HACKER Q&A
📣 mattlondon

Google Play Music Alternative?


What are good alternatives to Google Play Music?

While YouTube Music is more or less ok as a replacement, I don't like the dark-patterns they're using to try and lure/confuse you into a subscription for YouTube rather than just listening to your music like you used to be able to.

What good alternatives exist that:

- let me upload my own music collection

- stream from a browser & a native android app

- ideally do not have a subscription

- Optional: legitimate music purchases

I don't mind self-hosting if it comes to that?

Thanks!

  👤 iamacyborg Accepted Answer ✓
Plex sounds like it could be a solid alternative if you can self-host a media server (on a NAS or similar).

You can stream from your web browser, a mobile app or whatever and it supports Chromecast so you can stream to other devices if you want to.

👤 unhammer
https://github.com/sentriz/gonic is a very lightweight implementation of Subsonic (so you can use any Subsonic client with it, ie. there are native and browser apps). I use it with DSub on Android.

There's still https://bandcamp.com/ for buying music, but there are many artists I can no longer buy mp3's from now that Google Play Music is gone :-/

👤 preya2k
Depending on your hardware, your NAS software might be a good replacement. Pretty much all of them offer decent music apps. (e.g. Synology DS Audio).
👤 9KDDrUeh2ZQ
https://www.ibroadcast.com is a real dark horse. Fills the same role that Google Play music did for me - uploaded library with streaming and cached offline playback.

Upload your own collection, they've fairly powerful web and android apps. Various upload clients

Currently free - they promise a free plan going forward.

Been around for years, I don't use it as I've been waiting for them to deliver some concrete plan for monetisation before committing to the upload, but I've been following the project.

👤 alfredbez
I was using Google Play Music only for my own music and moved recently to Google Drive which just syncs my audio folder on every device. I use https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cloudbeats on my android phone and Rhythmbox (since I just sync plain mp3-files) on my notebook.
👤 ashishb
I wrote one for myself: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.ashishb.an... it plays both local files as well files from Google Drive (without requiring access to full Google Drive)
👤 b15h0p
AFAIK Itunes Match is still around if you do not want a regular streaming service. But Apple Music also includes the same functionality.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204146

You can upload your own stuff but it is subscription based, of course. Playing should work through the Apple Music app for Android.

👤 mtmsr
Recently switched to Jellyfin+Gelli Android app. Great experience so far, also the web interface is nice to use on both mobile and desktop.

https://jellyfin.org/ https://github.com/dkanada/gelli

👤 readarticle
Apple Music lets you upload any personal music and stream/re download it alongside normal offerings.

Works perfectly through music.apple.com and an oddly good native Android app.

Un ideally it requires a subscription, though there’s a generous three month free trial. I also don’t think there’s a self hosting option.

👤 izacus
Things that fit this and I've tried out lately:

- Synology DS Audio (comes with Synology NASes)

- Plex Media Server

- Emby Media Server

They all have decent mobile apps, can stream music directly from your own server. Plex/Emby probably have a bit better apps with Android Auto support and whatnot.

No purchases unfortunately.

👤 nodefourtytwo
https://funkwhale.audio/

It's self-hosted.

The website seems down at the moment though.

👤 dsr_
Anything that uses the mpd protocol, including mpd itself, can do all of those things except sell you new music.
👤 gmit2
I've switched from GPM to Tidal+Roon. So far so good.