Koel vs LMS
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted media servers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Koel
Personal music streaming server with an elegant interface
VS
LMS
Lightweight music server with Subsonic API support
| Feature | Koel | LMS |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 95 · Excellent | 85 · Excellent |
| Category | Media Servers | Media Servers |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 17,262 | ★ 1,680 |
| First released | 2016 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Spotify | Spotify |
What are Koel and LMS?
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
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
Koel vs LMS: key differences
Koel is written in PHP, while LMS is built with C++. Licensing differs — MIT for Koel versus GPL-3.0 for LMS. LMS is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Koel. LMS is the more established project (first released 2014), while Koel arrived in 2016. Koel has the considerably larger community, at 17,262 GitHub stars versus 1,680.
Why pick each one
Choose Koel if…
- Beautiful interface
- Active community
Watch out for
- Needs a separate database
- Limited transcoding options
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 Koel or LMS 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 LMS free and open-source?
Yes. Koel is licensed under MIT and LMS under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Koel and LMS with Docker?
Koel: yes. LMS: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Koel or LMS?
LMS has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Koel. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.