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OpenSourceAlternatives

Category

Music Streaming

Catalogue music services. Licensing makes this one of the few categories with no open source answer.

6 products, 2 Projects: 2 open source, 0 source-available, 0 unresolved-license

Spotify

Spotify

Catalogue music streaming with algorithmic discovery

CompanySpotify
Since2008
PricingFreemium

Spotify's advantage is not the catalogue, which is broadly the same everywhere, but the recommendation layer on top of it. Discover Weekly and the radio features remain the reason many people stay.

YouTube Music

YouTube Music

Streaming backed by YouTube's catalogue of everything

CompanyGoogle
Since2015
PricingFreemium

YouTube Music reaches material no licensed catalogue contains: live sets, remixes, covers, and regional uploads that never had a commercial release. For anyone whose listening goes past the mainstream, that coverage is decisive.

Alternative toSpotify
Tidal

Tidal

Streaming aimed at audio quality and artist payout

CompanyBlock
Since2014
PricingPaid

Tidal competes on two things the larger services do not lead with: high resolution audio formats, and a payout model that directs a share of a subscription to the artists that subscriber actually listened to.

Alternative toSpotify
Apple Music

Apple Music

Music streaming with lossless audio and no free tier

CompanyApple
Since2015
PricingFreemium

Apple Music ships lossless and spatial audio at no extra cost, which is the clearest technical differentiator in the category. Editorial curation is stronger than the algorithmic competition; algorithmic discovery is weaker.

Alternative toSpotify
Nuclear

NuclearOpen

Free open-source desktop music streaming player

Stars18.7K
Commitjust now
LicenseAGPL-3.0

Nuclear is a free open-source desktop music player that streams from switchable sources with playlists, stats, and plugins.

Alternative toSpotify
Nightingale

NightingaleOpen

Turn any song in your music library into karaoke

Stars1,495
Commitjust now
LicenseGPL-3.0

Nightingale is a free, open-source karaoke app that splits any song in a local music library into instrumental and vocal tracks and scores the singer.

Alternative toNavidrome