Opportunities › Scraping and captcha bypass for media indexing › Proposed app
Postern
Self-hosted challenge solver that slots into Prowlarr, Sonarr and Radarr
- Score
- 16
- confidence 41
- Evidence
- 4
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 2
- named in sources
- First version
- 35 d
- estimate
- Type
- Desktop app
- PWA: runs in the browser, installs on Mac and Windows
- Market since
- 2019
- Established market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Desktop app: Developers and operators configure and monitor self-hosted services through dashboards and settings, work that happens at a desk with keyboard and screen. Sample screens on a computer, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
Indexers
2 need attention94%
About this appAI proposal
Postern is a self-hosted service that fetches pages behind anti-bot checks for your media indexers. It speaks the same request format as the proxies *arr apps already point at, so you change one URL and keep your setup.
One container handles Cloudflare challenges, Turnstile, reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha and GeeTest, instead of a separate tool per system. A small installable dashboard shows which indexers pass, which fail and why.
It is for people who run or maintain *arr stacks. Everything runs on your own hardware; the engine keeps working with no account and no outside service.
- Tagline
- One small gate for every challenge your indexers meet.
- Voice
- PlainCalmPractical
- Why this name
- A postern is a small back gate in a wall. It suggests a quiet way through, and it is short and easy to say.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Drop-in request format
Accepts the same request calls that FlareSolverr-style clients send, so Prowlarr, Jackett, Sonarr and Radarr need only a new URL.
No member yet
Many challenge types, one service
Handles Cloudflare, Turnstile, reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha and GeeTest in one container, with no extra integrations to wire up.
No member yet
Per-indexer health board
See pass rate, last failure and challenge type for every indexer, so you know which one broke after a site change.
No member yet
Session reuse
Keeps solved sessions and cookies per site, so repeat requests skip the challenge and use less CPU and memory.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#1F5C4DMoss · primary#F4EFE6Parchment · surface#14231FInk · text#E0892BAmber · accent#3B6EA5Slate Blue · data
Typography
Aa
Postern
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
One small gate for every challenge your indexers meet.
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no competitor prices and no stated monetization. These tiers are a starting point to test, with the engine free and paid tiers for the dashboard and alerts.
Community
Free
- Self-hosted engine
- Compatible request format
- Core challenge types
- Basic status page
Operator
$5 a month
- Health board and request log
- Failure alerts by email or webhook
- Fallback chain editor
- Installable dashboard
Multi-host
$12 a month
- Several instances in one dashboard
- Shared settings across hosts
- Priority support
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- No loop in the product. Reached through self-hosting communities, project docs and guides. The engine runs in users' own stacks and shows no Postern branding to anyone else.
- Do they become customers?
- Users find it by searching for a replacement. Test whether free-engine users will pay for the dashboard and alerts, and how many convert.
- First customers
- Home-lab operators who run Prowlarr with Sonarr and Radarr and already use a separate Cloudflare proxy, and who lose searches when it fails.
- Where to reach them
- Self-hosting forums: Post a migration guide and a short benchmark of success rates across challenge types in *arr and home-lab communities.
- Open-source repository: Publish the engine with a one-line Docker setup and track issues to learn which sites fail.
- Setup guides: Offer ready compose snippets to *arr guide writers so the new URL is easy to copy.
- First milestone
- Twenty-five paying Operator users within 90 days of release, from the free engine's install base.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedGitHub repository gained 1006 stars in 114 days
- Public claimTrawl is positioned as a drop-in replacement for FlareSolverr and Byparr within the *arr media management stack.
- Public claimThe product handles multiple anti-bot and captcha systems that existing solutions may not fully support.
- Public claimThe scraping engine is self-hosted, indicating demand for on-premises solutions in the media management ecosystem.
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Solver engineContainerised headless browser serviceThe challenge solving runs on the user's own host, outside Vercel, as a Docker image.
- This app · Dashboard linkOutbound agent with signed tokensLets the hosted PWA read status from a user's home server without opening inbound ports.
RisksAI inference
- TechnicalAnti-bot systems change often. Solving methods can break without warning, so the product needs steady maintenance and fast fixes.
- CommercialFree alternatives already exist and users are used to paying nothing. Willingness to pay for a dashboard and alerts is untested.
- RegulatoryBypassing access controls and indexing media may raise legal and terms-of-service issues in some places. Positioning and use policy need legal review.
- PlatformPayment processors, app stores or hosts may refuse products tied to bypassing protections or piracy-adjacent tools.
- Intellectual propertyThe name and any compatible-API claims need a trademark and licence check against the tools it replaces.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.