Black Candy vs LMS
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 | LMS |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 85 · Excellent |
| Category | Media Servers | Media Servers |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Ruby | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,418 | ★ 1,680 |
| First released | None | 2014 |
| Replaces | Spotify, Apple Music | Spotify |
What are Black Candy and LMS?
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
LMS
LMS is a lightweight, self-hosted music streaming server with a focus on performance and a built-in recommendation engine. It exposes the Subsonic API for compatibility with a wide range of clients.
- Subsonic API compatible
- Music recommendations
- Low resource use
- Scrobbling support
Black Candy vs LMS: key differences
Black Candy is written in Ruby, while LMS is built with C++. Licensing differs — MIT for Black Candy versus GPL-3.0 for LMS. LMS is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Black Candy. Black Candy has the considerably larger community, at 4,418 GitHub stars versus 1,680.
Why pick each one
Choose Black Candy if…
- Clean modern interface
- Simple to deploy
Watch out for
- Music only
- Smaller ecosystem
Choose LMS if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in C++
Watch out for
- Smaller community
- Web UI is functional but plain
Frequently asked questions
Is Black Candy or LMS better?
Neither is universally better. Black Candy has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Black Candy and LMS free and open-source?
Yes. Black Candy is licensed under MIT and LMS under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Black Candy and LMS with Docker?
Black Candy: yes. LMS: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Black Candy or LMS?
LMS has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Black Candy. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.