Replacing Music Streaming Services with a Self-hosted Stack
blog.nfreak.tv
Replacing TV and movie streaming services is pretty trivial, and typically one of the first projects for any new self-hoster, but music streaming services are a whole different beast. There's a growing need to replace the likes of Spotify, but there's no one-size-fits-all solution, and maintaining an on-disk music library

Full disclosure, I’m pretty new to selfhosting myself, and I haven’t written a guide like this before, but hopefully this scatterbrained writeup is enough for someone out there lmao

This is just what works for me and how I set it up. Always open to ideas for improvement as well.

  • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
    58·
    10 hours ago

    I’ve honestly never understood people who feel the need to “replace” Spotify. I just download the music I like to my device and listen to it via VLC. If I want to discover new music in genres I like, I’ll go and listen either to a terrestrial radio station, Soma.FM, or Pandora (which has many of Spotify’s issues for me, but serves more as a platform for discovery of obscure music). The rare times I listen to music, I’m usually going somewhere on mass transit, or I’m on foot. And during those times, my phone is either fully turned off (so I’ll use an MP3 player), or it’s in Airplane Mode. Spotify has never made sense for my use-case.

    • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.websiteEnglish
      15·
      10 hours ago

      I’ve honestly never understood people who feel the need to “replace” Spotify. … Spotify has never made sense for my use-case.

      I don’t know how to say this, but…you have extremely uncommon use-cases:

      …during those times, my phone is either fully turned off (so I’ll use an MP3 player), or it’s in Airplane Mode.

      Many people listen to music on stereos and don’t necessarily want a device plugged in, so

      I just download the music I like to my device and listen to it via VLC.

      either doesn’t work or is substantially less convenient than e.g. casting from a phone.

      Not hating on your setup at all, but it’s very niche, in my experience.

      • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
        33·
        10 hours ago

        Fair enough. My whole life has basically been defined as “very niche” since about 2012. But then again, I basically only use music to shut out the world. And yes, I said use, not enjoy. It’s basically a source of predictable noise that acts as a filter to the more random noise around me so I don’t have more issues than usual. That’s why staying in-genre matters and Pandora helps - it matches based on the predictable traits.