Black Candy vs Lidarr
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted media servers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Black Candy | Lidarr |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 84 · Excellent |
| Category | Media Servers | Media Servers |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Ruby | C# |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,418 | ★ 5,679 |
| First released | None | 2017 |
| Replaces | Spotify, Apple Music | Spotify |
What are Black Candy and Lidarr?
Black Candy
A self hosted music streaming server. Contribute to blackcandy-org/blackcandy development by creating an account on GitHub.
- Personal music streaming
- Responsive web player
- Multi-user accounts
- PWA support
Lidarr
Lidarr is the music collection manager for the *arr suite, automating searches and downloads for your favorite artists. It monitors releases and integrates with download clients and media servers.
- Automated music collection management
- Release monitoring
- Download client integration
- Quality profiles
Black Candy vs Lidarr: key differences
Black Candy is written in Ruby, while Lidarr is built with C#. Licensing differs — MIT for Black Candy versus GPL-3.0 for Lidarr.
Why pick each one
Choose Black Candy if…
- Clean modern interface
- Simple to deploy
Watch out for
- Music only
- Smaller ecosystem
Choose Lidarr if…
- Part of the popular *arr suite
- Strong automation
Watch out for
- Metadata accuracy varies
- Companion to a media server
Frequently asked questions
Is Black Candy or Lidarr better?
Neither is universally better. Lidarr has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Black Candy and Lidarr free and open-source?
Yes. Black Candy is licensed under MIT and Lidarr under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Black Candy and Lidarr with Docker?
Black Candy: yes. Lidarr: yes.