Software Alternatives & Reviews

Ampache VS Polaris

Compare Ampache VS Polaris and see what are their differences

Ampache logo Ampache

Web ( HTTP centralized ) based audio/video streaming application

Polaris logo Polaris

Polaris is a music streaming application, designed to let you enjoy your music collection from any computer or mobile device.
  • Ampache Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-30
  • Polaris Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27

Ampache videos

Hak5 - Ampache, Boxee and Wireless Virtual Machines

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 Ampache and Polaris)
Media Player
100 100%
0% 0
Media Players And Streaming Platforms
Music Streaming
78 78%
22% 22
Maps
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

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

Ampache Reviews

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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

Based on our record, Ampache should be more popular than Polaris. It has been mentiond 23 times since March 2021. 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.

Ampache mentions (23)

  • Ask HN: Flac/MP3 listeners: How do you store/play your music?
    I'm not sure if this would fit all your needs aside from running on Linux but Ampache [1][2] has been around for a very long time and has the ability to mesh with other instances. It started as a small project run by some students at OSU and evolved over time. [1] - https://ampache.org/ [2] - https://github.com/ampache/ampache. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • self-hosted alternative to spotify?
    Https://ampache.org/ could be an alternative. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Step Up in Linux knowledge
    You can also do something such as build a mp3 server on headless Debian install https://ampache.org/. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Where I can do my backup?
    Now it's time to make backups of my nextcloud, bitwarden, ampache files. Source: over 1 year ago
  • What's yout preferred selfhosted music streaming suite?
    Ampache. I've been using it for a while and it's great. I'd suggest using it with Ample, as Ample's UI is better. It supports the Subsonic API, so subsonic clients will work with it. It also supports DAAP and uPnP, for other clients. It has it's own API as well, but not many apps use that. Source: over 1 year 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 Ampache and Polaris, you can also consider the following products

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

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

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

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

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

Swing Music - Beautiful and fast music streaming server.