Privacy Policy

Your data, your rules. We built Glitch with privacy at its core.

Effective March 1, 2026

Our Philosophy

Glitch is a self-hosted platform. That means your games, your saves, and your library live on your hardware. We designed Glitch this way on purpose — we believe your gaming life is nobody's business but yours. This privacy policy explains the limited data we do collect when you interact with our cloud services, website, and accounts.

What We Collect

Account Data

When you create a Glitch account, we collect your email address, chosen username, and a securely hashed password (bcrypt). We never store plaintext passwords.

Usage Data (Aggregate Only)

If you opt in, we collect anonymous, aggregate usage statistics — things like which platforms are most popular, average session length, and feature adoption rates. This data cannot be tied back to individual users or their game libraries.

Payment Data

Payments are processed entirely by Stripe. We receive a confirmation of your subscription status but never see or store your full card number, CVV, or billing address. Stripe's privacy policy governs their handling of your payment information.

Server Diagnostics (Optional)

You may opt in to sending crash reports and performance diagnostics from your Glitch Server. These contain technical information (OS version, error stack traces, memory usage) and never include game library contents or personal files.

What We Don't Collect

This is the important part:

  • We never scan, catalog, or report the contents of your game library
  • We never access your ROM files, save states, or personal media
  • We never track which specific games you play or for how long (unless you opt into aggregate analytics)
  • We never sell, rent, or share your personal data with advertisers
  • We never use fingerprinting, third-party tracking pixels, or advertising cookies

Your Glitch Server runs on your hardware. We have no access to it. Period.

How We Use Your Data

  • Account management — to authenticate you and manage your subscription
  • Service improvement — aggregate analytics help us prioritize features and fix bugs
  • Support — to respond to your help requests
  • Billing — to process payments and send receipts via Stripe
  • Security — to detect and prevent abuse of our cloud services

Third Parties

  • Stripe — payment processing (see Stripe's Privacy Policy)
  • Self-hosted analytics — we use privacy-respecting, self-hosted analytics. No Google Analytics. No Facebook pixels.
  • CDN — software updates are delivered via a content delivery network that may log IP addresses in standard server logs, retained for no more than 30 days

Your Rights

You have the right to:

  • Access your personal data — request a copy of everything we have
  • Delete your account and all associated data
  • Export your data in a portable format
  • Opt out of any optional data collection at any time
  • Correct inaccurate personal information

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@glitchonline.com.

Data Security

All communication with Glitch cloud services is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.3. Passwords are hashed with bcrypt. We follow the principle of minimal data collection — we only store what we absolutely need to provide the service. Our infrastructure is hosted on hardened cloud instances with regular security audits.

Children

Glitch is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you via email and post a notice on our website at least 30 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of Glitch after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

Contact

For privacy-related questions or requests, contact us at privacy@glitchonline.com.