Helix

Helix is a self-hosted music player, discovery tool, and shared listening system built on top of a Subsonic-compatible music library such as Navidrome. It is aimed at people who already run their own music server but want a more modern listening experience: full search, queues, playlists, generated radio stations, and shared listening sessions in one web interface. The software is early-stage, so expect rough edges, breaking changes, and some setup work.

The discovery features are modeled on listening radio. You can generate stations from artists, artist collections, or tags, and tune each station with settings like artist variety, discovery level, tag strictness, and repeat avoidance. Stations automatically keep filling the queue ahead of playback, similar to how Pandora builds an endless personalized stream. Helix can also import playlists from Spotify, YouTube Music, and Pandora — imports are previewed first, matched against playable music, and you approve each track before anything is added.

Beyond listening, Helix adds a fulfillment workflow: when a track is not in your library, you can request it, and Helix stages the download, repairs metadata via beets, and then imports it into your Subsonic library. Optional slskd/Soulseek integration asynchronously replaces Helix-added tracks with higher-quality copies, including lossless upgrades. Shared lobbies let multiple listeners join a synchronized queue with a five-letter code and optional password, and an optional companion bot mirrors a lobby into a Discord voice channel. A native Android client is also available for mobile playback and control.

Compared to Spotify or Pandora, the trade is control for convenience: you supply and store the music yourself, there is no subscription and no advertising, and recommendations come from your own library and optional ListenBrainz integration rather than a commercial catalog. There is no bundled store or licensed catalog — for music you cannot fulfill yourself, you still play from your existing sources or resolved playlist imports.