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Alternatives to Spotify
2 open source alternatives to Spotify
Music streaming and podcasts. Here are the open source projects real teams use instead — ranked by fit, with honest pros and cons for each.
What people don't love about Spotify
- Artist royalty debates.
- Non-ownership of music you "buy".
- Library curation recommendations are hit-or-miss.
Current Spotify pricing (for reference): Free with ads; Premium from $10.99/month.
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Quick comparison
| Alternative | Best for | License | Self-host | Hosted cloud? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Navidrome Self-hosted Spotify alternative — your music, your server. |
Your own music library, streamable from any Subsonic app. | GPL-3.0 | ★☆☆☆☆ | Self-host only |
|
Jellyfin Open source media server — stream your movies, shows and music. |
When you want music, video and photos in one server. | GPL-2.0 | ★★☆☆☆ | Self-host only |
1. Navidrome — Your own music library, streamable from any Subsonic app.
Self-hosted Spotify alternative — your music, your server.
Strengths
- Single binary, minimal resource use.
- Subsonic-compatible — tons of third-party apps.
- Nice modern web UI.
Weaknesses
- No native streaming recommendations.
- You supply your own music library.
- No podcast support by default.
Navidrome homepage · Source on GitHub · Spotify vs Navidrome →
2. Jellyfin — When you want music, video and photos in one server.
Open source media server — stream your movies, shows and music.
Strengths
- 100% free — no accounts, no paywalled apps.
- Plays on virtually every platform.
- Active plugin and skin ecosystem.
Weaknesses
- Metadata scraping sometimes needs manual fixes.
- Transcoding requires hardware acceleration for 4K.
- Sharing with friends needs port-forwarding or a reverse proxy.
Jellyfin homepage · Source on GitHub · Spotify vs Jellyfin →
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