You can now do way more with Owncast

Owncast v0.3.0 has been released, and you can now do way more with your Owncast server than ever before.

This version of Owncast introduces plugin support, allowing you to extend, improve, customize, and implement those crazy ideas you wish you could have before.

What's the catch?

Easy, plugins only exist if you, the Owncast users, build them.

The tools now exist for you to build things like chatbots, stream overlays, custom notifications, authentication and way more. But it's up to the community to create and share these plugins or there will be no functionality for you to take advantage of.

What does this mean?

With the release of this version there are almost zero useful plugins available. This means that while the potential is huge, the ecosystem is still in its infancy and relies heavily on community contributions.

So it's up to the community to jump in and fill those gaps. I've created some things to hopefully make that easier.

Resources to get started

Ideas and suggestions

I know what you're saying right now, because it's what everyone tells me when I mention contributing to Owncast in any way: "I wish I could, but I'm not a developer".

That's fine, as always. There are many ways to take part in the Owncast project. And in this case,if you're a user of Owncast, i'd like you to still be involved with plugins. So if you have ideas for a plugin that you think would be useful to others post it to the Plugin ideas discussion forum. And if you're a developer who's looking to build something, but doesn't have any ideas that people would find useful, check out the discussions there to see what people are requesting or talking about.

Building plugins

If you're interested in building plugins for Owncast, check out the plugin development documentation to get started. It will point you in the right direction.

There are SDKs for Python and JavaScript to help you get started quickly with building your plugin. There is a bunch of example code as well, which you can use as a reference or starting point for your own plugins.

If you have questions, concerns, or just want to talk with other plugin developers, there's a new discussion forum at Plugin Support so there's a place where these discussions can happen.

Let's chat

You can join the conversation and ask questions in our chat or reach out directly to the community through the discussion forums. I want to hear from users and developers alike, and this is the best way to get involved and stay updated on the latest plugin developments.

I'm super pumped for this new chapter of Owncast, but its success will heavily be in your hands.