Black Candy vs Mopidy
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 | Mopidy |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 92 · Excellent |
| Category | Media Servers | Media Servers |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | Ruby | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,418 | ★ 8,587 |
| First released | None | 2010 |
| Replaces | Spotify, Apple Music | Spotify |
What are Black Candy and Mopidy?
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
Mopidy
Mopidy is an extensible music server written in Python that plays music from local disk, Spotify, SoundCloud, and other sources. It is controlled through MPD and web clients and is popular for DIY music players.
- Plays from multiple backends
- MPD protocol compatible
- Rich plugin ecosystem
- Web client support
Black Candy vs Mopidy: key differences
Black Candy is written in Ruby, while Mopidy is built with Python. Licensing differs — MIT for Black Candy versus Apache-2.0 for Mopidy. Mopidy is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Black Candy.
Why pick each one
Choose Black Candy if…
- Clean modern interface
- Simple to deploy
Watch out for
- Music only
- Smaller ecosystem
Choose Mopidy if…
- Highly extensible
- Great for Raspberry Pi projects
Watch out for
- No native UI
- Requires plugins for most features
Frequently asked questions
Is Black Candy or Mopidy better?
Neither is universally better. Mopidy has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Black Candy and Mopidy free and open-source?
Yes. Black Candy is licensed under MIT and Mopidy under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Black Candy and Mopidy with Docker?
Black Candy: yes. Mopidy: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Black Candy or Mopidy?
Mopidy has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Black Candy. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.