Hey c/selfhosted,

In my last post here, I introduced the Web UI and said it would become the foundation for a cross-platform desktop client. Quite a few of you were waiting for a Linux application. I’m really happy to finally be back with one: GameVault 2 is now available to everyone as a public beta!

For anyone coming across it for the first time, GameVault is a self-hosted platform for managing your own DRM-free game collection. Your server holds the library, and the desktop client downloads and installs games so you can play them locally and share your collection with friends and family.

The new desktop app runs on Linux, Windows and macOS. On Linux, we provide AppImage and .deb packages, and Windows games can run through umu-launcher with Wine/Proton. Each game gets its own prefix.

We’ve also rebuilt the interface around the frontend we started with the Web UI. It’s a huge visual improvement over the old client, and it’s responsive, so the layout adapts when you’re browsing on a phone or using a smaller window. The browser and desktop app share the same interface. You can now keep multiple versions of a game in your vault and pick the version you want to download, too.

When we first shared GameVault here, it was a small project built with the technology we knew. A lot has changed since then. We’re still two developers, and being able to come back here with the Linux client people asked for means a lot to me. I’m proud of this release.

There are still rough edges: GameVault 2 is a public beta, GameVault+ features are still missing, and games installed through GameVault 1 need to be downloaded and installed again. The old client remains available while we work on the missing functionality and stability.

Thanks to everyone who stuck around, tested builds or gave us feedback. We’ve already moved to GameVault 2 ourselves, and I’m excited for more of you to try it.

Download GameVault 2, and please report any bugs you find.

AI disclosure:

  • Implementation — Pair
  • Testing — Pair
  • Documentation — Pair
  • Deployment — Pair

GameVault was originally built about 3–4 years ago without AI. For the new client rewrite, we worked alongside LLM agents on the implementation. We spent dozens of hours testing the new client and ran an Early Access phase with real users before this release. AI also helped with the wording of this announcement.