Selkies is a remote desktop and application streaming platform designed to provide low-latency access to graphical applications from a web browser.
WebSockets are the default transport, carrying video, audio, input, clipboard data and file transfers through a single TCP port. WebRTC remains available as an optional transport for deployments that prefer it. This makes Selkies useful in environments where opening additional UDP ports or configuring STUN and TURN infrastructure would be inconvenient.
Screen capture and video encoding are handled by the Rust-based pixelflux component, while pcmflux provides audio capture and encoding. This replaces the previous GStreamer-based runtime architecture. The browser client uses WebCodecs where available and can select codecs according to the decoding capabilities of the client and the encoders available on the host.
Selkies is aimed particularly at self-hosted desktops, containers, Kubernetes, Jupyter, Coder and HPC environments. It supports hardware-accelerated encoding on suitable Intel, AMD and NVIDIA systems, while software fallbacks remain available. Clipboard exchange, file transfer, keyboard, mouse and gamepad input, microphone forwarding and webcam forwarding are integrated into the browser client.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Streams Linux desktops and applications to modern web browsers.
- Uses WebSockets as the default low-latency transport.
- Offers WebRTC as an optional transport.
- Can carry video, audio, input, clipboard data and file transfers through a single port.
- Supports H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9 and AV1 where suitable encoders and decoders are available.
- Provides automatic GPU and codec selection.
- Supports hardware acceleration on Intel, AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.
- Offers two-way clipboard support for text and images.
- Supports keyboard, mouse and gamepad input.
- Supports microphone and webcam forwarding.
- Designed for desktop, container, Kubernetes, Jupyter, Coder and HPC deployments.
Website: github.com/selkies-project/selkies
Support:
Developer: Selkies Project
License: Mozilla Public License v2.0
Selkies is written in Python and JavaScript. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn JavaScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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