Navidrome

What it does

Navidrome turns your folder of music files into a personal streaming service. Browse by album, artist or genre, make playlists, star favourites and see song lyrics, from a web page or dozens of free phone apps. Each family member gets their own playlists and play counts. It is light enough for a Raspberry Pi and copes happily with very large collections.

• Streams almost any audio format to the browser and phone apps
• Separate users with their own playlists, favourites and play counts
• Smart playlists, lyrics and more than 30 themes
• Light enough for a Raspberry Pi, fine with huge collections

Great for: Music lovers with their own MP3 or FLAC collection who want to stream it anywhere without a subscription.

Make it yours: ideas

Pick an idea to start from, or describe your own.

• Settings, no code An account for everyone in the family “Set up Navidrome so my partner and two teenagers each have their own login, playlists and favourites, and the kids can't delete anything.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API Listen on my phone, even offline “Recommend a free phone app that works with Navidrome and help me connect it so I can download albums for the car.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API Playlists that build themselves “Make me three smart playlists: my five-star songs, music added in the last month, and 70s and 80s soul I haven't played this year.” Start with this idea
• Code changes A theme in our favourite colours “Make a cosy theme in warm orange and cream, call it 'Sunday Morning', and make it the default for everyone.” Start with this idea
• Settings, no code A welcome message and fewer outside calls “Show 'Welcome to the Haddad jukebox' on the login page, and switch off anything that sends data to outside services.” Start with this idea
• Code changes A big-button view for the kitchen tablet “Make a simple page for the kitchen tablet: huge album covers, big play and skip buttons, and the current song's lyrics in large text.” Start with this idea

How easy is it to adapt?

A tidy, well-tested project: a Go backend (server/, core/, persistence/, scanner/) and a React web interface in ui/ built on react-admin. Themes are small JavaScript files, and many options are a single ND_ variable. The WebAssembly plugin system lets you add features in Go, Rust, Python or TypeScript without forking. Code changes need Go and Node. Your AI always tries the gentlest step first, so your version stays easy to update.

1. 1

   Settings 3 options

   No code. Change it in the app or its config.

   • Light, dark, Spotify-like, Nord, Catppuccin and more, chosen by each person.
   • Welcome message, login background, sharing, downloads, scan schedule, lyrics order and more.
   • An account for each person, and which music libraries each one can see.
2. 2

   Extend 3 options

   Themes, plugins, webhooks and the API. Still no fork.

   • Playlists that fill themselves, e.g. "five-star songs not played this month" or "80s rock".
   • Add metadata sources, scrobblers, lyrics providers, webhooks or scheduled tasks without forking.
   • Use phone and desktop apps such as Symfonium, Substreamer, play:Sub or Feishin, or scripts.
3. 3

   Code 3 options

   Your AI edits the source for anything else.

   • A theme in your own colours, which upstream also welcomes as a contribution.
   • Change screens, such as a big-button view for the kitchen.
   • New data or behaviour. Database changes need a migration (make migration-sql / migration-go).

Can I trust it?

• GPL-3.0-only. Free to use and change. If you give copies of the program (changed or not) to other people, you must share the source code under the same licence. Running it for your household, or as a service others use online, has no extra obligations.
• Your data: stores personal data, on your own device or server. Music files stay in your music folder (mount it read-only). Users, playlists, play counts, favourites and the library index live in navidrome.db (SQLite) in the data folder.
• Other services: Last.fm (optional, free (needs your own API key)); ListenBrainz (optional, free); Deezer (optional, free); Navidrome Insights (optional, free)
• Pinned version 56cc32a. Every handover uses exactly this code, which we've reviewed.
• The first account created becomes the admin. Create it straight after starting, before anyone else can reach the page.
• Use HTTPS through a reverse proxy if you open it to the internet; Subsonic apps send passwords with every request.
• Keep ND_ENABLETRANSCODINGCONFIG off except while you set up transcoding, because it lets admins run commands.
• Anonymous usage statistics are sent daily by default. Set ND_ENABLEINSIGHTSCOLLECTOR=false if you prefer not to.

Did it work for people?

Tell us how it went

For your AI

The project pack has the pinned version, how to run it, and where to customise it. Your prompt links to it automatically.

https://handoff.bespokeai.software/p/navidrome/56cc32a/pack.md

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