SHSelfHostIndex

Koel vs Lidarr

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?
Koel Personal music streaming server with an elegant interface VS Lidarr Music collection manager and download automation tool
FeatureKoelLidarr
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score95 · Excellent84 · Excellent
CategoryMedia ServersMedia Servers
LicenseMITGPL-3.0
LanguagePHPC#
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 17,262★ 5,679
First released20162017
ReplacesSpotifySpotify

What are Koel and Lidarr?

Koel

Koel is a personal music streaming server with a focus on a clean, modern web interface. It supports smart playlists, last.fm scrobbling, and streaming your own collection from any browser.

  • Elegant web player
  • Smart playlists
  • Last.fm scrobbling
  • Mobile companion app

Read the full Koel guide →

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

Read the full Lidarr guide →

Koel vs Lidarr: key differences

Koel is written in PHP, while Lidarr is built with C#. Licensing differs — MIT for Koel versus GPL-3.0 for Lidarr. Koel has the considerably larger community, at 17,262 GitHub stars versus 5,679.

Why pick each one

Choose Koel if…

  • Beautiful interface
  • Active community

Watch out for

  • Needs a separate database
  • Limited transcoding options
Koel details

Choose Lidarr if…

  • Part of the popular *arr suite
  • Strong automation

Watch out for

  • Metadata accuracy varies
  • Companion to a media server
Lidarr details

Frequently asked questions

Is Koel or Lidarr 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 Koel and Lidarr free and open-source?

Yes. Koel is licensed under MIT and Lidarr under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Koel and Lidarr with Docker?

Koel: yes. Lidarr: yes.

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