Koel vs Movary

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted media servers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureKoelMovary
CategoryMedia ServersMedia Servers
LicenseMITMIT
LanguagePHPPHP
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, source
GitHub stars★ 17,208★ 765
First released20162022
ReplacesSpotifyLetterboxd, Trakt

Why pick each one

Choose Koel if…

  • Beautiful interface
  • Active community
Koel details

Choose Movary if…

  • Rich statistics
  • Many import sources
Movary details

Frequently asked questions

Is Koel or Movary better?

Neither is universally better. Koel has the larger community, while Movary is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Koel and Movary free and open-source?

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

Can I run Koel and Movary with Docker?

Koel: yes. Movary: yes.

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