RomM vs Skraper

RomM is a free, self-hosted app for scanning, enriching, browsing, and playing a ROM collection. The project says it supports more than 400 platforms, including multi-disk games, DLCs, mods, hacks, and manuals. Compatible games can run in a browser through EmulatorJS and Ruffle without setup, while saves and states sync across devices with conflict resolution. Metadata providers include IGDB, ScreenScraper, LaunchBox, and MobyGames; RomM can also fetch artwork from SteamGridDB and track RetroAchievements. A built-in patcher applies ROM hacks and translations. The project lists granular per-user permissions, OIDC single sign-on, a REST API, and exports for ES-DE and Pegasus. Official clients include a Windows Playnite plugin, the Android Argosy handheld launcher, and the Linux Grout handheld client. A native iOS app is a community project, and the team says it does not regularly review community project source code. RomM is AGPL-3.0 licensed, with no tracking or paid features. Setup help and community discussion are available through Discord.

Skraper is a free, non-commercial, non-profit application that adds metadata and media to retro-gaming software. It uses the community-fed ScreenScraper.fr database for artwork, screenshots, flyers, 3D boxes, and verified text information. The site advertises support for more than 200 systems and hundreds of thousands of media items and records. Skraper can provide EmulationStation metadata through Recalbox and RetroPie and fill LaunchBox game lists and images. Listed capabilities include game maps, manuals, Pad-2-Keyboard, Tips & Tricks, archive side-file filtering, and file renaming. A local cache, optimization, and multithreading reduce bandwidth use and increase speed. XML mixes can combine remote and local resources with positioning, resizing, rotation, color filters, and text or image layers. Windows may require .NET Framework 4.8.1. Linux requires the latest mono-complete package, with WINE kept up to date recommended. There is no native macOS build. ScreenScraper.fr anonymously records ROM or game names and checksums, which may be validated and added to its database.