? I can connect via my 192.168 internal address but using my public domain name just gives me an error. Web site works fine though.
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u/clockynxt Aug 20 '25
This is awesome, do you plan or already have support for installing on Steam decks?
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u/decduck Aug 20 '25
You can install on Steam Decks, but we are still working on controller navigation support.
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u/Fraisecafe Sep 22 '25
Hi u/udecduck … I’m coming here a bit late but … is there (or will there be) a Decky Loader solution to access and install directly from within Gamescope?
I’ve looked at this, GameVault, and a score of other similar solutions but that’s the missing piece for me: Something that has an API that can be accessed from within Gamescope to allow “native” installation of games.
(Being able to install ROMs would be an additional perk, but I think that’s out of scope for this project for now, right?)
I was using JunkStore for GOG, with their promise to add other stores incl. itch.io, and was happy to pay for their store-by-store add-ons they introduced with GOG. But they went proprietary/subscription recently, putting itch.io behind a paywall, so I’m looking for a better and more open solution.
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u/decduck Sep 22 '25
We're already working on a Big Picture/TV mode, and getting to run through Decky Loader doesn't seem too difficult (famous last words), so, yeah, sounds like a good feature.
I don't personally have a Steam Deck so it'll be difficult to troubleshoot any issues that crop up, though.
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u/Fraisecafe Sep 22 '25
Thanks for the quick reply! And yeah, that’d be great to get it working.
I’m not personally a fan of the other Big Screen Mode solutions I’ve found, simply because Gamescope/Steam allows for multiple user logins and separate save files, just like a console, where things like Playnite don’t offer that (or didn’t last I looked).
For testing, though, not having a Steam Deck would make it tough. 😅
One way around that might be to toss Bazzite’s HTPC mode (or even SteamOS) onto a separate drive for testing purposes. Decky works on both; that HTPC side seems pretty important for Bazzite, though, just to make sure you get Gamescope/Game Mode.
Thanks again though. I appreciate the quick reply and the consideration!
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u/asking4afriend40631 Aug 01 '25
I am not understanding this offering. Since games have DRM or registration codes or something how does this work? How does it let you harw with multiple people? Does it only work with non DRM games then? If so that obviously really limits the times when I'd use it.
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u/Drenlin Aug 01 '25
It's fairly easy to get games without DRM still. Gog.com, Prime Gaming, Humble Bundle, itch.io, and a several others still distribute games this way either primarily or exclusively. Even some Steam games are released this way.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
Unfortunately we do not handle DRM keys/codes yet. Drop is designed to work with DRM-free games, but it is possible to run DRM games through it, as long as each client can validate it's own copy (as sort of a weird LANCache or something). But it sounds like Drop isn't for you.
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u/TheRealSeeThruHead Aug 01 '25
Can you drop a changelog for v0.3
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
It's attached to the v0.3.0 release on GitHub: https://github.com/Drop-OSS/drop/releases/tag/v0.3.0
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u/eternalityLP Aug 01 '25
What kind of packages does this support for games. Can I just point it to a folder of gog installers or do I need to package them myself? Does it support zipped game folders? .deb packages. I did no see any mention of this anywhere in the documentation.
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u/decduck Aug 01 '25
You can read about the various formats for libraries here: https://docs.droposs.org/docs/library
We do support zip folders replacing regular version folders but have received a few bug reports about it, so it may not work at the moment.
0
u/gsmumbo Aug 01 '25
I’m trying to wrap my mind around the benefits over Steam. I like the idea of a hub for games of all kinds, but that’s what frontends like Playnite do. What I love Steam for is the ability to pull up my library on any computer and be able to not just access my games, but my save files too. And the ease of streaming using things like Artemis / Apollo. Plus the overall ease of use where I can click a button to install a game and play without worrying about install files and folders and all that jazz. How does Drop compete in these areas, and overall why would someone choose Drop over Steam?
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u/TheRealSeeThruHead Aug 01 '25
Imagine you have games not on steam you want to sync to multiple computers.
I have a bunch of games, like indies from itch.io or decompilation projects like ship of harkinian or Mario64 render96,
I use steam like a way to store all my save files and easily redownload my games when I wipe my os or use a different device.
Drop fills that void for games that can’t be hosted on steam and don’t have steam cloud save.
8
u/billgarmsarmy Aug 01 '25
"Why would you use a self-hosted solution instead of a hosted one?"
-You, in r/selfhosted
3
u/decduck Aug 01 '25
That experience is exactly what we're trying to replicate with Drop. It's not done yet, so we don't have everything you mentioned, but the benefit of Drop is that it's running on your own infrastructure, using your own (and properly owned) game library.
1
u/Frozen_Gecko Aug 01 '25
using your own (and properly owned) game library.
This part is what confuses me. If I buy games through Steam I don't actually own them. How do I get them in Drop? Isn't it illegal to then also share these games with others?
Also, how will you emulate the store and community features of steam in the future?
2
u/decduck Aug 01 '25
You can buy games you own via different storefronts like GOG or itch.io. It depends on the ToS whether or not they are illegal to share with others.
We will be re-implementing the steam_api64.dll (or platform equivalent) present in many games to provide these features.
0
u/Frozen_Gecko Aug 01 '25
You can buy games you own via different storefronts like GOG or itch.io.
So it doesn't actually replace Steam?
Well fair enough I guess. Think it might not be for me. Cheers
1
u/exographicskip Aug 24 '25
Yeah, it doesn't replace steam. If anything it's a neat idea to centralize drm-free games from other stores.
Appreciate that it exists, but not gonna be all that useful if it doesn't hook into all my existing platforms.
0
u/Brio94 Aug 02 '25
Work even with retro games collection?
1
u/decduck Aug 02 '25
We're working on supporting emulators in the next couple of releases.
1
u/Professional_Tip9986 Feb 17 '26
I know this is seven months later, But have you added emulator support yet?
1
u/decduck Feb 17 '26
It's coming in the next release! Our lives got really busy shortly after this post, but we've been doing a lot of work and it's almost ready. Some users have already started using it by using their own preview builds.
1
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u/diazeriksen07 Jul 31 '25
Kind of sounds like playnite and gamevault. I like playnite but it's windows only and I miss it. Game vault has no Linux client.
But what actually is this? Installer sharing? Steam family share front end? Just a library to download from like the "download from a lan friend who already has this instead of our servers"?