head to head · open source
Navidrome vs swingmusic
Navidrome has 24,490 GitHub stars, 1,799 forks, 275 open issues and last shipped yesterday. swingmusic has 2,087 stars, 143 forks, 124 open issues and last shipped 29 days ago. Navidrome leads on adoption by 1,073% (24,490 vs 2,087 stars). Navidrome is written in Go under GPL-3.0; swingmusic is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Navidrome has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, swingmusic 7%. 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, self-hosted), 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 | swingmusic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 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 swingmusic if
- You want the swingmusic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and swingmusic fits your workflow better
About Navidrome
Navidrome Music Server Navidrome is an open source web based music collection server and streamer. It gives you freedom to listen to your music collection from any browser or mobile device. It's like your personal Spotify! Note : The master branch may be in an unstable or even broken state during development. Please use releases instead of the master branch in order to get a stable set of binaries. Check out our Live Demo! Any feedback is welcome! If you need/want a new feature, find a bug or think of any way to improve Navidrome, please file a GitHub issue or join the discussion in our Subreddit. If you want to…
read the full Navidrome overview →
About swingmusic
Swing Music Download • Get Android Client • Sponsor Us ❤️ • Docs • Screenshots • r/SwingMusicApp Swing Music is a blazingly fast and beautiful, self hosted music streaming server. Like a cooler Spotify ... but bring your own music. Features Daily Mixes curated everyday based on your listening activity Metadata normalization a clean and consistent library Album versioning normalized albums and association with version labels (eg. Deluxe, Remaster, etc) Related artist and albums Folder view Browse your music library by folders Beautiful browser based UI Silence detection Combine cross fade with silence detection…
read the full swingmusic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Navidrome or swingmusic more popular?
Navidrome has 24,490 GitHub stars and swingmusic has 2,087. Navidrome has the larger community by that measure.
Are Navidrome and swingmusic free?
Both are open source. Navidrome is licensed under GPL-3.0 and swingmusic under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Navidrome and swingmusic?
Navidrome is written in Go and swingmusic in Python. 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 swingmusic?
Choose Navidrome if you want the larger community (24,490 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose swingmusic if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.