Why Aster is free

Built on generosity. Given back in kind.

When I started building Aster Media Player, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to monetize it. Some of the features I’ve developed, including interactive disc menus, enhanced anime experiences, and custom television channels, represent a tremendous amount of work. I seriously considered making some of them paid features.

But the more I thought about it, the less comfortable I became with that idea.

Aster wouldn’t exist without Jellyfin.

The developers behind Jellyfin have devoted countless hours of their own time to building something extraordinary, and they’ve chosen to give it away. No subscriptions, no premium tiers, no locked features. Just a group of people who believe good software should be available to everyone.

That philosophy means something to me.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with charging for software built around Jellyfin, I ultimately decided that wasn’t the direction I wanted to take.

So I’m making Aster, all of its features, and its companion plugins completely free and open-source.

No premium upgrades. No features hidden behind a paywall. No subscriptions. Everything I’ve created is available for people to use, explore, improve, and build upon under its respective open-source license.

If you’re a developer and want to take one of my ideas somewhere entirely different, I encourage you to. If you just want to watch your favorite anime or enjoy your movie collection, that’s wonderful too.

I built Aster because I had ideas I wanted to see come to life, and because I genuinely enjoy creating things that make people’s experiences better.

If you enjoy Aster and would like to support its continued development, you’re welcome to make a donation.

Donations help support the time, tools, and resources that go into keeping the project alive and improving it. But they’re entirely optional, and donating won’t unlock anything that someone else can’t enjoy for free.

And if you never donate a penny? That’s perfectly fine.

Use the software. Share it with a friend. Report a bug. Suggest something ridiculous that nobody else has thought of yet.

That’s what makes open-source communities special.

To the Jellyfin developers, contributors, and everyone else who makes projects like this possible: thank you.

Aster exists because you gave something to the community. This is my way of giving something back.

Thank you for being part of it.