Airsonic vs Koel
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted media servers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Airsonic
Archived
Free, web-based media streamer derived from Subsonic
VS
Koel
Personal music streaming server with an elegant interface
| Feature | Airsonic | Koel |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 15 · At risk | 95 · Excellent |
| Status | Archived | Actively maintained |
| Category | Media Servers | Media Servers |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Java | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,045 | ★ 17,262 |
| First released | 2017 | 2016 |
| Replaces | Spotify | Spotify |
What are Airsonic and Koel?
Airsonic
Airsonic is a free, web-based media streamer providing access to your music collection from anywhere. It is the community fork of Subsonic and supports the Subsonic API for use with many client apps.
- Subsonic API support
- Multi-user with roles
- On-the-fly transcoding
- Podcast support
Koel
Koel is a personal music streaming server with a focus on a clean, modern web interface. It supports smart playlists, last.fm scrobbling, and streaming your own collection from any browser.
- Elegant web player
- Smart playlists
- Last.fm scrobbling
- Mobile companion app
Airsonic vs Koel: key differences
The biggest difference is maintenance: Airsonic's repository is archived and no longer developed, while Koel is actively maintained. Airsonic is written in Java, while Koel is built with PHP. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Airsonic versus MIT for Koel. Koel has the considerably larger community, at 17,262 GitHub stars versus 2,045.
Why pick each one
Choose Airsonic if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2k GitHub stars)
- Written in Java
Watch out for
- Original repo less active
- Java memory usage
Choose Koel if…
- Beautiful interface
- Active community
Watch out for
- Needs a separate database
- Limited transcoding options
Frequently asked questions
Is Airsonic or Koel better?
Neither is universally better. Koel has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Airsonic and Koel free and open-source?
Yes. Airsonic is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Koel under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Airsonic and Koel with Docker?
Airsonic: yes. Koel: yes.