What are the best open source alternatives to Showly?

The top open source alternatives to Showly include SeriesGuide and Tonkatsu Box. These tools offer similar functionality while being free and open source.

Why choose an open source alternative to Showly?

Open source alternatives provide transparency, community support, no vendor lock-in, and often cost savings. You can customize the software to your needs and have full control over your data.

Are these Showly alternatives really free?

Yes, all listed alternatives are open source and free to use. You may need to pay for hosting if you self-host, but the software itself is free.

2 Best Open Source Showly Alternatives in 2026

SeriesGuide is an Android app for anyone who watches a lot of TV and wants a reliable way to track what they've seen, what's airing next, and what's on their watchlist. It pulls data from TMDb to keep show and movie information current.

At its core, it's a personal viewing log. You mark episodes as watched, follow release schedules, and manage a list of shows and films you plan to get to. If you've ever lost track of where you left off in a series, or forgotten whether you've already seen a movie, this solves that problem.

The app is built specifically for Android, so it fits naturally into the mobile experience rather than being a web tool bolted onto a phone. It's a solid open source TV Time alternative for people who prefer not to rely on closed, account-heavy platforms for something as simple as tracking their watch history.

Because it's open source, the code is publicly available and the project is community-supported. There's no black box around how your data is handled, and the app doesn't depend on a proprietary backend that could disappear or change terms without notice.

Cross-platform collection manager for retro games, movies, TV shows, anime, manga, visual novels, and books with tier lists, visual boards, and import/export.

Tonkatsu Box is a free, open-source media tracker for people who want one place to manage everything they watch, play, and read. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Android, and covers a wide range of media types: retro games, movies, TV shows, animation, anime, manga, visual novels, and books.

The core idea is unified collection management. You can mix any media type into a single collection, switch between grid and list views, and track status across four states: In Progress, Completed, Planned, or Dropped. For TV shows and anime, it tracks individual episodes. Everything can be rated on a 1–10 scale with personal notes attached.

Finding titles is backed by a broad set of databases:

Games: IGDB, RetroAchievements, SteamGridDB
Movies and TV: TMDB, Kinorium
Anime and manga: AniList, MangaBaka, MyAnimeList
Visual novels: VNDB
Books and comics: OpenLibrary, Fantlab, Google Books, ComicVine

Beyond basic tracking, it has a few features that set it apart from a simple TV time alternative. Visual Boards let you arrange posters on a free-form canvas, add text notes and links, and draw connections between items. Tier Lists support drag-and-drop ranking into S/A/B/C tiers, and a Mood Grid lets you lay out picks on a customizable N×M board. Both export as PNG.

Importing existing data is well-covered. You can pull in libraries from Steam, Trakt.tv, RetroAchievements, MyAnimeList, AniList, and Kinorium. Sharing works through two export formats: a lightweight .xcoll file (requires internet for images) and a self-contained .xcollx package that works fully offline. Friends can import and fork your lists directly.

The app is built with Flutter and uses SQLite locally, so your data stays on your device. No account required, no cloud dependency. API keys for IGDB, TMDB, and SteamGridDB are optional; the app works without them out of the box.