A torrent client for Linux that looks good
and keeps everything a click or a keystroke away.
Greenhouse is a native desktop app. A Rust core built on librqbit does the BitTorrent work; a Svelte 5 interface runs in a Tauri window. The result is a 9 MB package that starts instantly and uses your system's own WebKit, not a bundled browser.
Progress is drawn as the row itself, a wash to the point reached with a lit leading edge, so a list of torrents reads as one living system at a glance. Download is always teal, upload always amber, everywhere in the app.
Most clients make you paste a tracker list into every torrent, one at a time. Greenhouse makes it a setting you configure once.
A pack is a saved list of trackers with a name. Turn one on and every torrent and magnet you open from then on gets those trackers attached. No dialog, no pasting.
Automatic for everything new. One switch decides whether enabled packs are attached to each new torrent. The add sheet shows the running count before you commit, so you always know what is about to be attached.
Per-torrent editing. The Trackers tab stages additions and removals as a
delta and shows +4 before you save. Applying re-attaches the torrent in
place: same destination, same file selection, nothing re-downloaded.
Apply to everything at once. Apply to existing torrents pushes a pack, or every enabled pack, onto every torrent already in the session. Select several torrents first and it applies to just those.
Keep packs current. Give a pack a source URL, a raw list such as ngosang/trackerslist, and Update from source refetches it.
Pasted lists can be separated by newlines, commas or spaces. Comments and
anything that is not an http, https, udp, ws or wss URL are dropped,
and duplicates are removed case-insensitively.
The search bar doubles as the add bar: paste a magnet link and it is recognised
as you type. You can also drop .torrent files anywhere in the window, open a
torrent URL, or paste a bare info hash.
Before anything downloads you get the destination, the file list, and the tracker count. Magnet metadata resolves in the background while the rest of the sheet stays usable, so you can hit Add before it finishes.
Skip file types. Extensions you list (exe, msi, bat and friends by
default) arrive unticked, with a note saying why and a one-click way to include
them. An .exe buried in a torrent is not downloaded unless you ask for it.
Managing. Select many torrents with Shift and Ctrl click, then pause, resume, add trackers to, or remove them together. Removing without deleting files can be undone straight from the notification.
Queue. Download a few at a time and seed a few at a time; the rest wait their turn. Torrents you paused yourself are never touched by the queue.
Files. Choose what to download before starting and change it later, with a filter for torrents that hold hundreds of files. Unfinished downloads can live in a separate folder and are moved to their real destination on completion.
Watching. A per-torrent inspector with progress, peers, per-file progress and trackers. A live throughput graph that starts when the first byte moves, not when the app launches.
Network. Port, UPnP, transport and per-torrent peer limits. Speed limits that apply the moment you set them. DHT and local peer discovery are on.
Desktop fit. Registers as your system's magnet handler, with a second launch handing the link to the running window. Remembers its size and position. Desktop notification when a download finishes, with a button to test it.
The whole list is a single tab stop and the arrow keys move within it, so the app is fully reachable without a mouse. Press ? for this list in the app.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Ctrl F | Jump to the search bar |
| ↑ ↓ | Move through the list |
| Shift ↑ ↓ | Extend the selection |
| Ctrl A | Select everything in view |
| Enter | Show or hide the details panel |
| Space | Pause or resume |
| Delete | Remove |
| Esc | Clear the selection, or close a panel |
| Ctrl O | Choose a torrent file |
Double-click opens a torrent's folder. Right-click opens the full menu, including Copy magnet link.
Night, Day, or follow the desktop, plus six accents, compact rows, and a reduced-motion switch that turns off every transition.
Grab a .deb, .rpm or .AppImage from
Releases, or build your
own.
To make Greenhouse the handler for magnet links:
xdg-mime default Greenhouse.desktop x-scheme-handler/magnet
xdg-mime default Greenhouse.desktop application/x-bittorrentYou need Node with pnpm, a Rust toolchain, and the Tauri v2 Linux
dependencies: webkit2gtk-4.1, gtk3 and libsoup3, with their development
headers.
pnpm install
pnpm app # run it in development
pnpm app:build # .deb, .rpm and .AppImage in src-tauri/target/release/bundleapp:build also leaves a standalone binary at
src-tauri/target/release/greenhouse.
Why app:build rather than pnpm tauri build
The AppImage step needs two environment variables on a current Linux
distribution, and app:build sets both:
ARCH=$(uname -m): the AppDir ends up with bothlib/andlib64/, andappimagetoolrefuses to guess an architecture from that.NO_STRIP=true: thestripshipped insidelinuxdeploypredates the.relr.dynrelocation sections current toolchains emit, and fails on every GTK and WebKit library it touches. The Greenhouse binary is still stripped, bystrip = truein the release profile.
The AppImage is around 108 MB because it carries GTK and WebKit. The .deb and
.rpm are about 9 MB each, linking against the system copies.
The interface runs in an ordinary browser against fixtures, with no torrent engine and no network. This is how the design was built and reviewed.
pnpm preview:dev # http://localhost:4173
# ?empty=1 first-run state · ?idle=1 no traffic · ?slow=1 slow startvite.preview.config.ts aliases the Tauri APIs to mocks in preview/mocks, so
the real components run against preview/fixtures.ts.
pnpm check # Svelte and TypeScript
cd src-tauri && cargo test # magnet parsing, tracker merging, file moves,
# and the frontend/backend command contracts
cd src-tauri && cargo run --example engine_checkengine_check is an end-to-end check against a real public torrent: it fetches
a .torrent, parses it without downloading anything, confirms injected
trackers are attached, and prints live swarm stats for 30 seconds.
src/ Svelte 5 interface
lib/store.svelte.ts app state; the backend pushes a snapshot every 900ms
lib/components/ one file per surface
src-tauri/src/
engine.rs librqbit session and the DTOs the interface reads
commands.rs the Tauri command surface
supervisor.rs queue limits, move-on-completion, notifications
settings.rs settings and tracker packs, stored as JSON
torrentsrc.rs magnet parsing and tracker-list handling
preview/ fixtures and API mocks for browser-based design work
Settings live in ~/.config/greenhouse/settings.json. Session state and a copy
of each torrent's source file live in ~/.local/share/greenhouse/.
Protocol encryption (MSE/PE) is not supported. librqbit does not implement it (its handshake sets only the extension-protocol bit), so Greenhouse does not offer a setting that would pretend otherwise. You can choose between TCP and uTP, which is a real connection-level choice, but it is not encryption. If your ISP or tracker requires encrypted peer connections, Greenhouse is not the right client for you yet.
Settings under Network (port, UPnP, transport, peer limit) are fixed when the torrent session starts, so they take effect next launch. The page says so. Everything else, including speed and queue limits, applies immediately.
librqbit does the BitTorrent work. Tauri provides the window, Svelte the interface, and IBM Plex the type.
Screenshots show the real interface running against sample data.