Gaseous vs ROM Librarian

Gaseous Server is a free, open-source self-hosted server for managing ROMs and game titles with basic in-browser emulation. It uses multiple sources to identify games and provide metadata. ROM management supports platforms listed by IGDB, while the built-in emulator covers a documented subset including Game Boy, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Super Nintendo. Installation options include Docker, source, Unraid, and a Windows MSI package. Windows installation is described as experimental. Setup requires MariaDB 11.1.2 or MySQL Server 8+ and FFmpeg; an IGDB API key is optional when using the Hasheous proxy. From version 2.0, authentication includes passwords, two-factor authentication, and OAuth2/OIDC, with Google, Microsoft, and custom OIDC providers documented. The project uses the AGPL-3.0 license and links to Discord for community support. Maintainers recommend avoiding internet exposure when remote access is unnecessary and state that exposure is at the user’s own risk. The free plan is a self-hosted server, so the operator supplies the database and FFmpeg.

ROM Librarian is a free, open-source desktop application for managing retro gaming ROM collections on Windows and Linux. It renames batches with regular expressions, showing previews, handling filename collisions, and supporting undo. Its DAT rename tool matches ROMs with No-Intro or MAME DAT files using CRC32, MD5, and SHA1 hashes. The application compresses ROMs to ZIP or 7z and extracts both archive types. It converts CUE/BIN and ISO disc images to CHD; Windows includes chdman, while Linux users must have chdman in PATH. Renaming can update EmulationStation or RetroPie gamelist.xml metadata, with restoration through undo. Multi-disc detection creates M3U playlists. Duplicate detection uses SHA1 or MD5 and preferences for region, size, and date. A Linux command-line interface supports scripted operations. The MIT-licensed project credits RobotWizard.