Amperfy

Last reviewed Sep 13, 2026 · 678 words

Amperfy is not something you host. It is the iPhone end of a music server you already run, and it is the piece that decides whether your family uses that server or quietly goes back to Spotify. A Navidrome instance viewed through a browser tab is a project; the same library in Amperfy, with downloads for the flight and album art on the car dashboard, is a music service. It has 1,740 stars, a GPL-3.0 licence and a free listing on the App Store, and there is nothing to configure beyond a URL and a login.

Where it sits in the stack

The server does the work: scanning files, serving transcodes, tracking playlists. Amperfy speaks two server protocols. The Subsonic API is the common one, implemented by Navidrome, Gonic, Airsonic and a dozen others, and it is the one most self-hosters will use. The Ampache API is the native protocol of Ampache, which is older and heavier but does more, including video and podcast handling on the server side. Amperfy connects to either, so a server change later does not mean an app change.

If you are starting from zero, the Navidrome walkthrough covers the server half and explains why a music-only server is a better foundation for a music app than a general media server.

Offline is the reason to pick it over the web UI

Navidrome's web player is good and works on a phone. It does not survive a tunnel, a flight or a weekend with no signal. Amperfy downloads albums, playlists or individual tracks to the device, in the server's original format or a transcode you choose, and plays them without the server. This is the feature that turned my parents' Navidrome from "a thing on a laptop" into a working replacement for a paid subscription. Set a cache size limit in the app settings, since a FLAC library will eat an iPhone's storage in a weekend.

Playback state syncs both ways: a playlist edited on the desktop appears on the phone, and scrobbles from the phone reach the server, so "recently played" stays honest across devices.

CarPlay and the lock screen are where native wins

A web player in Safari can technically play in the background. It will not appear in CarPlay, and its lock-screen controls are flaky. Amperfy integrates with both, plus the system now-playing widget. If the car is where you listen most, this alone justifies a native client, and it is the difference people notice within a day.

What it is not

It is iOS only, with a macOS build via Catalyst. There is no Android version, and the equivalent role there is filled by Tempo if you want open source or Symfonium if you are willing to pay a few euros for polish. It is built for music: no video, no audiobooks with chapter memory. And it is a client, so if your server is slow to transcode or your library has broken tags, the app will faithfully show you the slowness and the broken tags.

Remote access is also your problem, not the app's. Amperfy needs to reach the server URL from wherever the phone is. A VPN such as Tailscale keeps the server off the public internet and works with the app's background downloads; a reverse proxy with a real certificate works too, and either is better than an HTTP address exposed to the world.

What I'd do

Navidrome on the server, Amperfy on every iPhone in the house, Tailscale between them. Turn on offline caching with a 10 GB limit, download the three playlists you actually play, and let the rest stream. If the household includes an Android phone, add Tempo and point it at the same server; the whole point of the Subsonic API is that the client is replaceable. Keep Spotify only for discovery if you must, and cancel it the month you notice you have not opened it.