A clean, self-hosted collection manager for retro games. Pair your ROMs with rich metadata and artwork, then serve your library over the local network directly to your devices.
retroBITE started as the search for a Docker setup to network-load games onto real consoles. When nothing fit, the server script grew into a full collection manager.
Pick consoles from a catalog of 130+ systems across 55 brands, from the Channel F to the PlayStation 4, plus arcade and engine targets. Each one gets its own folder under games/, and only the consoles you add show up in your library.
Scans pick up each console's file types. Files are looked up by name and size first, then by CRC32, MD5 and SHA1. Multi-disc games merge through cue sheets and .m3u playlists. Anything left over waits in Needs identifying, where an exact MD5 match or a name search sorts it out.
Matched games pull their developer, publisher, genre, players, release date and community rating from ScreenScraper, along with up to 23 artwork types in your preferred region. Browse each console as a cover grid or a list, filtered by genre, players, rating or status.
Cortex builds Crunch, a super-bandicoot, to finish Crash for good. Rolling-sphere runs, air combat and classic jump-and-run stages stand in the way.
Link your account and every game shows its set: hardcore and softcore unlocks, points, site rank, progression and win-condition badges, and how rare the locked ones are. The hash index refreshes nightly and new unlocks sync every 15 minutes.
Give each console a layout that matches the loader or frontend you play it on, from a flat folder to one folder per game. Open PS2 Loader, for example, reads games from DVD/ and CD/, cover art from ART/ and settings from CFG/. The toolbox fills in those folders and adds or removes the license-ID prefix on file names. Disc consoles get .m3u playlists, and uploads land where the layout reads games from.
Samba (SMBv1 to SMB3) and vsftpd serve the same folders retroBITE manages, so modded consoles and loaders like OPL read games straight off the share. Per-console shares keep paths short, and the dashboard shows each share's address and status.
GameCube\\192.168.1.20\gcPlayStation 2\\192.168.1.20\ps2Sony PlayStation\\192.168.1.20\psxWii\\192.168.1.20\wiiXbox\\192.168.1.20\xboxGameCubeftp://192.168.1.20/gcPlayStation 2ftp://192.168.1.20/ps2Sony PlayStationftp://192.168.1.20/psxWiiftp://192.168.1.20/wiiXboxftp://192.168.1.20/xbox Write repair logs, calibration procedures and compatibility matrices in Markdown, saved as files on disk and filed by console. Add images, YouTube embeds and references, import a .md or .zip, and keep the last 20 revisions of every doc.
Default amber, Phosphor green, Famicom crimson, DMG pea-green and Cobalt blue recolor the whole interface and the logo. Turn on scanlines for the faint banding of a tube over key art, and choose whether game pages lead with the logo or the title.
The core of retroBITE is in and working, and more is on the way before the first public release. The roadmap tracks what's shipped and what's coming next.
View the roadmapInstall instructions will land in the docs with the first public release. Join the Discord or follow the repository to hear when it ships.
For legally made backups of media you own. retroBITE does not endorse piracy.
