CyTube vs Koel
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted media servers options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare CyTube with
choose an app… Jellyfin qBittorrent SRS Navidrome Kodi Jackett Beets PeerTube Transmission
Compare Koel with
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Feature CyTube Koel Category Media Servers Media Servers License MIT MIT Language JavaScript PHP Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 512 MB 512 MB Deployment bare-metal docker, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 1,576 ★ 17,208 First released 2017 2016 Replaces — Spotify
Why pick each one
Choose CyTube if… Released under the MIT license Active community (1.6k GitHub stars) Written in JavaScript Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM CyTube details Choose Koel if… Beautiful interface Active community Koel details
Frequently asked questions Is CyTube 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 CyTube and Koel free and open-source? Yes. CyTube is licensed under MIT and Koel under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run CyTube and Koel with Docker? CyTube: check the project docs for container support. Koel: yes.