I love self hosting useful apps. I wish finding more things was easier. Right now I self host a jellyfin server and home assistant. When I learned a subscription for home security was $75/mo I said “there has to be something out there” and there was. I pay the developer their $6/mo even though everything works without it.
Jellyfin has been amazing for physical media backups. It’s nice to experience old VHSes and DVDs in a user friendly way.
I've been using Plex (connecting via Tailscale) with their Plexamp music player.
It's been working pretty well, but I might have to give this a try to compare. Although, it's not clear from the GitHub README or the Apple App Store listing if the mobile app allows you to download music for offline listening.
Also using Plex and Plexamp, and very happy with that combo. Curious about why talescale is needed - I'm on a static IP, but I believe Plex also provides a forwarding service (?)
I think you were talking about Blackcandy in the second paragraph, but just to be clear, Plexamp does allow downloading for offline listening.
- Cloudflare tunnel for public access
- Tailscale for private use and sharing over WebDAV
- Nextcloud for general file management
- Jellyfin for music and video streaming
Nextcloud's WebDAV has issues with filenames or at least how it works. A large amount of files in non-'standard' characters wouldn't show up, so Ampache/Subsonic wouldn't work. This is why I tried Jellyfin.
I tried this (among a bunch of others) about a year ago and landed on Gonic[1] for the server and Supersonic[2] on PC and Amperfy[3] on mobile. Yes it's a few different tools to maintain (plus beets etc), but it's the ideal set of features etc for me.
Self-hosting has been fun and I've started experimenting with local LLMs to build playlists which is helping discoverability.. or more /rediscovering/ artists that I haven't listened to in a while
I have tried every music playing option under the sun for the last 15 years and am now happily back to creating playlists on my computer and periodically dragging them to my phone's local storage. There is still no better overall experience.
Sam here. I used to have huge library of MP3 tracks to listen while driving, but as car multimedia systems evolve, now I pull music videos from youtube and enjoy "selfhosted" VH1 (for those who know). Too sad modern VH1 is a shadow of it's past, broadcasting stupid shows instead of great music (please allow me to be a grumpy uncle here).
This approach requires way lot more space (even if I pull videos in 1024x768, which is my car multimedia system resolution). For now it's just a plenty of SD cards, will see how it is going to change.
I’ve been searching for services that host personal music collections, but there doesn’t seem to be much available. I came across a product called Vox [1], which I might try. There are also plenty of self-hosted projects of varying quality (but I hadn’t seen Black Candy before).
I'd like a service where I can upload a large folder of MP3s, and it would help organize them into albums, perform useful processing like ReplayGain normalization, BPM and key analysis, etc. It should also have a good playlist manager and player for desktop and mobile.
Some existing services allow you to add your own music files, like MP3s, but this often feels like a second-class citizen. Services like SoundCloud are focused more on social interactions, which I don’t really need.
Have I missed any services like this?
There's some growing dissatisfaction around algorithm-driven music services like Spotify. Also, these services carry the risk of music disappearing for various reasons. I think a service allowing curation of own MP3 collections could appeal a significant fraction of all music lovers out there.
1. Self-hosted web server with local file system access to your media.
2. One HTML page that I will generate for you. This page will contain a media player and a play list of your media files.
With this approach the solution is ridiculously simple, but you are at the mercy of the client device web browser for media codec/container support. For audio this is not so restricting but for video this is really restricting.
Navidrome has worked well for me for the last couple years. My collection (~80 GB) is pre-organized FLAC but Navidrome will transcode to MP3 if needed. I use Substreamer on Android to connect to it (Airsonic API/protocol) or the WebUI at home or work.
Just the right balance of simplicity and features for me.
I use iBroadcast[0], it's a service dedicated exactly for this. Costs me a bit each year but I've felt it worth it. There's some differences to organising in iTunes like the handling of compilation albums that I'm not so fond of but you can see how it works on the free tier.
The browser client only does 128 kbps streaming but their mobile client can set the streaming quality (I have it at 256, max is 320) and I'm working on my own PWA client using their API that I've also set to 256, which would work on both mobile and desktop.
You can also set the browser client to stream the original file directly but browsers don't play most of my formats like ALAC so it just doesn't play anything then.
Most self-hosted services metadata is only as good as the metadata on your audio files. I think using something like MusicBrainz Picard or beets to tag your media well is required, along with making sure that all files of a given album are in the same folder. (Plex has what seems like strict file naming conventions for music, but really all you need to do is make sure each album has all its files in one folder).
If you're interested in something more automated than having to use a program to tag your media, then I'm not sure what a good option is. Most people that don't use streaming services and have a digital music collection are tech-savy and don't mind going through the extra effort of tagging the media.
I’ve been wanting the same thing for a while now too. I’ve thought about trying to build it myself but the thought of requiring users to manage their own library seems too niche. A hosted, music-focused Plex competitor sounds awesome but also not sustainable. Surely the majority of those users who care about managing their music library are also happier owning their storage too, no?
Huge shout out to astiga which I've used for a year and a half. It'll run a streaming service for you out of cloud storage (eg s3, but also stuff like dropbox or google drive).
I'd love to self host but have a toddler and not much time, so astiga is a great "take my money and do it for me" kind of service!
Large microsd cards are very cheap these days. Using all this cloud stuff seems like a waste of multiple resources. And if you ever don't have a good connection then it's worthless. I've given stuff like this a try and only found it worth it on internal networks.
How reliable are they? I've had a couple of cards that I was playing music off mysteriously wipe themselves over the past year so I've subconsciously labelled SD cards as unsafe for long term storage.
Is this common or was I just unlucky?
> if you ever don't have a good connection then it's worthless
Here in Vietnam, internet is more stable even than electricity. We can be in the middle of a typhoon, trees and roofs being destroyed, no power for several days, and mobile data never even drops in speed.
A lot of talk here about different solutions. I wonder if there's a universal interoperable standard for self hosted music streaming these days? I'm still using the old Logitech Media Server (with some physical Squeezeboxen), but something a bit more featureful would be great. Especially with good indexing and search. And if it could interoperate so I could choose different clients and server, and wouldn't be tied to that software.
If you’re willing to pay for proprietary software, I’ve been incredibly happy with Roon for music organization. Handles 99% of albums I add without an issue, great multi-room support, best suggestions of any existing service (Rest in peace Google Play Music). They added remote streaming a few years ago and it’s all I use now.
I guess this is the time I ask the question I ask whenever a new self-hosted media streaming server gets posted...does anybody know of any similar server for demoscene tracker files and/or retroconsole music format (bit tunes) hosting, transcoding and serving the stream?
chip-player-js [1][2] has more or less exactly what I'm looking for, and I'd be perfectly happy with it, but I can't seem to get any of the docker containers I find to build properly or the repo to build due to dependency issues (probably ignorance on my part) [3][4].
I've started using Navidrome with Symfonium a few months ago. Navidrome is pretty good, but I'm very impressed with Symfonium. It's simple, responsive, and straightforward, but it's got a ton of options so you can fine-tune the client quite a bit.
Thanks for a tip to try out Symfonium. Seems to work great with Plex and Navidrome. I have a few issues with Plex for music, especially when it wants to convert DSF files into flac, which is fine but unnecessary. Plexamp on Android also sometimes fails to download full albums for offline playback.
Jellyfin I've tried a few times, but it still cannot encode and stream music as opus, which I find the best format when using low bitrates. Navidrome and Plex support opus by default.
Longtime Navidrome user so that's what I'm comparing this to.
This project looks cool, albeit simple at this point, but what I'd really love is a solution for music discovery for folks who self host their collection.
Is there something that sets this project apart from other easily self hostable tools?
Seems the theme going into the new year might just be self hosting things... This and this https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan are both on the front page of HN
Hmm..
I have a different use case.
There are 7 years of a radio show with daily recordings of about 2-3 hours in length, including images. About 400GB in size.
It used to all be hosted on a heavily ad plastered Drupal site, but I took it down a few years ago, because reasons.
I would like to make the archive available to the public, it would be such a waste to delete it. When I write available, I mean via a website. This blackcandy seems to be private only, requiring auth.
I would also prefer if the shows were streamed not directly downloaded, to keep bandwidth down, if you know what I mean.
I run multiple minidlna instances in Podman and let BubbleUPNP connect to them through Wireguard. Getting the multicast discovery to work was a bit challenging.
This is by far the nicest solution out there. All the others, plex, etc are resource hogs that want to transcode everything, unlike minidlna, which can run on a router, if needed, without docker, or all that jazz.
People might not like it because bubbleupnp is not open source, but it's a very nice piece of software nonetheless.
Does this support the OpenSubsonic API[1]? I didnt see it mentioned. I miss subsonic (except that it was java). All of the current servers have quirks i havent enjoyed, but having the subsonic mobileapp all through them has been great.
What's the benefit in using a "self hosted streaming server", when I can just mount a network share and connect to a personal VPN when I'm out and about? This is what I've been doing for awhile and I've had zero issues. As far as I can tell it's secure.
Is it just to allow others to use the server with login credentials?
[+] [-] sovietmudkipz|1 year ago|reply
Jellyfin has been amazing for physical media backups. It’s nice to experience old VHSes and DVDs in a user friendly way.
[+] [-] bitvoid|1 year ago|reply
It's been working pretty well, but I might have to give this a try to compare. Although, it's not clear from the GitHub README or the Apple App Store listing if the mobile app allows you to download music for offline listening.
[+] [-] nfriedly|1 year ago|reply
I think you were talking about Blackcandy in the second paragraph, but just to be clear, Plexamp does allow downloading for offline listening.
[+] [-] urbandw311er|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gbraad|1 year ago|reply
Nextcloud's WebDAV has issues with filenames or at least how it works. A large amount of files in non-'standard' characters wouldn't show up, so Ampache/Subsonic wouldn't work. This is why I tried Jellyfin.
[+] [-] aorth|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ccakes|1 year ago|reply
Self-hosting has been fun and I've started experimenting with local LLMs to build playlists which is helping discoverability.. or more /rediscovering/ artists that I haven't listened to in a while
[1] https://github.com/sentriz/gonic/ [2] https://github.com/dweymouth/supersonic [3] https://github.com/BLeeEZ/amperfy
[+] [-] paxys|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] raheelrjunaid|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jesterson|1 year ago|reply
This approach requires way lot more space (even if I pull videos in 1024x768, which is my car multimedia system resolution). For now it's just a plenty of SD cards, will see how it is going to change.
[+] [-] TomK32|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] emmanueloga_|1 year ago|reply
I'd like a service where I can upload a large folder of MP3s, and it would help organize them into albums, perform useful processing like ReplayGain normalization, BPM and key analysis, etc. It should also have a good playlist manager and player for desktop and mobile.
Some existing services allow you to add your own music files, like MP3s, but this often feels like a second-class citizen. Services like SoundCloud are focused more on social interactions, which I don’t really need.
Have I missed any services like this?
There's some growing dissatisfaction around algorithm-driven music services like Spotify. Also, these services carry the risk of music disappearing for various reasons. I think a service allowing curation of own MP3 collections could appeal a significant fraction of all music lovers out there.
--
1: https://vox.rocks/
[+] [-] austin-cheney|1 year ago|reply
1. Self-hosted web server with local file system access to your media.
2. One HTML page that I will generate for you. This page will contain a media player and a play list of your media files.
With this approach the solution is ridiculously simple, but you are at the mercy of the client device web browser for media codec/container support. For audio this is not so restricting but for video this is really restricting.
The application that generates that one HTML page for you is this: https://github.com/prettydiff/mp3-master-list
It is a Node.js application and you will need to run npm install in the application directory before the other commands will work.
Enjoy!
[+] [-] zenoprax|1 year ago|reply
Just the right balance of simplicity and features for me.
[+] [-] Ndymium|1 year ago|reply
The browser client only does 128 kbps streaming but their mobile client can set the streaming quality (I have it at 256, max is 320) and I'm working on my own PWA client using their API that I've also set to 256, which would work on both mobile and desktop.
You can also set the browser client to stream the original file directly but browsers don't play most of my formats like ALAC so it just doesn't play anything then.
[0] https://ibroadcast.com/
[+] [-] retrodaredevil|1 year ago|reply
If you're interested in something more automated than having to use a program to tag your media, then I'm not sure what a good option is. Most people that don't use streaming services and have a digital music collection are tech-savy and don't mind going through the extra effort of tagging the media.
[+] [-] skuzzie|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] benrutter|1 year ago|reply
I'd love to self host but have a toddler and not much time, so astiga is a great "take my money and do it for me" kind of service!
[0] https://asti.ga
[+] [-] antihero|1 year ago|reply
Then just run navidrome using docker-compose or microk8s
[+] [-] system33-|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] wilsonnb3|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] c0kezer0|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] clearleaf|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] esperent|1 year ago|reply
How reliable are they? I've had a couple of cards that I was playing music off mysteriously wipe themselves over the past year so I've subconsciously labelled SD cards as unsafe for long term storage.
Is this common or was I just unlucky?
> if you ever don't have a good connection then it's worthless
Here in Vietnam, internet is more stable even than electricity. We can be in the middle of a typhoon, trees and roofs being destroyed, no power for several days, and mobile data never even drops in speed.
[+] [-] dkjaudyeqooe|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rwmj|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] akurtzhs|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|1 year ago|reply
chip-player-js [1][2] has more or less exactly what I'm looking for, and I'd be perfectly happy with it, but I can't seem to get any of the docker containers I find to build properly or the repo to build due to dependency issues (probably ignorance on my part) [3][4].
1 - https://chiptune.app/ 2 - https://www.mattmontag.com/music/chip-player-js 3 - https://github.com/mmontag/chip-player-js 4 - https://github.com/soltune/chip-player-js-docker
[+] [-] runsonrum|1 year ago|reply
All for other options in this area as it has taken me a few goes at finding something that works for me. Usually it is the client that is lacking.
[+] [-] TiredOfLife|1 year ago|reply
What I really like about Symfonium compared to other subsonic clients is that it keeps the db locally.
[+] [-] uhoh-itsmaciek|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pimeys|1 year ago|reply
Jellyfin I've tried a few times, but it still cannot encode and stream music as opus, which I find the best format when using low bitrates. Navidrome and Plex support opus by default.
[+] [-] monkaiju|1 year ago|reply
This project looks cool, albeit simple at this point, but what I'd really love is a solution for music discovery for folks who self host their collection.
Is there something that sets this project apart from other easily self hostable tools?
[+] [-] sphars|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] loxias|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Havoc|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] mikae1|1 year ago|reply
With latest Firefox stable on https://demo.blackcandy.org. Is this right?
[+] [-] LorenDB|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] lakomen|1 year ago|reply
It used to all be hosted on a heavily ad plastered Drupal site, but I took it down a few years ago, because reasons.
I would like to make the archive available to the public, it would be such a waste to delete it. When I write available, I mean via a website. This blackcandy seems to be private only, requiring auth.
I would also prefer if the shows were streamed not directly downloaded, to keep bandwidth down, if you know what I mean.
Does software for this use case exist?
[+] [-] nfriedly|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] LorenDB|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] saxonww|1 year ago|reply
Works with Rhythmbox, at least. IDK if there is a compatible Android client.
[+] [-] harry8|1 year ago|reply
Works well enough i haven’t bothered to set up anything else.
Wireguard is pretty great for all this stuff.
[+] [-] j0057|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] pmlnr|1 year ago|reply
People might not like it because bubbleupnp is not open source, but it's a very nice piece of software nonetheless.
[+] [-] majkinetor|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] CableNinja|1 year ago|reply
[1] https://opensubsonic.netlify.app/
[+] [-] kaleinator|1 year ago|reply
Is it just to allow others to use the server with login credentials?
[+] [-] pimeys|1 year ago|reply