Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Jellyfin

Navidrome is an open-source, web-based music collection server that streams your personal library to a built-in web player and compatible mobile apps. It is designed to be lightweight while still handling very large collections and rich metadata.

Key Features

• Modern, responsive web UI with integrated player
• OpenSubsonic/Subsonic-compatible API for broad client app compatibility
• Multi-user support with individual playlists, favorites, and play counts
• Multi-library support with user-specific access controls
• Automatic library monitoring and metadata refresh on changes
• On-the-fly transcoding (including Opus) with per-user/per-player settings
• Runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with official Docker images

Use Cases

• Stream a private music collection to phones and desktops using Subsonic-compatible apps
• Host separate libraries (for example music vs. audiobooks) with controlled access for family members
• Provide low-resource music streaming on home servers and devices like Raspberry Pi

Navidrome is a strong fit for users who want a fast, self-contained music server with excellent client compatibility and scalable library management, without relying on third-party streaming platforms.

Navidrome is a lightweight open-source web-based music collection server and streamer that lets users browse and play personal music libraries from browsers and compatible mobile clients. It exposes a modern web UI and implements the Subsonic API for broad client compatibility. (github.com)

Key Features

• Modern, themeable web interface built with React and Material UI and a catalog of compatible third-party mobile clients. (github.com)
• Subsonic/OpenSubsonic API compatibility so existing Subsonic clients can work with the server. (navidrome.org)
• On-the-fly transcoding and downsampling (requires an external ffmpeg binary) to adapt streams to clients and bandwidth. (navidrome.org)
• Multi-user and multi-library support with per-user access controls, playlists, favorites and play counts. (navidrome.org)
• Low resource usage and multi-platform releases (Linux, macOS, Windows, Raspberry Pi) with official Docker images. (github.com)

Use Cases

• Personal home streaming: Serve a large, tagged music collection to family members and mobile devices with individual accounts. (navidrome.org)
• Replacement for Subsonic-compatible clients: Run a modern backend compatible with existing Subsonic/Madsonic/Airsonic clients. (navidrome.org)
• Low-cost or embedded deployment: Run on Raspberry Pi or small cloud instances using Docker for lightweight private streaming. (github.com)

Limitations and Considerations

• Navidrome simulates folder browsing from tags and does not perform native folder-based browsing; directory browsing endpoints are emulated. (navidrome.org)
• The default local database is a single-file SQLite database (navidrome.db); this can require special handling on network filesystems (WAL mode, locking) and backups. Administrators should follow documented guidance for DB placement and backups. (github.com)
• Past security advisories have reported SQL injection and related issues that were subsequently addressed; operators should keep releases up to date and follow security notices. (github.com)

Navidrome provides a compact, compatible and performant way to self-host and stream large music libraries while remaining interoperable with a wide Subsonic client ecosystem. It is well-suited for users who want control over their music and need a low-footprint server with mobile client support. (github.com)

Koel is a web-based personal audio streaming service designed for hosting and streaming your own music collection. It combines a modern web player with robust library management and supports multi-user setups.

Key Features

• Stream your personal music library via a fast, modern web interface
• Multi-user support with user accounts
• Favorites, playlists, and smart playlists
• Cross-device playback synchronization
• Library management: upload, delete, and edit track metadata and artwork
• Lossless audio support, equalizer settings, and visualizers
• Radio and podcast support
• Optional metadata enrichment integrations (e.g., MusicBrainz and Last.fm)

Use Cases

• Self-host a personal “Spotify-like” music server for your own library
• Provide a shared home or community music library with separate user accounts
• Stream music from a server while keeping a centralized, curated collection

Koel is well-suited for users who want a polished, developer-friendly music server with a familiar listening experience. It focuses on fast browsing and playback while keeping your library under your control.

Black Candy is an open-source, self-hosted music streaming server that provides a web-based music library and player for personal use. It scans a mounted media directory, builds a browsable catalog from audio metadata, and serves audio to web and mobile clients.

Key Features

• Library indexing from a local media path (reads tags/metadata for artists, albums, tracks)
• Web player with playback queue, playlists and search
• Multi-user accounts and per-user preferences
• Mobile client support (Android APK / F‑Droid and iOS app available) and responsive web UI
• Docker images for easy deployment; supports environment variables for DB, media path and options
• Uses SQLite by default; optional PostgreSQL support for larger deployments
• Integrations: album/artist images via Discogs API; server-side audio handling via FFmpeg; image processing via libvips

Use Cases

• Personal cloud music server to stream your own music library across devices
• Small multi-user household or friend group music sharing with account separation
• Developers or hobbyists building features or integrations on top of a Rails-based streaming backend

Limitations and Considerations

• Default SQLite configuration may not scale well for very large libraries or many concurrent users; PostgreSQL is recommended for larger deployments
• Edge/master images are considered unstable and may contain breaking changes or data-loss risks; use stable releases for production
• Resource usage for large libraries (media scanning, transcoding with FFmpeg, image processing) can be significant and depends on host hardware

Black Candy is focused on delivering a simple, modern self-hosted music experience with mobile support and straightforward Docker deployment. It is suitable for personal and small-group use and can be scaled by using PostgreSQL and appropriate host resources.

Polaris is a self-hosted music streaming server designed to let you enjoy your personal music collection from any computer or mobile device. It focuses on high performance, a responsive experience, and smooth handling of very large libraries.

Key Features

• Stream a personal music library through a web-based player UI
• Supports common audio formats including FLAC, MP3, OGG, Opus, WAV, AIFF, MP4, MPC, and APE
• Browsing by album, artist, and genre, plus file tree browsing
• Powerful search with per-field queries
• Multi-user support with user-specific playlists
• Visual audio waveform display
• Dark mode and customizable color palette
• Plain-text configuration with a built-in UI editor
• Built-in interactive API documentation distributed with each installation

Use Cases

• Run a private music server for a home lab or NAS-backed music library
• Provide multi-user access to a shared household music collection
• Stream a large collection remotely to mobile devices while traveling

Limitations and Considerations

• Primarily targets personal-library streaming rather than subscription services or music discovery features
• Remote access typically requires additional networking setup (for example DNS and routing)

Polaris is well-suited for users who want a fast, clean, self-hosted alternative for streaming their own music library. Its focus on performance, large-library support, and multi-user features makes it a strong choice for home and small-team deployments.

mStream is a lightweight open-source music streaming server that provides remote access and device sync for personal music collections. It serves a web-based player and supports mobile clients, letting users stream lossless and lossy formats from their own host.

Key Features

• Web-based music player with gapless playback and a Milkdrop-style visualizer. (github.com)
• Supports common audio formats including FLAC, MP3, AAC, OGG and others. (github.com)
• Playlist management, playlist sharing and drag-and-drop file upload via the web UI. (mstream.io)
• Lightweight Node.js server designed to run on Windows, macOS, Linux and ARM boards (e.g., Raspberry Pi). (github.com)
• Official demo interface available for previewing the web player. (demo.mstream.io)

Use Cases

• Stream a private music library to any device while keeping full control of data and audio files. (mstream.io)
• Provide shared access to a household or small group's music collection with playlist sharing and user accounts. (github.com)
• Run on low-power hardware (Raspberry Pi / small NAS) to serve multi-terabyte libraries with low CPU/memory overhead. (github.com)

Limitations and Considerations

• Mobile apps are provided by third parties (community/third‑party clients) rather than a single official first‑party store app; availability and maintenance can vary. (github.com)
• Core server is Node.js-based and relies on in-repo JavaScript libraries for metadata and fast in-memory indexing; deployment assumptions (e.g., persistence/backups) should be reviewed for large libraries. (github.com)

mStream is a practical choice for users who want a simple, self-hosted music streaming solution with broad format support and a browser-first player. It emphasizes ease of setup, low resource use, and a familiar web/mobile playback experience.

Gonic is a lightweight music streaming server that implements the Subsonic server API, allowing you to use many existing Subsonic-compatible clients. It scans your local music library, serves streams, and can transcode audio on the fly.

Key Features

• Subsonic-compatible API for broad client support
• Library browsing by folder structure and by tags
• On-the-fly audio transcoding with caching (via FFmpeg)
• Multi-user support with per-user preferences and playlists
• Podcast support
• Jukebox mode for server-side, gapless playback
• Web UI for configuration, user management, and library scans
• Scrobbling support (Last.fm and ListenBrainz)

Use Cases

• Self-hosted personal or family music streaming with existing Subsonic clients
• Lightweight music server for low-power devices (for example, Raspberry Pi)
• Centralized library with transcoding for bandwidth- or device-limited playback

Limitations and Considerations

• Transcoding features require FFmpeg to be available on the host
• Client experience depends on the capabilities of the chosen Subsonic client

Gonic focuses on being small, fast, and compatible rather than providing an all-in-one media suite. It is a practical choice if you want a simple Subsonic API server with solid scanning, transcoding, and multi-user playback.

Lyrion Music Server (LMS, formerly Logitech Media Server) is a music streaming and control server for Squeezebox hardware players and compatible software clients. It manages your music library and streams audio to one or many players across your network, with extensive customization via plugins.

Key Features

• Streams local music libraries to multiple synchronized players
• Supports Squeezebox devices and software players such as Squeezelite
• Web-based management and playback control interface
• Internet radio playback and integration with various streaming services via plugins
• Scales to large libraries and multi-room, multi-device setups
• Extensible plugin ecosystem for new sources, integrations, and UI customization

Use Cases

• Whole-home multi-room audio using Squeezebox-compatible players
• Centralized management and playback of a large local music collection
• Combining local audio with internet radio and third-party streaming sources

Lyrion Music Server is a mature, community-maintained platform for users who want flexible, server-centric control of music playback across many devices. Its compatibility with a broad ecosystem of hardware, software players, and plugins makes it a strong option for customizable home audio setups.

LMS (Lightweight Music Server) is an open-source, self-hosted music streaming server that provides a web interface to access and manage personal music collections. It supports rich metadata, multi-library setups, and compatibility with Subsonic/OpenSubsonic clients.

Key Features

• Web-based music library browsing with support for multi-valued tags (genre, mood, artists, etc.)
• Subsonic/OpenSubsonic API compatibility for external clients
• MusicBrainz identifiers and release/group support to handle duplicates and multiple versions
• ListenBrainz integration for scrobbling and synchronizing listens and 'love' feedbacks
• Recommendation engine and "radio" mode to fill play queues with similar tracks
• Audio transcoding for client compatibility and bandwidth reduction (relies on FFmpeg)
• ReplayGain support, playlists (m3u/m3u8), podcast support, and lyrics (embedded, lrc, txt)
• Multi-library support, artist information folder handling, and flexible album/track grouping
• User management with multiple authentication backends and admin configuration options

Use Cases

• Host and stream a personal music collection remotely with a browser-based UI
• Provide Subsonic-compatible streaming to mobile or desktop clients while preserving rich metadata
• Build a small-scale recommendation/radio service for private collections and curated playback

Limitations and Considerations

• The tag-based recommendation engine can significantly slow the UI on very large databases or under-constrained hardware; it can be disabled in administration settings
• On-the-fly transcoding increases CPU usage and may require configuring / provisioning FFmpeg and adequate CPU resources for smooth playback across low-bandwidth clients

LMS is suitable for users who want a lightweight, metadata-rich music server with Subsonic compatibility and features like recommendations, scrobbling integration, and flexible tagging. It is actively developed and distributed under the GPL-3.0 license.

Audioserve is a simple personal audio streaming server that serves audio files directly from directory structures, designed primarily for audiobooks. It includes a modern web PWA client and a lightweight API, focusing on fast browsing and playback position tracking.

Key Features

• Serves audio files from folders without requiring a separate media database
• Web PWA client for modern browsers, plus an alternative older web client
• Supports single-file audiobooks (such as M4B) by exposing chapters as virtual tracks
• Optional transcoding and transcoding cache for bandwidth-friendly streaming
• Full-text search over folder names
• Playlists and playback position sharing between clients
• Collection caching in an embedded key-value store for faster browsing and search
• Filesystem change watching to keep the library up to date

Use Cases

• Self-hosted audiobook server for personal libraries organized by folders
• Lightweight audio streaming for language learning courses or lecture recordings
• Multi-collection setups (for example, separate libraries per language)

Limitations and Considerations

• Initial collection scan and cache build can take significant time for large libraries
• Search is focused on folder names (not per-track indexing or full metadata search)

Audioserve fits users who want a fast, minimalist audiobook-oriented server that respects existing folder structures and works well in a browser. It is especially useful when you need chapter support for single-file audiobooks and simple, reliable streaming without heavyweight media management.

Listenarr is a cross-platform server for managing an audiobook library with automation similar to Sonarr/Radarr, focused on acquisition, tracking, and organization. It integrates metadata sources and download clients to keep your collection tidy and up to date.

Key Features

• Automated searching and downloading from torrent and NZB indexers
• Integration with common download clients (for example qBittorrent, Transmission, SABnzbd, NZBGet)
• Rich metadata enrichment using sources such as Audible and Amazon
• Intelligent library organization with configurable naming and folder structure
• Responsive web interface for desktop and mobile use
• Real-time monitoring of download progress and status
• Optional Discord integration for interacting with the server via slash commands

Use Cases

• Build and maintain an automated audiobook library for a home media server
• Standardize audiobook metadata and file naming across multiple sources
• Monitor and manage ongoing downloads in one interface

Limitations and Considerations

• Actively developed; some features (such as full localization) may be incomplete or evolving

Listenarr is a good fit if you want an automation-first audiobook manager with modern UI, metadata enrichment, and integrations with popular torrent/Usenet tooling. It combines search, download orchestration, and library organization into a single service.

It's MyTabs is a web-based guitar and bass tablature viewer and player focused on synchronized playback and simple, mobile-friendly UI. It renders imported tab files and can sync playback to local audio files or YouTube videos for practice and playback.

Key Features

• Web-based tab viewer/player for guitar and bass with both tab and score views
• Supports common tab formats: .gp, .gpx, .gp3, .gp4, .gp5, .musicxml, .capx
• Sync tabs with local audio files (.mp3, .ogg) or YouTube videos for timed playback
• Built-in MIDI synth allowing mute/solo per track and basic mixing controls
• Multiple cursor modes: no cursor (auto-scroll), highlight current bar, or follow cursor
• Notes coloring, dark/light tab color themes, and mobile-friendly responsive UI
• Shareable links for tabs and a simple UI designed for learning and practice
• Multiple deployment options: Docker, Docker Compose, Deno runtime, or packaged desktop executable
• Uses the AlphaTab rendering engine for notation and tab playback

Use Cases

• Practice and learn songs by syncing tab playback with recorded audio or video
• Quickly preview and share tab arrangements with students or bandmates via links
• Portable self-hosted tab library for personal study, rehearsal, or teaching

Limitations and Considerations

• YouTube-synced playback may not work from private IP addresses; a public hostname or localhost is recommended for reliable video playback
• Focused primarily on viewing and playback rather than advanced score editing; complex editing workflows are limited
• Playback/sync accuracy depends on source files and timing metadata; manual fine-grain sync controls are limited

It's MyTabs provides a lightweight, self-hostable alternative for viewing and practicing guitar and bass tabs with synchronized audio playback and simple sharing features. It is optimized for ease of use and quick deployment for personal or small-group practice.

Supysonic is a Python server that implements the Subsonic server API to provide remote access to personal music libraries. It exposes the Subsonic-compatible API so existing Subsonic clients can browse, stream and manage music served from a self-hosted instance.

Key Features

• Implements Subsonic API (targets version 1.12.0) for compatibility with Subsonic clients
• Browse libraries by folders or tags and support for cover art, starred tracks and ratings
• Streaming of many audio formats with optional on-the-fly transcoding
• User and random playlists plus a jukebox mode for shared playback
• Scrobbling support for Last.fm and ListenBrainz
• Command-line tools for user and library management and an optional daemon to watch library changes

Use Cases

• Serve a personal music collection to mobile and desktop Subsonic-compatible clients
• Provide a home jukebox or shared playback system for parties and gatherings
• Centralize music playback while sending play data to scrobbling services

Limitations and Considerations

• Transcoding may require external encoder binaries and additional system packages; performance depends on host CPU and encoder availability
• Targets a specific Subsonic API version; some newer or non-standard client features may be unsupported

Supysonic is practical for users who want a lightweight, Python-based Subsonic-compatible server. It focuses on API compatibility and core streaming features rather than providing a heavy web UI or large-scale enterprise features.