SickGear icon
SickGear icon

SickGear

 5 likes

SickGear has proven the most reliable and stable TV fork of the great Sick-Beard to fully automate TV enjoyment with innovation.

Custom sections used to group shows

License model

  • FreeOpen Source

Country of Origin

  • International

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux
  • Self-Hosted
3.5 / 5 Avg rating (2)
5likes
2comments
0news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features
  1.  Media library
  2.  Anime / Manga Tracking

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SickGear information

  • Developed by

    SickGear contributors
  • Licensing

    Open Source (GPL-3.0) and Free product.
  • Written in

  • Rating

    Average rating of 3.5
  • Alternatives

    6 alternatives listed
  • Supported Languages

    • English

AlternativeTo Categories

Video & MoviesFile SharingNews & Books

GitHub repository

  •  728 Stars
  •  83 Forks
  •  1 Open Issues
  •   Updated May 23, 2025 
View on GitHub

Our users have written 2 comments and reviews about SickGear, and it has gotten 5 likes

SickGear was added to AlternativeTo by sdrawkcab on Feb 21, 2018 and this page was last updated Jan 6, 2021.

Comments and Reviews

   
 Post comment/review
Top Positive Comment
Tom Jolly
Jun 7, 2019
0

Its advanced 'Add show' finder sorts results A-Z, aired, or by relevancy. Has quick links to display your most recent added shows. It has built-in source providers for max. efficiency with hit graphs and failure stats. Keep all, or a number of most recent releases; e.g. keep the last 40 releases. Its automated search always works to save you time manually picking from lists.

Top Negative Comment
qed
Mar 17, 2019
1

There are better alternatives to this (ie Medusa is pretty new, Sonar has been around a while). SickGear does not have much control over file size downloading, little download error control, poor series numbering support (series ###), issues with network transfers, unexpected nuking of files, build updates suddenly not working, poor renaming functions (breaks with special character names), poor developer attitude (arrogant and assuming). No forums or adequate wiki/documentation for general assistance or issue resolution, just IRC chat which requires further hurdle registration.

Tom Jolly
Jun 7, 2019

So many false allegations in that review, each is addressed as follows...

  1. Medusa is not new at all. Medusa is most Sickrage developers continuing from the name squatting Sickrage project. Sickrage squatted on the brand name of the original project to literally steal users from the original SickRage citing that it was "the new home", this was not true. Sickrage squatters rebranded to SickChill after quite rightly being forced to after the authentic SickRage author spent 2 years to reclaim its rightful ownership of its brand name.
  2. SickGear does not use file size to determine a download because it is far more reliable without it. In fact, file size is a very poor metric that should never be used for reliable automated decision making.
  3. SickGear does have full download error control when set up completely.
  4. Poor series numbering support, there have been no issues reported that make a failure here.
  5. There are no issues with "network transfers", however, one report shows a slower transfer on a particular NAS device, many NAS devices and RPi/BPi etc. are more than fine.
  6. SickGear has never nuked files on a correct set up, however, it was possible to have files deleted by using it as not designed, and even that very rare kind of user misuse is now blocked.
  7. SickGear has never had build updates suddenly not working.
  8. Poor renaming functions (breaks with special character names), when the user OS (*nix) is set up for unicode then there is no issue, Windows doesn't require such intervention and most modern *nix' set up unicode (UTF8) fine too.
  9. Poor developer attitude (arrogant and assuming), a basic level of computing understanding from users is "assumed". Otherwise much time is lost getting to the heart of an issue, considering many users, over and over again, wasted time soon adds up. Support and time is given free for this project. SickGear strives to remedy an issue as quickly as possible for the user, and are direct in doing so, however, saying that this is arrogance is both unfair and untrue.
  10. No forums. Forums take even more time, server setup, continual maintenance, security, and of course money. There is the perfectly good GitHub issues tracker that people use which is owned and run by Microsoft.
  11. Wiki/documentation, this has always existed and constantly evolves from user feedback. Questions asked are often answered with a link to the answer in the docs which is far easier for people to read and also saves everyone time as that doc text is often more detailed than what can be remembered in an answer that is typed in chat.
  12. Issue resolution has always existed with an average 2hrs response time as reported from an independent monitoring service.
  13. IRC requires registration, and so do forums and many chat/social/email services. Registration is required because IRC was attacked by a nasty spammer for weeks and weeks, many channels were affected, and the best way to secure against this was to enforce registration, many channels now require this.

It's good to answer misinformed allegations, 13 points seem pretty excessive for a normal user review, perhaps it is an assault to push new readers here to move on, medusa/sickrage people have brand squatted and worse so this wouldn't surprise me - even the last point about IRC is an oddly specific inaccuracy.

Aside from this, many people comment how they love the SickGear project compared to others. They appreciate the rock solid stability and highly rate the delivery reliability when looking at what the project serves to fulfill, fully hands-off automation with no downtime, no developer introduced bugs, and far fewer issues being raised than what plague other projects in this space.

What is SickGear?

SickGear has proven the most reliable stable TV descendant of the great SickBeard to fully automate TV enjoyment with innovation.

Typically used with usenet and/or other download clients e.g. NZBGet, SABNZBd, qBittorrent, Transmission, Deluge, rTorrent, Syno and others, SickGear can also interact with Kodi, Emby, and Plex to automate library updates and manage watched episodes. Popular services like Slack, Discord, Gitter, Email, and hardware devices can be notified of events.

Migrating to a hassle free and feature rich set up is super simple.

SickGear does not contain or share feature code from other forks, their "similarities" compare like unbranded Cola to Coca-Cola or Pepsi while SickGear maintains perfect uptime with the longest record of being stable, reliable and trusted to work.

Some of the sick innovative gear you get;

Gives ideas of shows from Trakt, IMDb, and AniDB (new seasons, popular, etc) Advanced 'Add show' finder sorts results A-Z, aired, or by relevancy Quick links display your most recent added shows Daily Schedule ... "Day by Day" displays upcoming release fanart backgrounds Automated search always works to save you time manually picking from lists Can search for alternatively named shows with a fallback to user edited names Most comprehensive selection of built-in source providers deliver new and older stuff Delete watched episodes from any profile at Kodi, Emby, and/or Plex Keep all, or a number of most recent episodes; e.g. keep the last 40 releases Select a UI style anytime; Regular, Proview I, or Proview II Smart fanart system allows ultimate control to rate avoid/prefer UI can be moved or toggled off/on at anytime to fully appreciate a fanart Built-in source providers for max. efficiency with hit graphs and failure stats Advanced Failed Download Handling (FDH) Server friendly with minimal number of API calls Subtitle management Features that inspire imitators Used on servers, to smaller SoC devices like RPi, BPi etc.

Official Links