What you want to know before you start.

A front door for your home cinema. Nexview shows new releases from TMDB, marks on every poster what is already in your library, and hands requests to whatever procures for you: nexcrate, or Radarr for films and Sonarr for series. Everyone has their own account, with roles, approvals and quotas. It runs as one Docker container on your own server, in German and English, including film titles and descriptions. For an overview, see Features.

Nothing. Nexview is under the AGPL-3.0, open source and free, and you run it yourself. You need a machine that runs Docker and a free TMDB key. What a Usenet provider or an indexer behind Radarr, Sonarr or nexcrate costs is between you and them.

No. Nexview downloads nothing and stores no films. It talks to programmes that can, and it is the door to what already runs at your place. The database holds only accounts, settings and requests. Who procures is covered in nexcrate or Radarr and Sonarr.

Not to have a look: without a key Nexview starts in demo mode with invented titles, so you can look around first. To request anything you need one, because TMDB supplies everything you see: titles, posters, descriptions, casts and release dates. The key is free and is checked as soon as you enter it. The steps are in the chapter First start.

Yes, the setup wizard does not even ask about one. Connect Plex, Jellyfin or Emby, several at once if you like, and you gain sign-in with the server's account, the hint in the library for titles that never came through Radarr or Sonarr, and the watched state. The watchlist exists for Plex only. Discover, requests, approvals, the calendar and notifications work unchanged without a media server. More under Media server.

nexcrate is a separate open source project from the same workshop. It gets films, series and music in one app and keeps several versions of each title, such as Full HD and 4K. With nexcrate, Nexview has one connection instead of up to four, and quality profiles, naming, folders and the recycle bin live in nexcrate. You do not need it: if you want to stay with Radarr and Sonarr, you stay. Everything about how the two work together is on With nexcrate.

Yes. The Radarr mode is not on its way out. Everything Nexview does with Radarr and Sonarr stays: the quality assistant, naming, webhooks, and the choice of folder and profile when requesting or approving. Radarr fetches films, Sonarr series, and Nexview passes the requests on.

No, there is no mixed mode. During setup the wizard asks right after the TMDB step who procures, and the answer applies to films and series together.

Yes. Under “Settings › Services” there is the tab “Switch to nexcrate”: first the numbers, then connect, then you match each of your existing versions to one in nexcrate. Before anything is written, Nexview checks that nexcrate knows the titles that requests, storage entries and rights hang on, and it makes a backup, which is the only way back. The switch runs in a single transaction: if something fails, nothing has changed. The steps are in the chapter nexcrate or Radarr and Sonarr.

Yes, either way. With Radarr and Sonarr you enter a second instance of each for 4K, with its own folders, profiles and per-person rights; only then does a 4K switch appear anywhere. With nexcrate, 4K is a version like Full HD, and every version has two switches: whether it is open to everyone and who may otherwise request it. A new version in nexcrate stays locked until you release it.

With nexcrate every title page carries one line per version: there, being fetched, nothing found that suits the profile, not released yet, or waiting out a delay. With Radarr and Sonarr the Downloads page lists every stuck import with the reason in plain words and with buttons that fit it. The admin dashboard also reports requests that have been “Searching” for more than fourteen days with nothing in the queue. More on With nexcrate and Overview.

No. Nexview knows neither indexers nor download clients. Both belong to Radarr and Sonarr or to nexcrate, and Nexview only sees what happens there. What you do enter in Nexview is covered in the chapter Services and ratings.

A parent creates it in their profile under “Children”: user name, password, an age up to 16, the categories the child may see, whether trailers are allowed, and the language. No e-mail address is needed. The child gets a separate, simple app with three destinations, Discover, Search and Wishes, not a cut-down Nexview. If the child forgets the password, the parent sets a new one. More in the chapter Child accounts.

A child does not request, it wishes. A wish costs nothing, reserves nothing, and the operator never sees it. Only when the parent approves does Nexview create an ordinary request in the parent's name, with the parent's quota and the parent's usual approval route. If the parent declines, they can add a sentence that the child reads under the title.

It makes the choice smaller and the decision visible, and promises no more than that. It only works inside Nexview: anyone who opens the same media server directly sees everything on it. The age ratings come from TMDB and can be missing or wrong; titles with no age rating at all stay hidden from children. The preview shows you what actually reaches your child. The right to create child accounts is given by the operator per person, and it is off by default. Details on Child accounts.

By invitation: an assistant asks for the e-mail address, the role, quotas, 4K and whether the person sees the house rules. The link goes to that address, is valid for seven days and works once. That needs a mail server. If you have connected a Plex server, people can also come in without an invitation: out of the box Nexview creates an account for every unknown Plex sign-in, without automatic approval, and you can switch that off. Existing accounts on Plex, Jellyfin or Emby can be taken over in one go. See Accounts and roles.

Yes, that is what the Approver role is for. It may approve, decline and cancel requests and nothing else, and does not even see the settings. The other two roles are Administrator and User. More on Approvals.

That is what quotas and rules are for. A quota counts titles or occupied storage in gigabytes per day, week or month, and both apply at the same time. Out of the box nobody is limited. Rules decide before approval: conditions such as genre, rating, number of votes, age rating or runtime, plus a consequence, approve at once or decline, with a reason. The first matching rule wins. No rule can override the age filter, a parent's decision or the requester's own quota. See Rules and Storage.

Through the bell in the app, by e-mail if they want, and by web push to their own phone, even while Nexview is closed. Web push needs https; on an iPhone, Nexview has to be on the Home Screen first. For the installation as a whole there are also ntfy, Gotify, Telegram, Discord, a webhook, Apprise and e-mail, and each inbox picks its own events. See Notifications.

Docker with Compose on Intel, AMD or ARM. Nexview is a single container in which the API and the interface run together, with a database in one file. It runs on a Synology, a Raspberry Pi or an ordinary computer. On Unraid you find it in the Community Applications, on TrueNAS in the community catalogue of apps. The Compose file and all variables are under Self-host.

Everything lives in the folder you mount as /data: the database, the key secret.key, profile pictures and the images of the house rules. The key encrypts your access to TMDB, Radarr, Sonarr and the mail server. Under “Settings › System › Backups” Nexview makes a backup weekly out of the box, and “Download” turns one into an AES-encrypted ZIP with a password you choose. On a fresh installation the wizard asks first whether you want to restore from a backup. See Backups and updates.

With docker compose pull and docker compose up -d. If the new version changes the database, Nexview first makes a copy and keeps the five most recent. Going back is not a matter of starting the older image: an older version cannot read what a newer one has written. The way back is the copy made before the update; the steps are in the README and in the chapter Backups and updates. “About Nexview” tells you when a newer version exists, and the release notes are on GitHub.

With a password, with the account of the media server (Plex, Jellyfin, Emby), or through a sign-in service that speaks OpenID Connect, such as authentik, Microsoft Entra ID, Keycloak, Authelia, Pocket ID, Zitadel or Google. Several providers can sit side by side, one button each. Nexview sets up authentik for you in one step if you like. A person is recognised only by their identity at the provider, never by e-mail address; role and quota stay in Nexview. See Sign-in and OIDC.

Not of its own yet. If you want one, have people sign in through a service that demands it, and then switch password sign-in off. The operator can always get in with their password, so you can never lock yourself out. After several wrong passwords Nexview slows sign-in down, and after ten it closes the door for a quarter of an hour; the lock opens again by itself.

Yes, both. For a sub-path one line is enough, for example NEXVIEW_URL_BASE=/nexview; examples for nginx, Caddy, Traefik and Nginx Proxy Manager are under Behind a proxy. With NEXVIEW_CLIENT_IP=proxy you tell Nexview that exactly one proxy sits in front; it then also counts failed sign-ins per address and reads the scheme from the X-Forwarded-Proto header, so that return addresses begin with https. If in doubt, leave the variable empty, which is always safe.

These requests come from your server, not your browser: titles, images, casts, dates and streaming providers from TMDB, plus the services you enter yourself, that is Radarr, Sonarr or nexcrate, your media server and the notification services you set up. For signing in with Plex it asks plex.tv. Once a day it checks GitHub for a newer version without sending any data from Nexview, and you can switch that off under “About Nexview”. Trailers are played by your browser from YouTube. There is no telemetry and no channel back to us. More on Privacy.

Ombi can request music through Lidarr, has an app in the store and lets people vote on requests; Nexview does none of that. For music there is nexbeat. Seerr and Ombi are also older and have the bigger community, while Nexview is young and small. If requesting is all you need, Seerr serves you well. Nexview puts its weight before and after: finding things, child accounts, rules before approval, quotas by storage space and a dashboard for the operator. All the features side by side are in the comparison.

Not in a store. Nexview can be put on the Home Screen as a web app, push notifications included. The interface works on a phone.

Nexview collects none of its own. In Radarr mode Radarr supplies them, and for films. In nexcrate mode the IMDb ratings come from nexcrate; Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are there only if you have stored an OMDb key of your own in nexcrate. See Services and ratings.

From Seerr, yes: the first page of the setup wizard offers a third way, “From a running Seerr installation”. Nexview only reads it, shows you area by area what it found, and writes what you ticked in one go at the end. Services, accounts, profile pictures and the block list come along; the request history, passwords and watchlists do not. The route only runs into an empty installation. There is no move from Ombi. The steps are in the chapter Moving from Seerr.