Supersonic

Last reviewed Sep 13, 2026 · 768 words

Supersonic is what the Navidrome web player would be if it were a real desktop application: a single Go binary, a window that opens in under a second, gapless playback through libmpv, and about 128 MB of RAM while it is playing. It is a client, not a server. You still need a Subsonic-compatible music server or a Jellyfin instance behind it, and it plays music only, with no podcasts, video, or audiobook support. Within that scope it has become my default recommendation for anyone who wants their self-hosted library to feel like a native app.

It talks to any Subsonic server, and to Jellyfin

The Subsonic API is the lingua franca of self-hosted music. Navidrome, Gonic, Airsonic-Advanced, and Ampache with its Subsonic bridge all speak it, and Supersonic connects to any of them with a URL and a login. Since 2023 it also has a native Jellyfin backend, which matters because a lot of people keep their music inside the same server that holds their films and did not want to run a second one. The Jellyfin versus Navidrome comparison explains why a dedicated music server still tends to win on tagging and browsing; Supersonic lets you defer that decision, since it works with both.

Multiple servers can be saved, and switching between them takes two clicks. Scrobbling is handled the Subsonic way: the client tells the server what played, and the server forwards to Last.fm or ListenBrainz if you have that configured there, so there is no separate scrobbler login in the client.

Playback is where it beats the web players

The audio path is libmpv, the same library behind the MPV video player, and that buys a few things browsers cannot match. Gapless playback actually works across album sides. ReplayGain is applied client-side using the tags the server exposes, with track and album modes. There is a 15-band graphical equalizer, and audio output device selection, which on a desktop with a USB DAC is the difference between a toy and a player. Transcoding on the fly is a server-side option you can force from the client when you are on a slow link.

Because it is built with the Fyne toolkit rather than Electron, the whole thing is a single native binary with no bundled browser. The trade is that Fyne's widgets look consistent everywhere but slightly generic, and text rendering on Linux HiDPI setups occasionally needs a scaling environment variable. Album art grids, a now-playing view with lyrics when the server has them, and drag-to-queue all behave the way you expect.

Install is a download, with one dependency

Releases ship as a Windows installer, a macOS .dmg, and Linux AppImage, Flatpak, and tarball builds. On Linux you need libmpv installed from your distro (the AppImage and Flatpak bundle it). Building from source is go build after installing the Fyne prerequisites, and the whole compile takes a couple of minutes. There is nothing to configure beyond adding a server; settings such as the equalizer and scrobble thresholds live in a small TOML file in the standard config directory.

A note on the repository: the project started under its author's personal GitHub account and now lives under the supersonic-app organisation. Both URLs resolve to the same 2,348-star GPL-3.0 codebase, and releases are cut from the organisation repo.

Feishin is the rival, and the split is clear

Feishin is the other actively developed desktop client for Navidrome and Jellyfin. It is Electron-based, which means a heavier footprint (expect 300 MB or more of RAM) but also a more polished, Spotify-like interface with smart playlists, a built-in remote control server for driving it from your phone, and MPV as an optional backend. Supersonic is lighter, starts faster, and has the better native audio path out of the box. If you want a pretty browser-style UI with the extras, Feishin; if you want a small fast player that gets out of the way, Supersonic. Sonixd, the predecessor to Feishin, is no longer maintained and should not be a new install.

What I'd do

Run Navidrome as the server, install Supersonic on every desktop and laptop, point it at the server over your VPN, enable ReplayGain in album mode, and let Navidrome handle the Last.fm scrobbling. Use Feishin instead only if you specifically want the phone remote or the smart playlist builder. Keep the web player as a fallback for machines where you cannot install anything.