Moonlight

Moonlight is an open-source client for game streaming. The game runs on your gaming PC at home; Moonlight shows its video on your phone, tablet or TV and sends your controller, touch or keyboard input back. It speaks the protocol of NVIDIA’s GameStream, so the PC needs a host program that understands it.

What you need

• A host on the PC. The project recommends Sunshine, an open-source host (GPL-3.0) that works with AMD, NVIDIA and Intel graphics. Its setup guide lists Windows 10 or 11, Linux, and macOS 12 or later as experimental. The other host, NVIDIA GeForce Experience, is on its way out: NVIDIA ended GameStream support in early 2023, and the NVIDIA app that replaces GeForce Experience doesn’t have it. Moonlight still connects to GeForce Experience where it is installed.
• The same network, at first. Moonlight usually finds the PC on its own; otherwise you enter its IP address. To pair, you type the PIN that Moonlight shows into Sunshine’s web page on the PC (or into GeForce Experience’s dialog).
• For playing away from home, Sunshine can open the needed ports on your router through UPnP, and the guide also covers VPNs such as ZeroTier. The project asks you to pair on your home network first.

Controllers, TV and picture

• Gamepads with the standard Android button layout work, and so do Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3 and PS4 controllers, which the project suggests testing on your device first.
• Moonlight shows up on the Android TV home screen and can add rows there with your PC’s games; that is what its two TV-listing permissions are for.
• HDR needs Android 7.0 or later, a hardware HEVC Main10 decoder and an HDR10 display.

What changed in 12.2

Version 12.2 (September 2026) came after a gap of two and a half years. From the release notes: it targets Android 16, can capture the keyboard on Android 16.1 and later, maps newer keys such as F13 to F24, drives Xbox controllers through its built-in USB driver, and fixes crashes with RGB-lit gamepads and on Meta Quest. Not in the notes: the build files show that 12.2 needs Android 5.0, where 12.1 still ran on Android 4.1.

What goes online

Moonlight talks to your PC. To work out a PC’s internet address, it asks Moonlight’s STUN server (stun.moonlight-stream.org). When a connection fails, or when you run the network test from the menu, it checks which ports get through against android.conntest.moonlight-stream.org. There is no update checker, and our scan found no tracker libraries.

About this file

• This is the official release from GitHub, app-nonRoot-release.apk from version 12.2, byte for byte (the SHA-256 matches the hash GitHub publishes). It is signed with the project’s key, “Limelight Team” (SHA-256 fingerprint starting D6:CE:3A:4D), whose certificate dates from March 2014.
• F-Droid is still on 12.1. Its automatic update to 12.2 failed to build on F-Droid’s servers, and F-Droid’s question about it in the project’s issue tracker (#1599) had no answer when we checked. F-Droid’s copy is signed with F-Droid’s key, so it can’t be updated with this file.
• The 11.1 MB file runs on Android 5.0 and later, on ARM and x86, 32- and 64-bit, so it also fits TV boxes with a 32-bit system. It declares 9 permissions, and none of them needs your approval.
• The app is translated into Portuguese (Brazil), among other languages. Moonlight is licensed under GPL-3.0.

NVIDIA, GeForce and GameStream are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. Moonlight is an independent project, not affiliated with NVIDIA.

CPU types in this build: arm64-v8a (64-bit ARM, almost every phone since 2017); armeabi-v7a (32-bit ARM, older and budget phones); x86 (32-bit Intel, emulators); x86_64 (64-bit Intel, emulators and Chromebooks).

Recent releases on the project’s GitHub. We host and check only the newest one. Full changelog.