# Music Assistant

Music Assistant is a free, opensource Media library manager that connects to your streaming services and a wide range of connected speakers. The server is the beating heart, the core of Music Assistant and must run on an always-on device like a Raspberry Pi, a NAS or an Intel NUC or alike.

Repository: https://github.com/music-assistant/server
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/music-assistant
Homepage: https://music-assistant.io
Language: Python
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-26T20:43:57+00:00
Link (homepage): https://music-assistant.io
Link (site_page): https://www.music-assistant.io/installation
Link (site_page): https://www.music-assistant.io/integration/installation
Link (site_page): https://www.music-assistant.io/faq/listen-to
Link (site_page): https://www.music-assistant.io/faq/stream-to

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 95/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:39:23.370411+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 87, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2673, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 7, "gap_med": 7.0, "n_releases_24m": 65}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2984, forks 557 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:33.853806+00:00)

## What it is
Music Assistant is a free, open-source music library manager that unifies streaming services, local files, radio, podcasts and audiobooks into one library and plays them on a wide range of connected speakers. The server is the core component, designed to run on an always-on device such as a Raspberry Pi, NAS or Intel NUC, typically alongside Home Assistant.

## Use cases
- combine spotify, tidal and local files into one music library
- play synced music across sonos, chromecast and airplay speakers
- stream music to multiroom speakers from a raspberry pi
- manage podcasts and audiobooks alongside my music collection
- control whole-home audio with home assistant automations
- play announcements over speakers without stopping the music
- gapless playback and crossfade on all my players

## When to choose
- you want one unified library across streaming services and your own files
- you use Home Assistant and want music players and automations integrated
- you have an always-on device like a Raspberry Pi, NAS or NUC to run the server
- you need playback across many speaker brands and protocols (Sonos, Chromecast, AirPlay, DLNA, Squeezelite)
- you want gapless playback, crossfade, volume levelling and announcements

## When to avoid
- you want a simple desktop music player on your laptop
- you cannot run an always-on server on the same layer 2 network as your players
- you need a lightweight pip-installable Python package (it is only distributed as a Home Assistant app or Docker container)
- your players are on VLANs or segmented networks that block mDNS/uPnP discovery

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: audio-processing, streaming, sdk
- domain: media, self-hosted, iot
- platform: self-hosted, python
- tags: music-library, home-assistant, multiroom-audio, streaming-services, sonos, chromecast, airplay, media-server, automation, docker, linux

## Member repositories
- music-assistant/server (main) score 95
- music-assistant/support (docs) score 79

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:33.853806+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:31:26.559139+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/music-assistant/server (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:33.853806+00:00, sha 841358421161)
  - homepage: https://music-assistant.io (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.702369+00:00, sha 9d118f2e217c)
  - site_page: https://www.music-assistant.io/installation (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.711347+00:00, sha a3cbbad887cf)
  - site_page: https://www.music-assistant.io/integration/installation (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.713541+00:00, sha fffb08b94761)
  - site_page: https://www.music-assistant.io/settings/about (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.719444+00:00, sha 010d8b60e662)
  - site_page: https://www.music-assistant.io/faq/listen-to (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.715323+00:00, sha 428bd6afb532)
  - site_page: https://www.music-assistant.io/faq/stream-to (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.717432+00:00, sha 6b297c540e1c)
  - site_page: https://www.music-assistant.io/faq/massplaymedia (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.721081+00:00, sha 286ccf5fb3e2)
  - site_page: https://www.music-assistant.io/faq/massannounce (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.722598+00:00, sha 62edb42c1701)
  - site_page: https://www.music-assistant.io/faq/masssearch (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:06.724093+00:00, sha 6435f1a45a57)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.