Helix vs Navidrome

Comparing two open source alternatives to Spotify. Use the comparison below to decide which one fits your needs.

Helix

AGPL-3.0

Self-hosted music player with Pandora-style stations, shared listening lobbies, and playlist imports, built on a Subsonic-compatible library.

GPL-3.0

Modern, lightweight self-hosted music server compatible with Subsonic/Airsonic clients — stream your music everywhere.

	Helix	Navidrome
License	AGPL-3.0	GPL-3.0
Self-hostable	Yes	Yes
GitHub Stars	32	23,429
Forks	2	1,689
Open Issues	2	279
Last Commit	Sep 9, 2026	Sep 10, 2026
First Released	Feb 12, 2026	Feb 24, 2016
Categories	Music Player Music Discovery	Collaboration & Communication Tools
Tags	#music #streaming #subsonic #media-server	#streaming #self hosted

Cross-platform lossless music player with rich library management, synced lyrics, and gapless playback for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

A self-hosted, cross-platform podcast management system with a modern Rust and Python stack.

Android music app that plays YouTube Music, Gaana and Saavn plus your local files through one ad-free interface.

Self-hosted music server focused on metadata integration and UI, with music videos as first-class citizens and mobile apps for Android and iOS.

Self-hosted podcast server that uses AI to automatically remove ads from episodes before you hit play.

A self-hosted podcast manager/downloader/archiver tool to download podcast episodes as soon as they become live with an integrated player.