Software Alternatives & Reviews

Airsonic VS Polaris

Compare Airsonic VS Polaris and see what are their differences

Airsonic logo Airsonic

Airsonic is a Free and Open Source community driven media server which allows you to stream...

Polaris logo Polaris

Polaris is a music streaming application, designed to let you enjoy your music collection from any computer or mobile device.
  • Airsonic Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-14
  • Polaris Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27

Airsonic videos

"Affordable Favorites" - Reverend Airsonic | Norman's Rare Guitars

More videos:

  • Demo - A Solidbody Hollowbody?! - Reverend Guitars Airsonic W Demo & Review
  • Review - REVEREND AIRSONIC RA | PT. 2 REVIEW | MORE TALK, LESS ROCK! | SJSS

Polaris videos

Impressive Flight in UNITED POLARIS Business Class: 777-300ER Review San Francisco to Frankfurt!

More videos:

  • Review - 2021 Polaris GENERAL XP 1000 Deluxe Full UTV Review
  • Review - The Polaris Slingshot Is One of the Craziest Vehicles On Sale

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Airsonic and Polaris)
Media Players And Streaming Platforms
Audio & Music
74 74%
26% 26
Music Streaming
66 66%
34% 34
Media Player
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Airsonic and Polaris

Airsonic Reviews

35 Open-source Free Music and Audio Streaming Servers (Self-hosted)
Airsonic is a free, web-based media streamer that allows you to access and share your music collection. It supports streaming of various audio and video formats, including MP3, AAC, OGG, WMA, FLAC, and more. It is designed to handle large music collections and can stream to multiple players simultaneously.
Source: medevel.com

Polaris Reviews

35 Open-source Free Music and Audio Streaming Servers (Self-hosted)
Polaris is a music streaming application, designed to let you enjoy your music collection from any computer or mobile device. Polaris works by streaming music directly from your computer (or cloud server), without uploading it to a third-party. It is free and open-source software, without any kind of premium version.
Source: medevel.com
List of Top Free Open Source & Self Hosted Application for Media Streaming
Polaris – Music browsing and streaming application optimized for large music collections, ease of use and high performance. MIT Rust

Social recommendations and mentions

Airsonic might be a bit more popular than Polaris. We know about 11 links to it since March 2021 and only 8 links to Polaris. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Airsonic mentions (11)

  • Music Media Manager for linux server (with web frontend?)
    Https://airsonic.github.io/ seems like it might be what you're looking for? Not sure about duplicates, but it can deal with tags and artwork. Source: 12 months ago
  • self-hosted alternative to spotify?
    Airsonic is another choice that I've heard good things about. Installation video via docker here. I believe DSub will work with Airsonic too. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Looking for advice on streaming MPD database over local network to multiple clients
    On the other hand, if you want a single Spotify-esque service from which multiple clients can stream the audio without managing their own databases, there are Subsonic and derivatives which also offer transcoding options. I use Airsonic for this purpose and use it to stream my music collection from my phone via Ultrasonic (available from F-Droid if you use Android). Source: over 1 year ago
  • Is Kodi or any addon able to stream or download media from cloud storage services?
    You should look into one of the subsonic forks. Airsonic https://airsonic.github.io/. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Most private music streaming available?
    What they're talking about is starting up a server so you can stream your own music files. This would involve setting up a server (either renting a hosted server or setting up your own machine) starting up an application like Airsonic (one of many Subsonic compliant applications), finding a good client to use like Ultrasonic (one of many Subsonic compliant clients), setting up domain names and DNS to point to that... Source: almost 2 years ago
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Polaris mentions (8)

  • Does anyone use Jellyfin for music?
    If you have a big library I would highly recommend Polaris Https://github.com/agersant/polaris. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Best way to stream music from server to remote clients
    If you have a big library https://github.com/agersant/polaris is the way to go with easy to create large playlists and you can easy make a cloudflare tunnel or reverse proxy for it using caddy. They also have iOS and Android App. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Is there a self-hosted software for hifi music streaming?
    It doesn't have a lot of features like complex searching and transcoding, but I like https://github.com/agersant/polaris. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Apple Music is the last library focused music service
    Why not just run your own streaming service? You're here on hn, so standing up a webserver (or even a Raspberry Pi) is hardly beyond your means presumably. Subsonic [0] appears to be well polished. I've used a FOSS fork called Airsonic [1] previously, though I've played with (and liked) Polaris [2] in the past. All three would meet your (possibly only) requirement of using your own music, and I wouldn't consider... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Let's create an overview of selfhostable music servers!
    I can't send a PR right now, but https://github.com/agersant/polaris is worth adding. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Airsonic and Polaris, you can also consider the following products

Navidrome - Music Server and Streamer compatible with Subsonic/Airsonic.

LMS - Lightweight Music Server - Access your self-hosted music using a web interface.

Ampache - Web ( HTTP centralized ) based audio/video streaming application

Swing Music - Beautiful and fast music streaming server.

Subsonic - Subsonic is a free, web-based media streamer, providing ubiquitous access to your music and video.

MusicDB - MusicDB is a music manager, server and player that focus on music.