Self-hosted music is harder to smooth out than movies
A personal server setup for movies and TV is working well with Jellyfin, Radarr, Sonarr, Prowlarr, qBittorrent, and Overseerr. It works well enough to share access with family members in different parts of the world. Music is also being tested with Navidrome, Lidarr, ListenBrainz, Feishin, and Amperfy.
Feishin is being used on desktop, Amperfy is being used on iOS, and Narjo may be tested next. The music setup feels less smooth than the movie and TV setup. Adding music that seems like it should be easy to find is still difficult, and the whole music side feels unfinished.
The server runs Proxmox on a PC, with storage mounted from a NAS. The main question is whether a self-hosted music setup can fully replace Spotify or YouTube Music.
Key points
- The movie and TV server setup is working well enough for family sharing.
- The music setup uses Navidrome, Lidarr, ListenBrainz, Feishin, and Amperfy.
- Finding and adding music is harder than expected.
- The goal is to replace Spotify or YouTube Music with a self-hosted system.
- The server runs Proxmox and uses a NAS for storage.
Quick term guide
- Navidrome
- A music server app for streaming your own music files.
- self-hosted
- Run on your own server instead of managed by another company.
- self-host
- To run a website, app, or service on your own server instead of using a hosted provider.
- Mac mini server
- A Mac mini used as an always-on computer for files, apps, backups, or automation.
- home media server
- A computer kept at home that stores videos, music, and photos so you can play them on your TV or phone without using an internet streaming service
- Media server
- A computer system used to store and play digital movies, music, and photos.
- desktop app
- A program you install and run on your computer instead of using only in a browser.
- streaming
- Here it means text is generated continuously as you speak, rather than waiting until you finish talking.