head to head · open source
Navidrome vs songloft
Navidrome has 23,632 GitHub stars, 1,708 forks, 275 open issues and last shipped yesterday. songloft has 1,746 stars, 143 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Navidrome leads on adoption by 1,253% (23,632 vs 1,746 stars). Navidrome is written in Go under GPL-3.0; songloft is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Navidrome has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, songloft 8%. Navidrome was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (music, music-server, navidrome), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| Navidrome | songloft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 143 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Navidrome if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- 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 Navidrome
Navidrome is an open source, web based music collection server and streamer written in Go and released under the GPL 3.0 license. It lives in the self hosted media server ecosystem and is intended for users who want to listen to a personal music collection from a browser or mobile device.
read the full Navidrome 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 Navidrome or songloft more popular?
Navidrome has 23,632 GitHub stars and songloft has 1,746. Navidrome has the larger community by that measure.
Are Navidrome and songloft free?
Both are open source. Navidrome is licensed under GPL-3.0 and songloft under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Navidrome and songloft?
Navidrome is written in Go 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, Navidrome or songloft?
Choose Navidrome if you want the larger community (23,632 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose songloft if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.