Why I Ditched Spotify, and How I Set Up My Own Music Stack By James Ambrose — September 3, 2025 — 7 min read --- Why I Ditched Spotify Spotify offers convenience: streaming anywhere, algorithmic discovery, and playlist sharing. However, drawbacks led me to leave: Artists paid fractions of pennies per stream. Presence of fake artists and ghost tracks. AI music and voice impersonation concerns. Creepy age verification methods. No actual ownership of music despite monthly payments. I wanted to regain control and ownership of my music experience. Here's how I built a self-hosted music streaming setup offering all Spotify conveniences plus more. --- High Level Overview I combined several open-source tools and services to create a complete self-hosted music stack for streaming, collection management, synced lyrics, and discovery. --- The Components Music Player: Navidrome Navidrome is the core open-source music server for streaming personal music. Accessed securely via a CloudFlare Tunnel to avoid exposing home IP or using port forwarding. Client apps used: Browser: Navidrome’s built-in web player. iOS: Play:Sub app. Android: Symfonium app. Desktop: Feishin native app with synced lyrics support. All tracks played are automatically scrobbled to Last.fm for tracking listening habits. Music Collection Management: Lidarr Lidarr manages music library: tracks owned artists/albums, monitors new releases. Integrated with sabnzbd for automated downloads of legally purchased content. Both run in Docker containers, not exposed to the internet for security. Important: Obtain music legally via: Digital purchases (Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon, etc.). Ripping purchased CDs. Free legal artist downloads. Creative Commons licensed music. Synced Lyrics: lrcget-kasm Missed Spotify's synced lyrics feature. lrcget-kasm downloads LRC synced lyrics files for the music library. Since it's GUI-only, runs in a containerized Kasm browser environment. Resource-intensive; run only when adding music or updating lyrics. There's a pending feature request for a CLI version to automate this process. Music Discovery: Lidify Lidify connects Lidarr and Last.fm to generate music recommendations. Last.fm scrobbles also linked to ListenBrainz, with plans for weekly discovery playlists similar to Spotify. --- The Results How My Solution Compares to Spotify | Feature | Spotify | My Self-Hosted Stack | |---------------------|---------------------------------|-------------------------------------| | Music Quality | Up to 320kbps | Unlimited (FLAC/lossless) | | Monthly Cost | $9.99-$14.99 | One-time server setup + storage | | Artist Payment | ~ $0.003-0.005 per stream | Direct support via purchases | | Music Ownership | Rental only | Full ownership forever | | Offline Access | Limited downloads | Complete library available | | Privacy | Data collection & tracking | Complete privacy | | Content Permanence | Can disappear anytime | Never removed unless chosen | Initial setup took around a weekend. Maintenance is minimal; Lidarr automates new music downloads. Manual additions are instantly indexed by Navidrome. This approach emphasizes ownership, privacy, and fair artist support — not for everyone, but rewarding for those with technical skills who care about music. --- Supporting Artists Leaving Spotify does not mean abandoning artists; instead, I support them more directly by: Purchasing directly on platforms like Bandcamp, where artists get 82–90% of sales.