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I’d been using Plex for my music for years. It did the job, but Plex is a multimedia ocean liner. For music, it’s overkill.
I discovered Navidrome — a server 100% dedicated to music, open source and lightweight. I installed it on my Synology. Well, when I say “I”, it was Claude who did the work. I launched Claude Code over SSH on my NAS, asked it to install Navidrome via Docker, and it configured everything. The docker-compose file, volumes, port, permissions on the music folder. All of it.
A music server and nothing else
Navidrome does one thing and does it well. It’s a music streaming server written in Go. It reads your audio files (FLAC, MP3, AAC, OGG, etc.), displays album art, and manages artists and albums. There’s a built-in web interface that’s clean and responsive.
The thing is, Navidrome respects your tags. It doesn’t rewrite your library the way Plex sometimes does with its automatic matching. If your files are properly tagged, Navidrome displays them correctly. Full stop.
It runs on almost nothing. On my Synology, the memory footprint is laughable compared to Plex.
Subsonic compatibility changes everything
Navidrome implements the Subsonic API. That means every Subsonic-compatible application works with it. And there are apps for every platform.
On iPhone I use Amperfy. It’s free, open source, and the best Subsonic music client I’ve tested on iOS. Offline downloads, AirPlay, CarPlay — it’s all there. The interface is clean and playback is stable.
On Apple Watch I’m testing WRhythm. It’s a standalone app that connects directly to Navidrome. You can stream music from the watch or download tracks to listen without an iPhone. Perfect for running or hitting the gym. No more depending on Plex on Apple Watch which requires a Plex Pass.
On Android there’s Symfonium, on desktop Feishin. No shortage of options.
Random album playback
It’s a small thing, but I love random album playback. You launch a random album from your library and rediscover it. With years of accumulated music you end up forgetting hidden gems. This feature makes me re-listen to things I hadn’t played in ages.
What’s missing compared to Plex
Plex with Plexamp is still a very polished experience. Music suggestions, auto-mixes, radios based on your taste — Navidrome has none of that. If you want an algorithm proposing music to you, Navidrome isn’t the tool for it.
Smart playlists exist in beta. On paper you can create dynamic playlists based on genre, year, play count. In practice they don’t quite work yet. That’s its weak point right now.
Creating playlists via the API with Claude
What I really appreciate though is the ability to manage playlists through the Subsonic API. I ask Claude to create a playlist with specific criteria and it uses the API to add the tracks. “Make me a playlist of all the jazz albums added this year” and it’s done.
That compensates for the lack of working smart playlists. Instead of an automatic system that bugs out, I have Claude building them on demand. It’s actually more flexible because I can describe what I want in plain language.
Sharing the library with the family
I really like the ability to mark artists and albums as favorites — it lets you build a library much like you would with a streaming service. This makes it easy to share my Navidrome instance with the family. All files are pooled and accessible to each member, and everyone can favorite their own artists so they only see what interests them.
That’s actually the main reason I switched away from Plex. I don’t want to end up mixing everyone’s music together, and I don’t want to physically duplicate files into separate libraries. The favorites system solves that problem.
The verdict
Navidrome doesn’t replace Plex for everything. If you want music suggestions and a plug-and-play experience, Plexamp still wins. But if you want a lightweight, free server that respects your tags and opens up to an ecosystem of apps via Subsonic, Navidrome is the right choice.
Installing it on a Synology via Docker takes five minutes. Or zero minutes if you let Claude handle it 😄
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