head to head · open source
Jellyfin vs songloft
Jellyfin has 57,244 GitHub stars, 5,523 forks, 684 open issues and last shipped yesterday. songloft has 1,746 stars, 143 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jellyfin leads on adoption by 3,179% (57,244 vs 1,746 stars). Jellyfin is written in C# under GPL-2.0; songloft is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Jellyfin has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, songloft 8%. songloft was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Jellyfin | songloft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C# | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 143 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jellyfin if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick songloft if
- You want the songloft feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and songloft fits your workflow better
About Jellyfin
Jellyfin is a free and open source media server that lets an individual or an organisation manage and stream their own movies, music, and other media from a dedicated server to end user devices through multiple client apps.
read the full Jellyfin overview →
About songloft
Songloft is a self hosted music server written in Go under Apache 2.0. It manages music files the user already owns and provides no built in copyrighted content. The project was renamed from MiMusic at version 2.0, with old GitHub and Docker paths kept as redirects for at least one year.
read the full songloft overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jellyfin or songloft more popular?
Jellyfin has 57,244 GitHub stars and songloft has 1,746. Jellyfin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jellyfin and songloft free?
Both are open source. Jellyfin is licensed under GPL-2.0 and songloft under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Jellyfin and songloft?
Jellyfin is written in C# and songloft in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Jellyfin or songloft?
Choose Jellyfin if you want the larger community (57,244 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose songloft if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.