Screenly itself runs one way, in our cloud. The choice is what runs on the hardware driving each screen, whether that is a device you connect to a display or a business display with a computer built in. There are two options, and any given device uses one or the other.
- ScreenlyOS takes over the device completely. It becomes a screen player and does nothing else, and we look after it, including its updates.
- Screenly Anywhere is an app you add to a device that already has its own system, such as a commercial display, a smart TV, an Android box, or a spare computer.
Same dashboard, same content, same playlists either way. You can use both in the same workspace, and mixed estates are normal.
If you already have your hardware, this decision is made for you: a Screenly Player, a Sharp display that shipped with it, a Raspberry Pi, or a Scala player runs ScreenlyOS, and other hardware runs Screenly Anywhere. You can go straight to Set up your first screen and come back to this page when you are choosing hardware for the next site.
Which one should you pick
| If you | Pick |
|---|---|
| Are buying hardware for this | ScreenlyOS, which our players come with |
| Already own a commercial display, a smart TV, an Android box, or a spare computer | Screenly Anywhere |
| Want the most reliable and most secure setup | ScreenlyOS |
| Want to try Screenly today without buying anything | Screenly Anywhere, in a browser tab |
| Have screens somewhere with strict IT rules | ScreenlyOS, and show your IT team the section at the bottom |
You do not have to decide before you try it. Set up Anywhere in a browser tab and you can work through the whole of Set up your first screen right in your browser, then move to ScreenlyOS when hardware arrives. Everything you build carries over, because it lives in the cloud rather than on the device.
What is actually different
Five things you will notice.
Interruptions
On ScreenlyOS nothing else runs on the device, so nothing appears on top of your content. On Anywhere, the device’s own system is still doing its own job. It can install its own updates, restart itself, or put its own messages in front of what you are showing.
Updates
On ScreenlyOS we update the whole device, and a failed update undoes itself automatically. On Anywhere, the device manufacturer updates the system on their schedule, not ours.
Apps
On ScreenlyOS, apps run on the device itself. On some Anywhere platforms, apps are drawn on our servers and sent to the screen as pictures instead.
What we can fix without visiting
On ScreenlyOS we can restart the device, take a diagnostic screenshot, and see how it is doing. On Anywhere, we can only reach inside our own app, so how much we can help depends on the device.
How long it keeps working
Anywhere depends on the device’s own system staying supported. A commercial display or a smart TV gets updates on its manufacturer’s schedule, and when that schedule ends, the browser or app on it stops moving forward too. The panel can be in perfect condition and the screen still ages out, because the software on it did.
ScreenlyOS separates those two things. Put a device running ScreenlyOS in front of that same display and the panel becomes only a display, which is the part that lasts. The software side is ours to keep current, so the life of a screen is no longer set by when its manufacturer loses interest.
This is a common reason an estate ends up mixing the two. Anywhere gets a display working today, and a ScreenlyOS device keeps it working after the display’s own software has stopped being updated.
What offline actually means
Both keep playing without an internet connection. Neither goes dark.
Files you uploaded, such as images, video, and PDFs, play from the device’s own storage. Schedules are saved on the device too, so your content still changes on time through an outage rather than freezing on whatever was last showing.
What cannot survive is anything that has to fetch something. A web page, or an app pulling in live figures, is skipped while it cannot reach its source, and comes back into the rotation once the connection returns.
Losing internet is not the same as losing your whole network. Losing internet is not the same as losing your whole network. A screen showing something from your own building, such as an internal dashboard, keeps working through an internet outage, because that content never had to leave the building.
Screenly Anywhere also plays saved content offline. What it can do varies by platform, because Anywhere is a different build on each one rather than a single piece of software running everywhere.
Comparing the two
| ScreenlyOS | Screenly Anywhere | |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboard, content, playlists, labels | Identical | Identical |
| Who looks after the device’s system | We do | The device manufacturer |
| Something appearing over your content | Cannot happen | Possible |
| Where apps are drawn | On the device | On our servers, on some devices |
| Offline playback | Yes, content and schedules saved on the device | Yes, with limits that vary by platform |
| Fixing things without a site visit | Full | Limited to our app |
| How long it stays current | As long as we support it | Follows the device manufacturer’s support window |
| Hardware | Screenly Player and Player Max, Raspberry Pi, Scala players, Sharp displays. Other hardware after testing | Android and Android TV, Samsung Tizen commercial displays, LG webOS televisions, Fire OS, Amazon Signage Stick, ChromeOS Flex, and any current browser, which is how Windows runs it |
For IT and security teams
Why the operating system is the real decision
Digital signage is three layers, and most vendors own only one of them.
| Layer | What it covers | Who usually owns it |
|---|---|---|
| Content | Authoring, scheduling, publishing | The signage software vendor |
| Device management | Monitoring, control, provisioning, diagnostics | A separate vendor, or nobody |
| Operating system and device | Boot, drivers, patching, hardening, lifecycle | Microsoft, Google, or the display manufacturer |
The bottom two rows are where signage deployments get expensive. An operating system nobody is answerable for still needs patching, imaging, and a site visit when it misbehaves, and none of that appears in a signage budget.
ScreenlyOS security and network capabilities
ScreenlyOS is built on Ubuntu Core in partnership with Canonical, and hardened down to a single job.
- The operating system and the playback software update together, over the air, cryptographically signed and transactional. A failed update rolls back on its own.
- No remote login and no open ports. Encrypted storage where the hardware supports it.
- 802.1X on wired and wireless, including static IP from the on-screen setup wizard.
- Mutual TLS client certificates, so a screen can authenticate to internal services.
- On hardware with a TPM, such as the Screenly Player Max, credentials for protected dashboards and internal services are stored in the chip rather than in ordinary storage.
- Remote reboot, remote diagnostic screenshots, and CPU, memory, and network health from the dashboard.
It runs on our Screenly Player and Player Max, on a Raspberry Pi, on Scala players, and on Sharp large-format displays that ship with it preloaded. Other amd64 hardware, including signage players you already own, can be supported once we have tested and confirmed the specific model, so get in touch with what you have.
What Screenly Anywhere runs on, and its limits
Samsung Tizen commercial displays (SSSP), LG webOS televisions (consumer sets only; webOS Signage for business displays is not supported yet), Android and Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, the Amazon Signage Stick, ChromeOS Flex, and any current browser, which is the route for Windows.
We manage what happens inside our application, but not the system around it, so updates and security depend partly on the host. On some platforms apps render on our servers and are sent to the screen as images rather than running on the device.
What we do not do
Two limits worth knowing before you plan around them.
Screenly is not device-agnostic. Anywhere exists for hardware we cannot own, and the platforms it covers differ from each other in what they can do.
We also do not sell the layers separately. You cannot run ScreenlyOS underneath a different content management system, and there is no self-hosted version of the cloud.
Next
What you need covers the screen, the internet connection, and the browser required for either route.