The right message on every screen.
Open-Source Digital Signage. Flat price, any screen.
One digital signage CMS for lobbies, meeting rooms, menu boards, dashboards and emergency alerts. It works with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Power BI and your sign-in provider, and runs on the screens you already own. Other vendors bill per screen, every month. We don’t.
14 days of Pro on our hosted service: up to 15 screens, every feature, no credit card.
Or host it yourself, free and open source:
View on GitHub
screens deployed (from installs that share statistics)
Not sure what to run it on? See certified hardware →
15 screens for a year
Show what your teams already make
Connect the accounts you already pay for. Each integration uses your own app or keys, kept encrypted on the server and never sent to a screen.
Microsoft 365, SharePoint and OneDrive
Point at a SharePoint or OneDrive folder and its images and videos stay in your library: new files are added, changed files replaced, removed files taken out. PowerPoint, Word and Excel show through Microsoft’s own viewer. How it works →
Google Slides, Docs and Sheets
Slides advance and loop on their own, Docs and Sheets reload themselves, and a Google Sheet can drive prices and numbers on any slide. Edit the file and the screens follow. How it works →
Power BI, Tableau and Grafana
Put live dashboards on a wall with your organization’s own credentials. Screens get a view-only token or a rendered image, never the password. Pages and sheets can rotate. Power BI · Tableau · Grafana
Canva, kept in sync
Import a design as images or a video. When someone edits it in Canva, screens pick up the new version within 30 minutes, through your approval step if you use one. How it works →
Zapier, Make and n8n
Start a workflow when a screen goes offline or content is approved. Raise an alert, switch a playlist or update a table from a Zap, a script, or any system that can call a web address. How it works →
Slack, Teams and PagerDuty alerts
Hear about a dark screen before a customer does. Offline and back-online alerts for all screens, some groups or single screens, and PagerDuty incidents that close themselves. How it works →
When it matters, every screen says the same thing
Emergency alert digital signage that connects to the systems you already run, and cuts in at once.
Public alert feeds
Subscribe to US National Weather Service alerts by state or zone, MeteoAlarm for 38 European countries, or any CAP feed. Matching alerts take over the screens you choose, and clear when cancelled or expired.
Alertus, InformaCast and CAP 1.2
Your mass notification system can raise alerts on screens through a secret hook address. The same alert sent twice shows once, and a cancel from the sender clears it.
Cuts in at once
The alert card replaces whatever is playing straight away, mid-video, on every player. The all-clear brings the playlist back just as fast. Ordinary edits still wait for the current item.
Wired to the building
A fire panel, a PLC or a Crestron button can fire a trigger over the local network, and the screen acts on it with the internet down.
ScreenTinker is a display channel for your alerts. It is not a certified life-safety or mass notification system, and it does not replace one. How emergency alerts work →
Built to pass the IT review
Single sign-on, roles, approvals and an audit trail on every plan, hosted by us or on your own infrastructure.
SSO with SAML 2.0 or OIDC
Connect Entra ID, Okta, Google Workspace, ADFS or OneLogin for your organization. Prove your domains with a DNS record, then require SSO for everyone at them.
Roles and workspaces
A workspace per site, brand or client, with admin, editor and viewer roles. Head office can lock playlists that stores can’t change.
Approvals and an audit trail
Require approval before content goes live, keep version history, and see who changed what in the activity log.
Security basics, included
Two-factor sign-in and API tokens scoped to one workspace. On a self-hosted server, our support can get in only when you grant it, for as long as you choose, with every action logged.
Hosted, or on your own servers
Use our hosted service, or run the same MIT-licensed server yourself. Keep media in your own Amazon S3, S3-compatible or Azure Blob storage.
Safe updates across a fleet
New player versions go out in waves and halt themselves if updated screens start failing. Raspberry Pi and Windows screens roll back on their own.
Rooms people can find, and book
Meeting room displays, directories and touch screens that help people get where they are going.
Meeting room displays
Available or In use, readable from across a corridor, from Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace room calendars. On a touch screen, book the room for 15, 30 or 60 minutes, end a meeting early, and release rooms nobody checks in to. How it works →
Directory boards
Scrolling lobby, tenant and staff directories, with categories, dark and light themes and anti-burn-in.
Touch kiosks and wayfinding
Interactive pages and touch screens for check-in, maps and wayfinding.
QR codes you can change later
Put a tracked QR on a slide or in print. Change where it goes at any time and the printed code keeps working.
Know what played, and who noticed
Proof of play for every screen, and audience numbers that respect the people in front of it.
Proof of play
What played, when, and on which screen, with CSV export for campaign and ad reports.
Audience counting, privacy first
How many people looked at a screen, and for how long, per item. Counts only: no image is stored or sent and nobody is identified. Off until an admin turns it on. Android, plus Raspberry Pi and Windows with an optional add-on. Check your local rules first. The privacy model →
QR scans, counted
Totals, the last 30 days, and iPhone or Android, with no IP address or browser details stored about the person scanning.
Fleet health
Uptime reports, storage, network and battery telemetry, and offline alerts by email, Slack, Teams, PagerDuty or webhook.
Screens that update themselves.
Connect the data you already keep, start from a ready-made template, and run it on a native player. No code, and no upgrade to a higher plan to unlock any of it.
Edit a spreadsheet. Every screen follows.
Paste a Google Sheets link, point at any REST API, or type a table straight into the dashboard. Put a value on a slide with a tag like {{ds:menu.latte_price}}. When the data changes, the screens change. Nobody re-publishes anything.
Menu boards and price lists, KPI and sales dashboards, support queues, meeting rooms, status pages. API keys are encrypted and never sent to the screens. Name rows by a key column so a sorted sheet never shows the wrong price.
Start from a design, not a blank screen.
Slide templates you fill in, and code templates for the things a slide can’t do. Bind their fields to live data and they stay current on their own.
- Every catalog template is cryptographically signed. The server checks the signature, so a template can’t be tampered with on its way to you.
- Code templates run sandboxed on the screen; unsigned ones stay off until an admin allows them.
- Import your own template packages alongside the catalog.
Raspberry Pi and Windows, as real apps.
A proper player app instead of a browser in kiosk mode, so it controls the device it runs on rather than just a browser tab.
- Starts on boot, and comes back on its own after a reboot or a crash.
- Updates itself from your own server, and refuses an update package that isn’t genuine.
- The same playlists, schedules and remote control as every other screen. Downloads →
Up and Running in Minutes
No proprietary hardware, no complicated setup.
Connect a screen
Install the free player on an Android TV, Fire TV, Raspberry Pi, BrightSign, Samsung Tizen or a Windows PC. Or just open a browser tab. Then pair it with a code.
Add your content
Upload images and video, start from a template, connect live data from a sheet or an API, and arrange it all in playlists and multi-zone layouts.
Schedule and publish
Assign content to displays or groups, set day/time schedules, and push live. Change it any time from your phone.
Everything Else in the Box
Video walls, scheduling, layouts, remote control and the rest of what a fleet needs. Hosted or self-hosted, it is the same software.
Live Data, No Code
Google Sheets, any REST API, CSV files, RSS feeds, calendars, weather, or a table you type in. Values land on slides as tags and refresh on their own. See how →
Turnkey App & Template Library
Menu boards, meeting room signs, KPI dashboards, leaderboards, Wi-Fi QR codes, world clocks, animated weather. Fill in a form or bind them to a sheet, API, feed or calendar; they stay interactive and keep playing offline. New ones arrive from a signed catalog without an upgrade. Browse the templates →
Run It From Your AI Assistant
ScreenTinker speaks the Model Context Protocol. Point Claude, or any MCP client, at your server and ask it in plain English — “what’s offline?”, “put this video on the lobby screen”. Set it up →
E-Paper Signs That Run For Months
A battery ESP32 and an e-paper panel, with no browser on the device. The server renders and dithers the frame, tells the board how long to sleep, and answers 304 when nothing changed so it never wakes the panel for nothing. How it works →
Display Power Schedules
Panels switch themselves off outside opening hours and back on before the doors do. Per screen or per group, on a calendar.
Group Sync
A wall of screens starts the same frame at the same moment — and keeps doing it with the internet unplugged.
Node Mesh
One screen on a site pulls a video once and hands it to its neighbours over the LAN. A whole store updates on one download.
Scale-Out Replicas
Put a server in each region and let screens connect to the nearest one. Thousands of displays without one box carrying them all.
Two-Factor Authentication
TOTP from any authenticator app, with recovery codes. Included, not an enterprise upsell.
Consent-Gated Support Access
On a self-hosted server, our support can only look inside after you grant it, for a window you choose, and every action is logged.
Portrait-Native Panels
Screens that are portrait in hardware — menu boards, wayfinders — fill edge to edge without a rotation hack.
Plugins
Extend ScreenTinker with plugins: extra widget types, data-source connectors, and event hooks, without forking core. Trusted local code on a self-hosted node, off by default.
PDF to Playlist
Upload a PDF and every page becomes a full-screen slide, rendered in the browser. No manual export step.
Menu Boards
Sections, sizes and prices, dietary tags and photos. Mark an item sold out from the till or a phone and it shows at once. Breakfast and happy-hour sections switch by each screen’s clock. Menu boards →
Social Walls
Posts from Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X, Bluesky and Mastodon, with approval before anything shows if you want it. Screens never contact a social network. Social walls →
Weather and Location Rules
Play an item only where it is raining, above a temperature, or within a distance of a place. Each screen is judged at its own location, on every player.
Tags and Dynamic Groups
Tag screens and let groups fill themselves from rules. Playlists, schedules and alerts follow the screens that match.
Multi-Zone Layouts
Split screens into zones with a drag-and-drop editor. 7 built-in templates or create your own.
Video Wall
Combine displays into one big screen, with zones across the bezels, a shared clock and wall schedules. Bezel compensation, any grid size.
Remote Control
See what's on screen in real-time. Send key presses, navigate menus, power on/off remotely.
Scheduling
Visual weekly calendar with recurrence rules. Schedule per device or for whole groups. Device rules override the group.
Playlists
Share one playlist across many displays. Draft changes, preview, then publish. Or revert to the last published version.
Directory Board
Scrolling lobby, building, and staff directories. Categories, dark & light themes, anti-burn-in. Not found in any other open-source CMS.
Slides
Design a slide properly, with headlines, photos, panels and rules, plus live clocks, dates, countdowns and QR codes on the slide itself. Add a voiceover per slide, or music under the whole deck.
Triggers
Let a Crestron or Extron panel, a PLC or a button put a playlist over whatever is showing. Resolved on the screen itself, so an alarm still works with the internet down.
Kiosk Mode
Create interactive touchscreen interfaces. Wayfinding, directories, check-in screens.
Proof-of-Play
Track what played, when, and on which device. Export CSV reports for ad verification.
Alerts & Monitoring
Offline alerts by email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty or webhook. Full telemetry: battery, storage, WiFi, uptime.
Offline Resilience
Displays keep playing cached content when the internet or your server drops. They catch up automatically when you're back.
Mobile Dashboard
Manage everything from your phone. The full dashboard works on any mobile browser, so there is no separate app to install.
Self-Hosted Option
Deploy on your own infrastructure. Your data never leaves your network. Lock down signups with a single env var.
White Label
Custom branding, colors, logo, and domain. Resell under your own brand.
Teams & Workspaces
Separate workspaces per client or site, with owner, editor and viewer roles. Invite by email, or sign in with your own identity provider.
Auto-Update in Waves
Players update themselves, a wave at a time, and a bad release stops spreading on its own.
Digital Signage for Any Space
One platform, every use case. Browse solutions →
Retail & QSR
Menu boards, promotions and price updates pushed to every location, with head office playlists stores can’t override. Menu boards →
Restaurants & Cafés
Digital menu boards with dayparting. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus that switch themselves on schedule.
LED Walls
The LED processor hands the wall’s native resolution to the player over EDID, so a 2808×648 wall is just a screen with an odd shape. ⚠️ Streaming sticks can’t drive one — they only output standard resolutions — so use a Raspberry Pi or a small PC. Verified in production by Watterott electronic. LED wall guide →
Offices & Corporate
Lobby welcome screens, bookable meeting room displays, Power BI and Tableau dashboards, and internal comms from SharePoint. Room displays →
Schools & Universities
Campus announcements, event calendars, and emergency alerts from your notification system on every screen at once. Emergency alerts →
Healthcare & Clinics
Waiting-room information, wayfinding and check-in kiosks that keep playing offline, with sign-in through your hospital’s identity provider. Enterprise features →
Churches & Nonprofits
Free, self-hostable signage for lobbies and sanctuaries with no recurring cost.
Gyms & Fitness
Class schedules, promos, and live directories on any screen you already own.
Events & Venues
Moderated social walls for a hashtag or an account, schedules, and sponsor loops. Social walls →
Building & Staff Directories
Scrolling lobby, tenant, and staff directories with categories and anti-burn-in.
Runs on Everything
No hardware lock-in. Use any screen you already have — every platform has its own setup guide, and every player is downloaded from your own server. Apple TV can’t run a player, and the Mac and iPad players are new, so try one screen first.
No lock-in. No surprises.
The questions IT, legal and finance ask before they sign, answered plainly.
Open source, MIT licensed
The server and the players are on GitHub. Your security team can read the code that runs your screens, not a datasheet about it.
Your data stays yours
Run it on your own servers, or keep media in your own storage bucket. Credentials for Microsoft, Google, Canva and the rest are encrypted on the server and never sent to a screen.
No hardware lock-in
Use the TVs, sticks and players you already own, or hardware we have tested. If you ever leave the hosted service, the same software runs on your own server.
Flat plans, not per-screen bills
Plans are priced by tier, with screens and storage the main difference. Integrations, SSO and emergency alerts are on every plan, not an enterprise upsell.
An honest platform list
We say what doesn’t work. Apple TV can’t run a player, the Mac and iPad players are beta, and LinkedIn and TikTok walls aren’t supported. Each guide states its limits.
Bring your own app
Integrations connect through your own Entra app, Google service account, Canva integration or API keys, so access stays under your admins’ control and can be revoked there.
Simple, Honest Pricing
All plans include remote control, monitoring, and unlimited content
How We Compare
| ScreenTinker | Yodeck | OptiSigns | ScreenCloud | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billing model | Flat per plan — extra screens free | Per screen, per month | Per screen, per month | Per screen, per month |
| Price (15 screens/yr) | $989 | $1,440–2,160 | $1,620–2,430 | $3,600–5,400 |
| Price (50 screens/yr) | $1,989 | $4,800–7,200 | $5,400–8,100 | $12,000–18,000 |
| Cost per screen/month at 50 | $3.31 | $8–12 | $9–13.50 | $20–30 |
| Live data (Google Sheets, APIs) | ✓ Every plan, no code | Premium tier | Pro Plus tier | Pro tier (dashboards) |
| 15 screens with live data, per year | $989 | $2,160 | $2,430 | $5,400 |
| Template library | ✓ Signed catalog + your own | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free tier | ✓ 1 device | ✓ 1 screen | ✓ 3 screens | ✗ |
| Self-Hosted | ✓ Only us | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Source you can read and change | ✓ Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Video Wall | ✓ Included | Basic | Paid add-on | Basic |
| Live screen view + remote key presses* | ✓ All plans | Limited | Limited | Limited |
| Kiosk/Touchscreen | ✓ Included | ✓ | ✓ | Limited |
| Proof-of-Play | ✓ All plans | Paid tier | Paid | Paid |
| Display power schedules | ✓ All plans | Player-dependent | Player-dependent | Player-dependent |
| E-paper / microcontroller displays | ✓ Server-side rendering | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Control from an AI assistant (MCP) | ✓ Built in | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Site-local content distribution | ✓ Node mesh | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| White Label | ✓ Included | Paid | Paid tier | Enterprise |
| Email Alerts | ✓ All plans | Paid | Paid | Paid |
| Platforms supported | 12, incl. e-paper | Own player + a few OS | Several | Several |
* Live screen view + remote key presses is Android only and requires granting the on-device accessibility permission.
Prices read off each vendor's own pricing page on 24 September 2026; live-data tiers on 30 September 2026. Ranges are their cheapest to mid tier at that screen count, on annual billing where they offer it; ours is the annual price of the plan that covers those screens. Spot an error? Open an issue on GitHub and we'll fix it — and say who found it.
Resources
Solutions, setup guides and honest comparisons.
Frequently Asked Questions
What buyers ask us most about running ScreenTinker.
Is there free digital signage software?
Yes. ScreenTinker is free and open source (MIT licensed). The free cloud plan runs 1 display with 500 MB of storage, and if you self-host there's no per-screen fee at all, so you can run as many displays as your own server can handle. New accounts also get a 14-day Pro trial (15 displays) with no credit card required.
How long is the free trial, and what does it include?
14 days of the Pro plan on our hosted service: up to 15 screens and 20 GB of storage, with every integration. No credit card is needed. At the end you choose a plan, or the account moves to the Free plan with one screen.
Does ScreenTinker support single sign-on with SAML or OIDC?
Yes. Each organization can connect its own identity provider over SAML 2.0 or OpenID Connect, including Entra ID, Okta, Google Workspace, ADFS and OneLogin. You verify your domains with a DNS TXT record, and can then require single sign-on for everyone at them.
Can digital signage show emergency alerts?
Yes. Subscribe to public CAP feeds such as the US National Weather Service or MeteoAlarm, or connect Alertus, Singlewire InformaCast or any system that sends CAP 1.2. The alert card replaces what is playing at once, on every player, and the all-clear brings the playlist back. ScreenTinker is a display channel for alerts, not a certified life-safety system.
Can I show a Power BI dashboard on a TV screen?
Yes. An organization admin adds your Power BI service principal once, and editors pick a report. Screens get a view-only embed token that expires within the hour, never your secret. Embedding this way needs a Power BI Embedded, Fabric or Premium capacity. A public Publish to web link also works, for data that is meant to be public.
Does audience counting record people?
No. The player counts faces turned toward the screen and discards each frame straight away. No image or video is stored or sent, nobody is recognised, and only per-minute counts reach the server. It is off by default, an admin has to allow it, and a small camera icon shows on screens that are counting. Camera rules differ by country and state, so check with your adviser and put up a notice first.
Can I run digital signage on a Raspberry Pi?
Yes. A Raspberry Pi 4 or newer makes an excellent low-cost signage player. Our one-line installer sets up kiosk mode, auto-start, and pairing for you. See the full walkthrough in our Raspberry Pi digital signage guide.
Does ScreenTinker work on Android TV and Fire TV?
Yes. Install the free APK on any Android TV box or Amazon Fire TV Stick to turn it into a managed signage display, complete with kiosk mode and live remote control. Step-by-step instructions are in our Android TV & Fire TV guide. ScreenTinker also runs on BrightSign players, Windows, ChromeOS, LG webOS, Samsung Tizen, and any web browser, with Mac and iPad/iPhone players in beta.
Does ScreenTinker run on BrightSign players?
Yes. A BrightSign runs the same web player the browser does, so it gets the same playlists, layouts, scheduling and remote control as every other screen. It can even run the ScreenTinker server itself, so a small site needs no separate box. Most open-source signage never supports BrightSign at all.
What's the difference between self-hosted and cloud digital signage?
With cloud, we host everything and you just sign in. That is the fastest way to start. With self-hosting, you deploy ScreenTinker on your own server or VPS so your content and device data never leave your network, with no recurring SaaS fees. You can switch later. Our self-hosted digital signage guide covers sizing, deployment, TLS, and backups.
Is ScreenTinker really open source?
Yes. The full platform is released under the permissive MIT license on GitHub. You can read the code, self-host it, modify it, and even white-label it. No vendor lock-in and no proprietary black box.
What can I put on my screens?
Images, video, PDFs, slides and templates, live data from Google Sheets and APIs, playlists, multi-zone layouts, and live widgets: clocks, weather, RSS tickers, countdowns, QR codes, web pages, and scrolling lobby/staff directories. You can schedule different content by day and time, per display or per group.
Can I show live data from Google Sheets or an API?
Yes, on every plan including Free. Connect a Google Sheet by pasting its share link, or point at any REST/JSON API with a bearer token, API key or basic auth. CSV files, RSS feeds, calendars, weather and hand-typed tables work too. Values go on slides as tags like {{ds:menu.latte_price}} and update on their own. Credentials are encrypted and never sent to the screens.
Are there ready-made templates?
Yes. The template library installs slide and code templates from a catalog in which every template is cryptographically signed, so the server can tell it hasn’t been tampered with. You can also import your own and bind any template’s fields to live data.
Do my displays keep playing if the internet goes down?
Yes. ScreenTinker players cache their content locally and keep playing during an internet or server outage, then sync automatically once the connection returns. No blank screens.
Can I control my screens remotely?
Yes, on every plan. See a live view of what's on each screen, push content instantly, and send remote key presses or power commands. (Live view and key presses on Android require the on-device accessibility permission.)
Is there a limit on how many screens I can manage?
On cloud plans, your display count is set by your tier (1 free, up to 15 on Pro, more on Enterprise). If you self-host, there is no built-in device cap. You're limited only by your own hardware.
How does ScreenTinker compare to Yodeck, ScreenCloud, and OptiSigns?
ScreenTinker is typically a fraction of the price at scale and is the only one of the four you can self-host. See the detailed breakdowns: vs Yodeck, vs ScreenCloud, and vs OptiSigns.
Put it on one screen this week
Start a 14-day Pro trial: up to 15 screens, every integration, no credit card. Pair a screen in minutes, then invite your team.
Start Free Trial See plansOr host it yourself, free and open source, from GitHub. Rolling out to a large estate? Talk to us.