Black Candy vs Swing Music
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 | Swing Music |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 89 · Excellent | 84 · Excellent |
| Category | Media Servers | Media Servers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,418 | ★ 2,070 |
| First released | None | 2022 |
| Replaces | Spotify, Apple Music | Spotify, Apple Music |
What are Black Candy and Swing Music?
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
Swing Music
Swing Music is a beautiful, self-hosted music player and streaming server for your local audio collection. It automatically organizes albums, artists, and folders and includes a polished web player.
- Modern web player
- Automatic library organization
- Folder browsing
- Single binary option
Black Candy vs Swing Music: key differences
Black Candy is written in Ruby, while Swing Music is built with Python. Swing Music is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Black Candy. Black Candy has the considerably larger community, at 4,418 GitHub stars versus 2,070.
Why pick each one
Choose Black Candy if…
- Clean modern interface
- Simple to deploy
Watch out for
- Music only
- Smaller ecosystem
Choose Swing Music if…
- Attractive interface
- Easy to deploy
Watch out for
- Younger project
- No multi-user roles yet
Frequently asked questions
Is Black Candy or Swing Music better?
Neither is universally better. Black Candy has the larger community, while Swing Music is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Black Candy and Swing Music free and open-source?
Yes. Black Candy is licensed under MIT and Swing Music under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Black Candy and Swing Music with Docker?
Black Candy: yes. Swing Music: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Black Candy or Swing Music?
Swing Music 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.