Jellyfin as a Spotify alternative

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Jellyfin as a Spotify / music server

  • Many use Jellyfin successfully for music, often alongside video (movies/TV/YouTube) on a single home server.
  • Common complaints: weak handling of some formats (e.g., single‑file FLAC + CUE albums), album splitting by folder rather than metadata, and lack of polished music‑specific features compared to dedicated servers.
  • Some users report quirky metadata bugs and S3/object‑storage resistance from maintainers (POSIX filesystem preferred).

Navidrome and other music‑first options

  • Navidrome is repeatedly recommended as superior for music:
    • Lighter scanner, runs on very small hardware (even a 1GB Raspberry Pi).
    • Subsonic‑compatible API gives access to many mature clients on Android, iOS, desktop, and even TVs.
    • Strong “smart playlist” and tagging features.
  • Typical setups: Jellyfin for video, Navidrome for music; or Navidrome + clients like Symfonium, Feishin, play:Sub, Amperfy, Substreamer, etc.
  • Alternatives mentioned: Plex + Plexamp, Lyrion/Logitech Media Server, Roon, Audiobookshelf for audiobooks, local players (foobar2000, MusicBee, Winamp‑style), Sonos via SMB/DLNA/Owntone.

Discovery vs. ownership

  • A major criticism of Jellyfin/Navidrome as “Spotify alternatives” is loss of:
    • Radio‑style recommendations, auto‑mixes, release notifications, and rich discovery tools.
  • Some argue this recommendation layer should be separate (Last.fm, ListenBrainz, Bandcamp, MusicBrainz, radio, blogs), and see the slower, intentional discovery as a feature, not a bug.
  • Others say these discovery features are the core value of streaming; without them, self‑hosting is a non‑starter for their listening habits.

Music acquisition and ethics

  • Sources vary: Bandcamp, iTunes/Amazon/7digital, physical media (CD/vinyl rips), torrents/private trackers, YouTube/yt‑dlp, Spotify/Tidal syncing via tools like Lidarr.
  • Debate over streaming economics: some leave Spotify over poor artist payouts or disappearing catalogs; others see $10–15/month as fair for enormous legal libraries.
  • Several suggest hybrid models: use streaming for discovery, then buy from Bandcamp or similar to support artists and feed the self‑hosted library.

Self‑hosting trade‑offs

  • Motivations: control, avoiding enshittified UIs and lock‑in, privacy, subscription cost reduction, and technical enjoyment.
  • Costs/complexity: hardware, electricity, backups, VPN/remote access (Tailscale, Meshnet, WireGuard), container orchestration, metadata cleanup (Picard, beets, Beets/MusicBee).
  • Consensus: great for technically inclined users willing to tinker; unlikely to replace mainstream services for most people.