Media Hoarder
Self-hosted media frontend that catalogs, filters and enriches a local movie and TV collection, then hands playback to your own player.
Media Hoarder earns its place if you own the files and folder browsing has stopped working. The metadata depth (full credits, filming locations, plot keywords, content advisories) and stackable custom-list filters are the genuine draw, and the ChatGPT or Ollama recommendation layer is something a stock Plex or Jellyfin shelf doesn't give you. Understand what it is: a frontend and enrichment layer that plays out to VLC or another external player, not a server or transcoder. Source is public on GitHub under an open license, so the cost of trying it is your time, not a subscription.
Verified 4d ago · liveness 74/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/media-hoarder
- Data hoarders with large local movie and TV libraries that have outgrown folder browsing
- Movie lovers who want deep metadata such as credits, filming locations and plot keywords
- Plex, Jellyfin or Emby users who want a richer discovery layer on top
- Privacy-conscious users who prefer Ollama local models over cloud AI calls
- People who stream rather than own files — there is nothing to organize
- Users who want one app that serves, plays and organizes with zero setup
- Anyone unwilling to provide their own API key or run a local model for the AI features
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Skip Media Hoarder if you stream rather than own files, or if you want one app that serves, transcodes and plays with zero setup instead of a discovery layer that hands off to VLC.
Running AI recommendations through ChatGPT requires your own OpenAI API key, so those calls bill to your OpenAI account, not to Media Hoarder.
The software is free and open source, so cost comparison happens against your existing stack rather than against a paid library tool. If you already run Plex, Jellyfin or Emby, Media Hoarder adds a discovery layer on top at no licence cost; the trade is your time on setup and curation plus whatever you pay OpenAI if you use cloud AI instead of Ollama.
In short
Media Hoarder — Self-hosted media frontend that catalogs, filters and enriches a local movie and TV collection, then hands playback to your own player. Best for Data hoarders with large local movie and TV libraries that have outgrown folder browsing, Movie lovers who want deep metadata such as credits, filming locations and plot keywords, Plex, Jellyfin or Emby users who want a richer discovery layer on top. Free to start; paid plans from $39.
What people actually say about Media Hoarder — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
45 mentions across 5 sources (Hacker News, YouTube, Product Hunt, GitHub, Lemmy) · researched Aug 16, 2026.
Average across the 5 sources that answered — each source counts once, not each post.
- +Self-hosted and offline-capable, keeping all data local for privacy.
- +Deep metadata from TMDB and TheTVDB including credits and filming locations.
- +AI-generated recommendations and summaries via ChatGPT or Ollama.
- +Integrates with Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby for existing setups.
- +Smart playlists and combined filters give strong library control.
- −Scraping bugs cause misidentified movies and TV shows.
- −Episodes often fail to get metadata, needing manual rescrapes.
- −No dedicated support channel — only GitHub issues for help.
- −Scan history graph shows wrong dates, a persistent UI glitch.
- −Parental guide errors appear on every scan, even without content.
- • Potential cost for AI API usage (e.g., OpenAI tokens) if you enable AI features.
- • Self-hosting infrastructure costs (server, storage, electricity) not included.
- • Some users may find Pro features paywalled that they expect to be free.
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is Media Hoarder? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Automatic metadata enrichment from TMDB and TheTVDB
- Deep metadata including full credits and production companies
- Content advisories and plot keywords on catalogued titles
- Filming locations data for catalogued movies
- AI recommendations via ChatGPT (bring your own API key)
- Local model AI recommendations via Ollama
- Combined filters for discovering by mood or audience
- Custom lists that also act as filter criteria
- Full-text search, filter and sort with two-click navigation
- One-click copy of title, IMDB link and your 5-star rating
- Direct links to IMDB, Letterboxd and moviechat.org pages
- Playback handed off to an external player such as VLC
- Self-hosted desktop deployment on Windows 7/8/10, Linux and macOS (x64)
- Linux packages: .deb, .rpm, AppImage, Snap and portable build
- Open source on GitHub (Electron, Node.js, Vue.js, Vuetify)
About Media Hoarder
Media Hoarder is a self-hosted media frontend for people who already keep their own movie and TV files on disk and want a better way to dig through them. It scans your library into a searchable, filterable database where everything is at most two clicks away. Metadata goes deeper than genres and release years: full credits, content advisories, production companies, filming locations and plot keywords, sourced from TMDB and TheTVDB. Combined filters plus your own custom lists (which double as filter criteria) let you pull up something that fits a mood or an audience, and AI recommendations are available through ChatGPT or local models via Ollama. Playback hands off to the media player you already use, such as VLC, so it sits alongside Plex, Jellyfin or Emby rather than replacing them. Socializing is one click: copy a title, IMDB link and your five-star rating, or jump straight to IMDB, Letterboxd or moviechat.org. It is free and open source, built with Electron, Node.js, Vue.js and Vuetify, and ships for Windows 7/8/10, Linux (deb, rpm, AppImage, Snap, portable) and macOS on x64. If you want a managed cloud library, this is not that.
Behind the Verdict
Start with the problem Media Hoarder is actually solving. You have thousands of files on disk. Plex, Jellyfin or Emby will serve them, but their browse experience is built around recently added and a handful of genre filters. Media Hoarder rebuilds the discovery layer instead: a local database of everything you own, indexed by metadata you can stack. Full credits, production companies, filming locations, plot keywords and content advisories all become filter dimensions, and your own custom lists become filter criteria too. That is the feature that carries the product — build a kids list, then combine it with a runtime filter and a plot keyword, and you get something a stock media server cannot produce. The metadata itself comes from TMDB and TheTVDB, so anything absent from those databases will be thin in Media Hoarder as well. That is a real ceiling, not a bug, and worth knowing before you spend a weekend curating. AI is the second layer, and it is deliberately not self-contained. Recommendations run through ChatGPT, which means your own API key, or through a local model via Ollama, which means you host the model. Both paths keep the app small and keep you in control of what leaves your machine — but neither works out of the box. Playback is the third thing to internalize. Media Hoarder hands off to the player you already use, VLC being the obvious example. It is a frontend, not a server and not a transcoder, so it complements Plex, Jellyfin or Emby rather than replacing them. If you wanted one app that does absolutely everything including streaming to a TV three rooms away, this is not the tool. The project is open source on GitHub, developed with Electron, Node.js, Vue.js and Vuetify, and the developer (MK2k) is reachable via GitHub Discussions, Mastodon and email. Builds target x64 across Windows 7/8/10, Linux and macOS. Windows 7 and 8 support is unusual in 2026 and tells you the audience: people running stable machines with big libraries, not chasing the latest OS. Where it fits: a data hoarder with 5,000+ titles who wants mood-based and audience-based discovery, deep credits, and a way to pick something for movie night without scrolling. Where it doesn't: anyone who streams instead of owning files, anyone who wants a single zero-setup app, and anyone unwilling to wire up an API key or a local model for the AI features.
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Media Hoarder actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
Points Media Hoarder at the movie and TV folders on the NAS, lets it scan and match against TMDB and TheTVDB, then starts filtering by plot keyword and production company instead of scrolling folders.
Outcome: A searchable database where any title is at most two clicks away, with credits, filming locations and content advisories already attached.
Builds a custom list for the kids, then stacks it as a filter criterion alongside a runtime and content-advisory filter to see what actually qualifies tonight.
Outcome: A short, defensible shortlist instead of an argument, because the list is a filter dimension and combines with everything else.
Keeps Plex as the server, runs Media Hoarder beside it for browsing and rich metadata, and asks a local Ollama model for a recommendation when nothing on the shelf appeals.
Outcome: Playback still opens in the usual player, but the choosing happens in Media Hoarder where the filters are deep.
Use Cases
- Catalog a local collection of thousands of movies and TV episodes into one searchable database.
- Find something that fits a mood or an audience using combined filters.
- Build a kids list and reuse it as a stacked filter criterion alongside other filters.
- Ask ChatGPT or a local Ollama model for a recommendation drawn from your own library.
- Copy a title, IMDB link and your rating in one click to share an opinion.
- Jump straight to a film's IMDB, Letterboxd or moviechat.org page from the app.
- Run it next to Plex, Jellyfin or Emby as the discovery layer and hand playback to VLC.
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-09-09
Limitations
- AI recommendations are not self-contained — they call ChatGPT or a local Ollama model, and you supply the API key or run the model yourself.
- Metadata comes from TMDB and TheTVDB, so titles missing from those databases stay thin on credits, filming locations and plot keywords.
- Playback is handed off to an external player such as VLC; Media Hoarder is a frontend, not a server or transcoder, so it complements Plex, Jellyfin or Emby rather than replacing them.
- The build targets x64 architecture across Windows 7/8/10, Linux and macOS.
as of 2026-10-14
Verification history
We have re-verified Media Hoarder 10 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
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Showing the 6 most recent of 10 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Media Hoarder's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
The software is free and open source, so cost comparison happens against your existing stack rather than against a paid library tool. If you already run Plex, Jellyfin or Emby, Media Hoarder adds a discovery layer on top at no licence cost; the trade is your time on setup and curation plus whatever you pay OpenAI if you use cloud AI instead of Ollama.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Media Hoarder — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Pointing Media Hoarder at a folder and letting the first metadata scan run is a minutes-scale job. Getting useful results is longer: expect an evening or two of matching unmatched titles, tuning filters, and building the first custom lists. If you use ChatGPT recommendations, add the time to obtain and enter an API key; if you use Ollama, add the time to install and pull a local model.
Switching to or from Media Hoarder
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From plain folder browsing: point Media Hoarder at your existing movie and TV directories and let the scanner build the database.
- →From Plex: keep Plex as the server and add Media Hoarder alongside it purely as the discovery and metadata layer.
- →From Jellyfin: run Media Hoarder on the same machine and hand playback to the external player you already use.
- →From Emby: point it at the same media paths so the two read from one library rather than duplicating files.
- ↗To Plex: nothing to export — your files stay where they are and Plex reads the same directories.
- ↗To Jellyfin: your media paths are unchanged, so you can drop Media Hoarder and switch the discovery workflow to Jellyfin's own library views.
- ↗To Emby: same story — files stay on disk and Emby takes over serving and playback.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
Official links
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Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Media Hoarder vs Gem
These tools serve entirely different purposes. Gem is a recruiting platform for businesses, while Media Hoarder is a media manager for personal collections. If you're a talent team, Gem's AI agents and ATS/CRM consolidation can boost productivity. If you manage a local movie library, Media Hoarder's free self-hosted AI metadata enriches your collection. Pick based on your domain.
Media Hoarder vs Poke Interaction Co
If you want a conversational AI assistant that handles email, calendar, and tasks from your messaging app, Poke is the clear pick—especially with recent Apple Messages verification and Telegram support. If you manage a large local media library and need powerful organization, AI summaries, and self-hosted privacy, Media Hoarder is the superior choice. They solve completely different problems, so choose based on what you need to automate.
Media Hoarder vs Guesty
If you manage vacation rentals, Guesty is the clear choice with AI-driven messaging and reconciliation (latest June 2026). For local media collectors who self-host, Media Hoarder offers powerful AI metadata management with full privacy. They serve entirely different needs—your decision hinges on whether you're renting properties or hoarding movie files.
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