DroppedNeedle vs Navidrome

Comparing two open source alternatives to Spotify. Use the comparison below to decide which one fits your needs.

DroppedNeedle

AGPL-3.0

Self-hosted music request and discovery server that drives your own download clients, verifies every file, and shelves it in a library you own.

GPL-3.0

Modern, lightweight self-hosted music server compatible with Subsonic/Airsonic clients — stream your music everywhere.

	DroppedNeedle	Navidrome
License	AGPL-3.0	GPL-3.0
Self-hostable	Yes	Yes
GitHub Stars	1,474	24,082
Forks	78	1,749
Open Issues	191	300
Last Commit	Oct 8, 2026	Oct 10, 2026
First Released	Oct 10, 2025	Feb 24, 2016
Categories	Music Discovery Music Player	Collaboration & Communication Tools
Tags	#music #self hosted #music-discovery #automation #audio	#streaming #self hosted

DroppedNeedle1,474

Navidrome

Cross-platform lossless music player with rich library management, synced lyrics, and gapless playback for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

A self-hosted, cross-platform podcast management system with a modern Rust and Python stack.

Android music app that plays YouTube Music, Gaana and Saavn plus your local files through one ad-free interface.

A free, open-source cross-platform music player for Navidrome, Jellyfin, Plex and other Subsonic-compatible servers.

Self-hosted music server focused on metadata integration and UI, with music videos as first-class citizens and mobile apps for Android and iOS.

Self-hosted podcast server that uses AI to automatically remove ads from episodes before you hit play.