Source repositoryBuilding

Sunshine binaries are built using CMake and requires cmake > 3.25.

Building Locally

Compiler

It is recommended to use one of the following compilers:

Compiler	Version
GCC	14+
Clang	17+
Apple Clang	15+

Dependencies

Boost 1.89.0 or newer can be supplied as a system package. When a compatible system package is unavailable, CMake downloads the project-locked Boost release through CPM. Static Boost libraries are preferred on every platform by default; pass -DBOOST_USE_STATIC=OFF to use shared system libraries instead.

Sunshine's build and packaging automation uses packaged static Boost libraries on Arch Linux, Fedora 44 or newer, Ubuntu 26.04 or newer, macOS with Homebrew, Windows with MSYS2, and FreeBSD. Older supported distributions continue to use the CPM fallback because their repositories do not meet the minimum Boost version.

When the prebuilt FFmpeg package supplies libva, Sunshine uses its bundled headers, core library, and DRM backend together. These components share a private display-context ABI and must come from the same libva build. The system still provides libdrm and the GPU's VA-API driver. FFmpeg packages without bundled libva use the system libva libraries.

Prebuilt Web UI

Sunshine releases publish the platform-independent Web UI as the @lizardbyte/sunshine package to npm and GitHub Packages. The package contains the production assets under build/assets/web, so downstream packagers can install the Web UI without running Node.js or Vite during the native Sunshine build.

FreeBSD

Attention

Sunshine support for FreeBSD is experimental and may be incomplete or not work as expected

Install dependencies

pkg install -y \
  audio/opus \
  audio/pulseaudio \
  devel/cmake \
  devel/doxygen \
  devel/evdev-proto \
  devel/git \
  devel/libevdev \
  devel/llvm19 \
  devel/ninja \
  devel/pkgconf \
  devel/qt6-base \
  ftp/curl \
  graphics/graphviz \
  graphics/libdrm \
  graphics/qt6-svg \
  graphics/wayland \
  multimedia/libva \
  net/miniupnpc \
  ports-mgmt/pkg \
  security/openssl \
  shells/bash \
  www/npm-node22 \
  x11/libX11 \
  x11/libxcb \
  x11/libXfixes \
  x11/libXrandr \
  x11/libXtst

Use LLVM 19 when configuring a local FreeBSD build:

export CC=clang19
export CXX=clang++19

Linux

Dependencies vary depending on the distribution. You can reference our linux_build.sh script for a list of dependencies we use in Debian-based, Fedora-based and Arch-based distributions. Please submit a PR if you would like to extend the script to support other distributions.

KMS Capture

If you are using KMS, patching the Sunshine binary with setcap is required. Some post-install scripts handle this. If building from source and using the binary directly, this will also work:

sudo cp build/sunshine /tmp
sudo setcap cap_sys_admin,cap_sys_nice+p /tmp/sunshine
sudo getcap /tmp/sunshine
sudo mv /tmp/sunshine build/sunshine

CUDA Toolkit

When building Sunshine for a system with an NVIDIA GPU, install the CUDA Toolkit before configuring or compiling Sunshine. CUDA support is selected at compile time and is used for NVFBC capture and direct GPU-memory NVENC encoding. This applies to every source build, including builds made through the AUR or for third-party repositories such as Omarchy. Installing the CUDA Toolkit after Sunshine was compiled does not enable CUDA support; Sunshine must be rebuilt.

Note

Users installing a prebuilt package supplied by LizardByte do not need to install the CUDA Toolkit. This includes the Arch Linux package from LizardByte's pacman-repo, which is already built with CUDA support.

There are two caveats to CUDA:

1. The version installed depends on the version of GCC.
2. The version of CUDA you use will determine compatibility with various GPU generations. At the time of writing, the recommended version to use is CUDA ~13.1. See CUDA compatibility for more info.

Note

To install older versions, select the appropriate run file based on your desired CUDA version and architecture according to CUDA Toolkit Archive

macOS

You can either use Homebrew or MacPorts to install dependencies.

Homebrew

dependencies=(
  "boost"  # Optional
  "cmake"
  "doxygen"  # Optional, for docs
  "graphviz"  # Optional, for docs
  "icu4c"  # Optional, if boost is not installed
  "miniupnpc"
  "ninja"
  "node"
  "openssl@3"
  "opus"
  "pkg-config"
  "qtbase"
  "qtsvg"
)
brew install "${dependencies[@]}"

If there are issues with an SSL header that is not found:

• Intel

  ln -s /usr/local/opt/openssl/include/openssl /usr/local/include/openssl

• Apple Silicon

  ln -s /opt/homebrew/opt/openssl/include/openssl /opt/homebrew/include/openssl

MacPorts

dependencies=(
  "cmake"
  "curl"
  "doxygen"  # Optional, for docs
  "graphviz"  # Optional, for docs
  "libopus"
  "miniupnpc"
  "ninja"
  "npm9"
  "pkgconfig"
  "qt6-qtbase"
  "qt6-qtsvg"
)
sudo port install "${dependencies[@]}"

Windows

Warning

Cross-compilation is not supported on Windows. You must build on the target architecture.

First, you need to install MSYS2.

For AMD64 startup "MSYS2 UCRT64" (or for ARM64 startup "MSYS2 CLANGARM64") then execute the following commands.

Update all packages

pacman -Syu

Set toolchain variable

For UCRT64:

export TOOLCHAIN="ucrt-x86_64"

For CLANGARM64:

export TOOLCHAIN="clang-aarch64"

Install dependencies

dependencies=(
  "git"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-boost"  # Optional
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-cmake"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-cppwinrt"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-curl-winssl"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-doxygen"  # Optional, for docs
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-graphviz"  # Optional, for docs
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-miniupnpc"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-onevpl"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-openssl"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-opus"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-toolchain"
  "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-qt6-static"
)
if [[ "${MSYSTEM}" == "UCRT64" ]]; then
  dependencies+=(
    "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-MinHook"
    "mingw-w64-${TOOLCHAIN}-nsis"
  )
fi
pacman -S "${dependencies[@]}"

Static Qt is enabled by default on Windows. Sunshine automatically adds the MSYS2 static Qt prefix at ${MINGW_PREFIX}/qt6-static when that package is installed. If an IDE does not inherit MINGW_PREFIX, Sunshine derives the same prefix from the selected compiler. If static Qt is installed in a custom location, specify it with -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/to/qt6-static.

To use dynamic Qt instead, configure with -DSUNSHINE_USE_STATIC_QT=OFF and ensure the dynamic Qt package is available through the normal toolchain prefix.

To create a WiX installer, you also need to install .NET.

To build the frontend, install native Node.js for the target architecture. The MSYS2 Node.js package is not supported because its shared runtime cannot load the native binding required by Rolldown.

Clone

Ensure git is installed on your system, then clone the repository using the following command:

git clone https://github.com/lizardbyte/sunshine.git --recurse-submodules
cd sunshine
mkdir build

Build

cmake -B build -G Ninja -S .
ninja -C build

Remarks

Available build options can be found in options.cmake.

Package

• FreeBSD

  • pkg

    cpack -G FREEBSD --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake

• Linux
  • deb

    cpack -G DEB --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake

  • rpm

    cpack -G RPM --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake

• macOS

  • DragNDrop

    cpack -G DragNDrop --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake

• Windows

  • NSIS Installer

    cpack -G NSIS --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake

  • WiX Installer

    cpack -G WIX --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake

  • Portable

    cpack -G ZIP --config ./build/CPackConfig.cmake

Remote Build

It may be beneficial to build remotely in some cases. This will enable easier building on different operating systems.

1. Fork the project
2. Activate workflows
3. Trigger the CI workflow manually
4. Download the artifacts/binaries from the workflow run summary