asciinema server: Self-Hosted Terminal Recording Platform
asciinema server is the self-hosted server behind the asciinema ecosystem, the same application that runs the public asciinema.org site, packaged for you to run yourself. It's worth deploying if you want terminal recordings and live streams on infrastructure you control instead of a third party's; skip it if occasional sharing via the free asciinema.org instance already covers what you need.
What is asciinema server?
asciinema server is a Phoenix/Elixir web application for hosting, browsing, and sharing terminal session recordings and live streams. It provides the HTTP API that the asciinema CLI uploads to, along with a web interface for viewing and managing casts, so recordings can land on your own instance instead of the shared public one at asciinema.org.
Key Features for Recording Management
- ✓Hosts recordings in the asciicast format and serves live terminal streams, per the README.
- ✓Includes the asciinema player itself for viewing recordings, rather than requiring a separate embed or plugin.
- ✓Full-text search covers recording titles, descriptions, and the actual terminal session content, not just metadata.
- ✓Sharing via secret links, plus embedding the player or linking through SVG preview images.
- ✓Per-recording and per-stream visibility control: private, unlisted, or public.
- ✓Editable metadata after upload — title and a Markdown long description — plus configurable terminal themes and font families.
- ✓Plain-text transcript (.txt) download for any recording.
- ✓Embeds asciinema's own virtual terminal, avt, used for preview generation, recording analysis, and live-stream state bookkeeping.
Why Self-Host Your Terminal Recordings?
- •A company policy blocks hosting session recordings on third-party infrastructure — self-hosting keeps them on servers you control.
- •Recordings routinely show internal hostnames, URLs, or environment details you don't want sitting on a public server, even if nothing in them is technically secret.
- •You want private or unlisted recordings by default, with visibility control you administer instead of trusting a shared instance's settings.
- •You're already running the asciinema CLI in CI or ops scripts and want an HTTP API endpoint you control for where those casts get uploaded.
Getting Started with Self-Hosting
The README doesn't list install commands inline — it points to a dedicated self-hosting guide at docs.asciinema.org/manual/server/self-hosting instead, so exact deployment steps aren't part of the facts documented here. What is confirmed: the server is a Phoenix/Elixir web application, and the same codebase runs the public asciinema.org instance, so the deployment target is a standard Elixir/Phoenix app rather than anything more exotic.
Strengths
- ✓Full-text search reaches into the actual terminal session content, not just titles or descriptions — genuinely useful for finding 'that one command' across a pile of recordings.
- ✓Sharing and embedding are first-class: secret links, an embeddable player, and SVG preview images for linking without embedding a whole player.
- ✓Visibility control (private/unlisted/public) plus editable metadata after upload means you're not stuck with whatever the CLI captured at record time.
- ✓No tracking or ads, per the README, which matters if the whole point of self-hosting is keeping recordings out of a third party's view.
- ✓Speaks the same HTTP API as the asciinema CLI, so the client-side workflow doesn't change — you just point it at your own instance.
- ✓Apache-2.0 license, permissive with no proprietary strings attached.
Considerations for Deployment
- △The README gives no inline install or deployment commands — it defers entirely to a separate self-hosting guide, so the repo alone doesn't tell you what standing this up actually involves.
- △No version number, release cadence, or roadmap appears in the README, so there's no documented way to gauge the project's pace from the repo itself.
- △Running it means operating a Phoenix/Elixir application yourself — the accounts, storage, and uptime that asciinema.org otherwise handles for free become your job.
- △Authentication, user management, and storage backend options aren't described in the README, so evaluating them means reading the linked docs site rather than this repo.
- △The README's donation and sponsorship messaging points to a project leaning on community support, with Brightbox named as the one listed sponsor.
Alternatives for Terminal Recording
Frequently Asked Questions
asciinema server is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0, per the GitHub repository.
asciinema server supports live streaming of terminal sessions — the README lists it as one of the platform's notable features alongside hosting recordings.
asciinema server is built with Elixir, using the Phoenix framework, according to the GitHub repository's language stats and README.
asciinema server exposes an HTTP API that the asciinema CLI uses to upload and manage recordings, so casts recorded on the command line can be pushed straight to your own server instance.
asciinema server lets you set each recording or stream's visibility to private, unlisted, or public, and the README describes the platform itself as privacy-friendly, with no tracking or ads.
asciinema server is designed to be self-hosted — the README points to a dedicated self-hosting guide, and the same codebase also runs the public asciinema.org instance.
The problem it solves
The asciinema CLI already uploads recordings to asciinema.org for free, but that means terminal sessions — which can show internal hostnames, URLs, or command history — sit on someone else's server. asciinema server exists so a no-third-party-hosting policy, or plain discomfort with that, doesn't cost you the recording and sharing workflow the CLI already gives you: you run the same server software yourself instead.
Who should try it — and who should skip
Reach for asciinema server if you're already using the asciinema CLI to record terminal sessions and want them on infrastructure you run — a no-third-party-hosting policy, or just not wanting internal hostnames and URLs sitting on a public server, are the concrete reasons to bother. Skip it if you're fine with the free asciinema.org instance or only need to share the occasional recording — standing up and operating a Phoenix/Elixir application yourself is real ongoing work for a handful of casts.
Related repositories
Is asciinema-server worth your time?
ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity can all read this page. Ask one of them what it makes of asciinema-server.