What is Gonic used for?

Gonic is a lightweight, self-hosted music streaming server written in Go that implements the Subsonic API for many existing clients. It is a good fit for streaming a personal music library to phones and running a small music server on a Raspberry Pi.

Is Gonic open source?

Yes. Gonic is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at sentriz/gonic and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Gonic is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Gonic?

Yes. Gonic can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Gonic an alternative to?

Gonic is an open-source alternative to Spotify, Plex, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Other open-source alternatives to Spotify include Navidrome, Ampache and Koel.

Is Gonic actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Gonic was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.22.0, published on 8 June 2026. The project has 2.6k stars on GitHub.

Gonic: open-source alternative to Spotify, Plex, Apple Music

About Gonic

Gonic is a free-software music streaming server that implements the Subsonic server API, so it works with the many apps that speak that protocol. It is written in Go, which keeps it lightweight enough for devices such as a Raspberry Pi, and ARM images are provided. It is licensed under GPL-3.0.

You can browse your collection by folder, which keeps your directory tree intact, or by tags read with taglib for formats including mp3, opus, flac, ape, m4a and wav. It supports on-the-fly audio transcoding with caching through ffmpeg, the Subsonic jukebox mode for gapless server-side playback, podcasts, multiple users with their own playlists and preferences, and scrobbling to last.fm and ListenBrainz. Artist biographies and similar artists come from the last.fm API.

A web interface handles configuration, such as connecting last.fm, managing users and starting library scans. The project lists tested clients including DSub, Symfonium, Amperfy, Tempus, Strawberry and Ultrasonic. Installation is possible from source, with Docker or with systemd, and the default login is admin, which you should change after the first sign-in.

Key features

Subsonic API implementation for many clients
Browse by folder or by tags
On-the-fly transcoding with caching
Multiple users with separate playlists
last.fm and ListenBrainz scrobbling
Podcast support and jukebox mode
Web interface for configuration

Good fit for

→Streaming a personal music library to phones
→Running a small music server on a Raspberry Pi

Built with: Go; Docker
Tags: music-streaming; subsonic; self-hosted; go; music-server; podcasts; transcoding; docker

Gonic: questions and answers

What is Gonic used for?: Gonic is a lightweight, self-hosted music streaming server written in Go that implements the Subsonic API for many existing clients. It is a good fit for streaming a personal music library to phones and running a small music server on a Raspberry Pi.
Is Gonic open source?: Yes. Gonic is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at sentriz/gonic and is written mainly in Go.
Is Gonic free?: Yes. Gonic is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Gonic?: Yes. Gonic can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Gonic an alternative to?: Gonic is an open-source alternative to Spotify, Plex, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Other open-source alternatives to Spotify include Navidrome, Ampache and Koel.
Is Gonic actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Gonic was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.22.0, published on 8 June 2026. The project has 2.6k stars on GitHub.