Features
5Stack is a comprehensive Counter-Strike management system, servers, matchmaking, tournaments, leagues, stats, and everything you do with a match after it ends. This is the full picture of what the platform offers.
Pages linked below go deeper on the bigger features.
Play
- Quick Play & Matchmaking: jump into 1v1, 2v2, or 5v5, spin up instant scrims, or queue into latency-aware regional matchmaking with a party.
- Draft Lobbies: host a pick-up game with real structure: auto-split, captains draft, host-assigned, or pre-made teams, with a pick clock, benches, and a substitute waitlist.
- Matches: server selection (on-demand, dedicated, or third-party), access modes and invites, map/region veto, check-in, and full match rules (knife, overtime, pauses, best-of, coaches, and more).
- Scrim Finder: advertise when your team plays, set who you'll play, and negotiate scrims without a Discord thread.
- Custom Map Pools: curated pools for every format (1v1, 2v2, 5v5), including workshop maps.
Compete
- Tournaments & Brackets: open or private tournaments with multi-stage Single Elimination, Double Elimination, Round Robin, or Swiss formats, group stages, seeding, byes, prizes, awards, and a live, embeddable bracket.
- Leagues: seasonal divisions, weekly match play, captain-negotiated scheduling, playoffs, and promotion/relegation.
- Events: wrap a LAN or a cup weekend into one page with its own medal table, leaderboard, and media gallery.
- Competitive Seasons: periodic Elo resets with season-scoped stats and leaderboards.
Match review & media
- Match Analysis: scoreboard lenses, economy and buy-type breakdowns, clutches, head-to-head, detected roles, heatmaps and movement paths, plus team veto tendencies and a veto simulator.
- Match Replay (2D & 3D): re-watch any map as a top-down radar replay or a full 3D fly-through, right in the browser.
- In-Browser Demo Playback: GOTV-style demo viewer with player POV switching, X-ray, and round-by-round navigation.
- Highlights: automatic highlight reels of multikills and clutches, plus an in-app clip builder.
- Live Streaming: broadcast matches from the panel with the Stream Deck, a public watch hub, a scoreboard overlay, and picture-in-picture.
- Demos: automatic upload, storage, retention, and download.
Stats
- Stats & Leaderboards: HLTV-style ratings, KAST/ADR, opening duels, clutches, roles, Elo, and global leaderboards, including imported Valve/FACEIT matches.
- Performance Rating: Aim, Positioning, and Utility scored out of 100 against every other player, with focus areas and coaching notes.
- External Matches: import your Valve and FACEIT matches (or upload a demo) to get full stats, replay, and highlights.
Community
- Teams, Lobbies & Chat: teams, friends, parties, and smart, context-aware chat that bridges the web app and in-server.
- Steam Presence: see what friends are playing, in 5Stack and outside it.
- Moderation & Sanctions: bans, mutes, gags, and silences that follow a player everywhere, plus automatic VAC ban detection.
- News: first-party announcements written and published from inside the panel.
- Discord Integration: create matches, manage lobbies, run map veto, and sync roles from Discord with the 5Stack bot.
Servers & infrastructure
- Flexible Server Management: on-demand servers, dedicated hardware, or third-party machines, all from one panel.
- Automatic CS2 updates: servers stay on the latest CS2 build (and 5Stack plugin) automatically, with optional version pinning when you need stability.
- Regional Servers: multi-region and LAN-capable, with built-in Steam Relay to hide your real server IPs.
- Server Insights: live CPU / memory / disk, logs, CPU pinning, and low-latency kernel status.
- GPU Nodes: power highlights, demo playback, and live streaming rendering.
Platform
- Installable app (PWA): add 5Stack to your home screen or desktop for an app-like experience, with offline-aware caching.
- 17 languages: the interface and the in-game plugin are fully localized, with automatic detection of your browser language.
- Embeds & popouts: drop a live, auto-cycling tournament bracket onto a stream or site, and pop replays and broadcasts out into their own windows for a second monitor.
- Search: fast player and entity search from anywhere in the app.
- API & personal keys: generate personal API keys for programmatic access to your data.
- 5Stack Plugins: embed your own web applications as native panel pages, sharing the panel's session and design system. (For CS2 server-side plugins, see Game Plugins.)
For administrators
5Stack gives admins deep control over how the platform behaves:
- Administration Overview: roles and access control.
- Roles & Players: manage roles, the player directory, and sanctions.
- Matchmaking & Ranks: match types, Elo ranks, lineups, map pools, and per–game-type configs.
- Branding & Theming: name, logo, login page, and full light/dark theming.
- Servers & Regions: server types, automatic CS2 updates and version pinning, match server controls, tuning, and regions.
- Integrations: Discord, external match imports, analytics, and chat.
- System & Monitoring: metrics, logs, database performance, backups, and the render queue.
Several features are optional and can be switched on or off instance-wide from Settings → Application: matchmaking, leagues, seasons, events, news, the Scrim Finder, plugins, and linked accounts.
Rendering features need a GPU
Highlights, in-browser demo playback, and live streaming are all rendered on a GPU node. See GPU Nodes.