Can a Mac mini server replace Spotify for personal music streaming?
Replacing Spotify with a music setup needs more than playing music files stored on a . The desired experience is closer to Spotify or Tidal, working smoothly on both phone and PC.
The key are searching external sources, streaming songs directly, getting useful recommendations, finding public playlists online, and creating personal playlists. A useful extra would be automatic caching, where played songs are saved on the server for a while and deleted later if they are not used.
Offline playback on a phone would also be helpful. Navidrome is being considered, but it is unclear whether it can cover all of these needs.
Key points
- The goal is a Spotify-like music experience on both phone and PC.
- Local file playback alone is not enough for this use case.
- The wanted features include external search, direct streaming, recommendations, public playlist search, and personal playlists.
- Automatic caching and later deletion of unused songs would be useful extras.
- Navidrome is a possible option, but may not cover the full feature list.