Edit: Also please tell me if a meme is even allowed as the thumbnail for the post in this community - just feels like it gets some of my current desperation across :D
Since the last time I posted here sharing my new home server, I’ve gotten a little more acquainted with the services I’m using. After getting acquisition of shows and movies sorted, I ventured into music (streaming).
As many here, I’m used to using streaming services for music, ie. Spotify or YouTube Music. Naturally, I tried a similar approach by setting up my Arr stack to feed its music into Jellyfin where the music is picked up by Symfonium. I tried it out for a couple days and liked it quite a bit since it keeps my phone clean of “unnecessary” data but I still retain access to music. Unfortunately, the way I acquire my music limits my selection quite a bit unless I venture into torrenting, which I’d prefer not to. So unless I figure out a safe way to torrent on my server, I’m stuck with getting access to a very limited selection of artists and albums.
In addition to that limitation, there’s also the files formats of the music. Most of the music I’ve downloaded was only available in FLAC, which is awesome if you’ve got the bandwidth and data plan for playback, but for me it means that I spend 3GB of data for a day of streaming music which is just not sustainable.
In comparison, I can set up a Revanced version of Spotify in addition to my Revanced YT Music to get access to all the music I could want. Unfortunately, that comes with the caveat of still being tied to the companies I’m trying to get rid of - albeit not financially anymore, but I’m still sharing my data.
Ultimately, I’m not sure what to do. What I love about self-hosting is the independence from all the companies we’re being fucked over by in all kinds of imaginable ways. But if it’s free, outside my sharing data with them, can I really compete?
I’d be interested in hearing your opinions and thoughts on this. How did you solve music streaming with your build?
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I went with jellyfin. Got 10 gigs free from box and Mount it with rclone.
If you have less than 10 GB of music, this is best. If you have TB of music, maybe not
Mp3 collections never stopped being cool, you just have to invest some time into it
Revanced to discover new music, then selfhost what you liked.
I used to use YouTube music revanced, but at some point it asked me to verify my age to listen to a song my rage against the machine, and that was the last straw. I uninstalled YouTube music, took a dusty raspberry pi 5 from a shelf where it’d been sitting for like half a year and connected it to my router with an Ethernet cable. Then I installed qbittorrent (headless) and mounted its downloads under the
musiccategory (it stores the downloads in separate directories, depending on the torrent’s category) into Navidrome. I also have Prowlarr installed for easier searches of indexers. So far I have an 80GB library of music. I try to keep the size down by downloading 320kbps mp3s where possible.I use the Symfonium app, it was totally worth the 4.50€, I’d be willing to pay more honestly. On desktop I use Feishin.
I also have Listenbrainz set up as a scrobbler on Navidrome. The stats are pretty cool.
So in theory I’d be down to use torrents again if they weren’t as unsafe as I’m told they are. Do you use a VPN or do you just download away? What’s your setup look like in general?
Symfonium is awesome, I can agree with you for sure. I’d also be down to pay the price for it.
Slovenian ISPs don’t give a shit about piracy, so I don’t use a VPN. I did, however, decide against running the setup in Germany on my netcup VPS because they’re really strict about piracy.
I use Traefik as a reverse proxy in my setup and I run everything in docker containers (managed with docker compose). Would you like me to share my configs as well? (I ask just so that I don’t waste my time gathering them and making sure I didn’t share API keys or something :P )
I do both.
The music I like is in my collection. I pay for it where I can, but I’ll be honest some of it is pirated because I just can’t buy it anywhere.
I also use Opentune to listen to YouTube music without logging in to stream stuff like “lofi chillhop beats”.
I recently saw around here a music discovery service (self-hosted) I might try. Can’t remember the name…
Use bandcamp to discover new artists and give them a few bucks whenever you can.
Either way, just remember to support artists when you can. Bandcamp Friday is one of the best ways I know of to fund artists in exchange for FLACs that you can legally listen to however you want to.
But I was a broke student in the heydays of torrenting, so I’m not judging using any means necessary to listen to music.
Self host, takes less time then you think after the initial library build. Easy to do in a weekend. If you have some money to spend on music then buy music from the artists you love. Can all be in one place, none of this exclusive garbage, quality as high as you want, can rip music that’s never been released digitally, and I think most importantly - access to your music library without an algorithm telling you what to listen to. You’ll be surprised how your listening habits change and how well you know your music after jumping off the engagement treadmill.
i selfhost the music collection i own on LPs, to replace spotify/yt music i use Archivetune
By the way if you want a really cheap and easy setup for the time being while you figure out jellyfin/navidrome and docker and all that.
Symfonium app can run from a google drive that you can spin up for free and throw some music into. And then if you end up self hosting you can just point it to your server.
Can you just point it at a shared network directory too?
It says it supports network shared folders or NAS that use SMB or webdav… So yeah should.
Good to know. Could be helpful setting up basic, low-maintenance servers for family members.
Yeah it has become my go to for recommending to people with struggles with Spotify.
Plus if they ever purchased albums through amazon they have all the MP3 files anyways available to download and I have them throw the files in a drive.
Does it display album art? I thought that came from the server software. Or can symphounium source that?
I mean most of my album art is stored as part of the file. So I dont mess with it much but a quick look at the FAQ suggested it looks up data that matches artist name and albums and you can add your own images on your phone that dont save to the server but stay consistent apparently to the song or artist.
So yeah. Still just a BAMF of a software.
Cool. Thanks. I must have missed that. I only saw options for content providers.
I’ve got a server set up already and am using Symfonium but thanks for the suggestion regardless :)
I’ve mostly gone with pirating. I’ve built a massive library of flac songs, as for when I’m outside I can’t stream cause I’m stuck with ADSL, but I usually keep some albums I’m into on my phone and I also use Grayjay to discover new music.
ADSL? You poor soul :/
Yeah, country’s infrastructure is kinda stuck with it since running new wires costs to much, but they do run them when they’re redoing the streets
Por qué no los dos?
Use Navidrome for music and transcode mp3 streaming. Done and dusted.
That’s a different problem than access to music which I’ll leave up to you. But I’ll note that music exists out of the sphere of corporate dominance. And by that I mean, artists that self publish.
I find it interesting how quickly one abandons the principle struggle central to the meme on this post. Like, “I use Linux and don’t give corporations a dime but I LOVE Jay-z”
I’ve seen so many people suggest that that I’m honestly ashamed I just didn’t know Jellyfin and Navidrome could do that. I guess the file sizes are sorted then.
The thing is, what I’m using is good shows and movies but music isn’t that much of a focus. Maybe if I used a different indexer that’s “dedicated” to music, that’d not be a problem. So that leaves me with torrenting or Soulseek, the former of which I have experience with, but it’s unsafe unless you use a VPN, and the latter of which I don’t and don’t know how to set up on my server (yet) because I don’t know how Docker, containers and whatnot work. CasaOS is very user-friendly like that, but I don’t really know how to import or deploy programs in general. That’s what made even make the post in the first palfe because I felt stuck, not knowing how to proceed now. Falling back to year-long habits is just easier instead of overcoming challenges and growing with them is the gist of it.
I agree. I guess growing up in capitalism, it’s justdifficult to outright abandon every single habit you’ve built up overnight. It takes time and patience and as long you’re aware of it and try to move in a good direction, that’s good enough for me.
-arr stack is your friend. Read up on VPN kill switch. Isolate via docker networking. Run unbound DNS resolvers with dnssec.
What time is it? Key question of the movement
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters DNS Domain Name Service/System VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
[Thread #263 for this comm, first seen 29th Apr 2026, 17:20] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I use Tidal and Bandcamp
I’m hearing great things about Quobuz
Bandcamp and Quobuz allow you to buy and download music
And I have to mention, as I do in any thread like this: If you self-host music you bought you’re a friend to me. If you pirate from billionaires, I don’t care. If you pirate from small bands, stop it.
