Ampache: An open source web based audio/video streaming app and file manager | Hacker News Reader

Ampache: An open source web based audio/video streaming app and file manager

ampache.org

132 pointsBender28 comments

I dabbled with a number of music streaming servers, including Ampache and Subsonic (and it's many forks), and had trouble with either web interface loading times or app connectivity and couldn't find one that worked 'as advertised'. In one of these similar music streaming discussion threads, HN member epoupon mentioned the system they'd authored: LMS[0] (Lightweight Music Server), which I found ticked all the boxes and was quick and easy to setup - and there's also a docker image[1].

Not affiliated in any way, just a satisfied user.

[0]: https://github.com/epoupon/lms

[1]: https://hub.docker.com/r/epoupon/lms

Did you by any chance try Funkwhale[0]? Seemed like a pretty good option

[0]: https://funkwhale.audio/

No, I didn't know about it until relatively recently, and whilst I'd like to try it out, and it's community, decentralised, federated, open source focus sits well with my world-view, it's just not high enough on my priority list.

Appreciate the response! I saw that you were happy with LMS and added it to my list as well. Someone ought to compare these in a meaningful way at some point.

Looks like LMS has all the basics covered (mobile apps, simple mobile friendly web client, etc), but as a former Grooveshark user Funkwhale was my first choice. Looking forward to trying them both.

Funkwhale is great from a UI standpoint. Adding music, however, was a chore.

I ended up going with the Subsonic server built into Nextcloud, because it's just drag and drop. Nextcloud also has Ampache built in.

Navidrome [2] is another relatively new option for music streaming servers. Lightweight, written in Go, can handle very large music collections, and is compatible with Subsonic/Madsonic/Airsonic.

[2] https://github.com/navidrome/navidrome

The UI is pretty good by modern standards, the existing features work very well, it is very stable IMHO (at least with my 9300+ songs), it is very easy to install.

I have tried 'em all and I'm sticking with Navidrome!

Edit: I forgot, it's fast on a Raspberry Pi 3B, which some aren't.

i have been using Jellyfin with Finamp and jane been happy with it so far. i also use Jellyfin for video content at home (with Kodi integration).

I know a few Jane's and they're pretty discerning types, so if Jane has been happy then I'd say you're onto a good thing.

Stupid autocorrect jokes aside, I use Jellyfin for exclusively legitimate in-home movies and tv series and haven't yet tried it out for music. For whatever reason, I feel like I want to keep them separated.

Have been self hosting this and using the dsub app for almost a year now. It’s amazing. Does everything I want it, offline caching, auto download starred music etc etc. I do however run Jellyfin along side it for desktop/laptop - it has a much better UI but lacks any sort of caching ability and suffers from cell signal issues when on the road.

Interesting, I was about to ask how it compared to JellyFin. Didn't think about simply running both at the same time.

Personally settled on:

  https://github.com/airsonic

Its containerless :D and runs anywhere Java is installed.

Also evaluated:

  https://github.com/ant-media/Ant-Media-Server

Did you also try AirSonic Advanced? I have not used it much myself but seems to be a strict improvement over AirSonic. It has diverged enough that it should be considered a separate effort and project at this point.

https://github.com/airsonic-advanced/airsonic-advanced

Nay ghost rider. Looks interesting though.

Put ZeroTier on it and you can stream from your house while on the road. Works great.

This thing seems really awesome. I logged into the demo and loved it.

Then I tried downloading, and got cold feet when I didn't see any .deb, .exe, or .dmg. I have no idea what the installation process is (hopefully, run installer and select directories). But most of the time that I install anything without an installer, it ends up being kind of a hassle.

If you're really serious about this project and want to see people using it, I highly recommend prioritizing `sudo apt-get install` or `brew` or something like that. .deb, .exe, and .dmg being the most user friendly.

Installation instructions vary based on your web server. Please see https://github.com/ampache/ampache/wiki/Installation

I wish there was a docker compose file

I don't use it anymore, but when I did, I ran roughly the following: https://gist.github.com/RulerOf/1c9dd1eb51af4991e4b6b48afdd6...

there's a compose file in the docker repo https://github.com/ampache/ampache-docker

This is a little weird, But I can't seem to access their site when using Microsoft Edge (I know a poor choice of a browser, but everything's chromium anyway). I get a ERR_CONNECTION_RESET. I tried playing around with disabling tracking protection, trying incognito, disabling my extensions. And it did work one time, but then instantly stopped working on a refresh. The site works wonderfully in firefox. I tried doing the same query in curl so it doesn't seem User Agent related either. Didn't try any other chromium based browsers. Does anyone have a similar issue or it's only me.

EDIT: Okay I did some further digging, and guess what disabling "Microsoft Defender SmartScreen" Unblocked the site. The effect wasn't instant (So I thought it wasn't the one that effected it). Has Windows Defender just become a bundled censorship tool?

Just an FYI to everyone that Ampache 5 is around the corner with: * A new API revision (and multiple incoming clients) * Subsonic support has been improved immensely (we are the official demo server for Ultrasonic) * Load times have been significantly cut for the web interface due to database and code updates * docker images are updated regularly now and provide a lot of options including compose files.

(Just some things I've noted from the comments.)

I ended up settling on Roon https://roonlabs.com/ (It's paid, not Open Source) after having tried Ampache, Subsonic, and many, many others. The UIs on most of the open source music apps are terrible, and they don't do well with a large music library and were always crashing on me. Roon's apps feel a lot more like Spotify and it can do multi-room lossless audio across many devices.

I'm pretty unhappy with the lack of support for audio books in any of these streaming players. Does anyone know a free and open source product, that does support audio books best case m4b files?

I just load my audiobooks collection onto nextcloud and when I want to listen to an audiobook I share the file with PocketCasts which has full m4b support with chapters and covers and has excellent audio support to speed up the playback and skip silence (can get through a 8 hour audiobook in about 5-6 hours

What about audiobooks. There is something called "booksonic" but that didnt work for me.

Just from the name of the project I expected an Apache module for producing content for Google AMP.

Knowing how popular AMP is here, I expected some "interesting discussion".

But instead it is a nice, portable web-based media player that I may actually install on my server.

Wow I used this in had to be like 2012 or thereabouts. It’s been around quite awhile.. remember liking it but then just kind of transitioned to GPM.

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