Navidrome vs Airsonic vs Jellyfin for Music

A weekend of importing a ripped CD collection or a folder of FLAC files ends with the same question: which server actually streams it back to a phone without another monthly subscription. Three names keep coming up, and most comparisons stop at a feature checklist instead of telling you what each one costs to run and which apps actually work with it.

TL;DR

Navidrome is the lightest option — 50–100MB RAM, negligible CPU, built specifically for music, and speaks the Subsonic API most mobile apps expect.
Airsonic (Advanced) still runs and speaks the same Subsonic API, but its own repo has had no stable release since 2020 — treat it as unmaintained, not a pick for a new build.
Jellyfin is a full media server (video, music, photos) that recommends roughly 4–8GB RAM; audio transcoding is CPU-cheap but currently capped at 256kbps output.
Symfonium talks to all three natively; DSub and Substreamer only speak the Subsonic API (Navidrome/Airsonic), not Jellyfin directly.
Music-only library, mobile-first listening → Navidrome. Already running Jellyfin for video → its music support is good enough to skip a second service.

The three options at a glance

Navidrome is written in Go, built exclusively for music, and implements the Subsonic API — the closest thing self-hosted music streaming has to a standard, which is why so many third-party apps support it out of the box. Airsonic (Advanced) is a Java fork of the original Subsonic server and speaks the same API, but development has effectively stalled. Jellyfin is a general-purpose media server that happens to handle music well as one part of a larger library that also covers video and photos.

Resource footprint: what each actually costs to run

Warning

If you're already running Jellyfin for video, adding it as your music server too is free in hardware terms — but running all three at once on the same box is redundant. Pick one.

Server	Language	Idle RAM	Idle CPU	Built for
Navidrome	Go	~50–100MB	Negligible	Music only
Airsonic (Advanced)	Java	~300–500MB	Negligible	Music only, unmaintained since 2020
Jellyfin	.NET	~4–8GB recommended (mixed library)	Can spike from metadata/thumbnail scans on large libraries	Video, music, photos

Navidrome's Go binary is the clear winner on footprint — a library in the tens of thousands of tracks still fits comfortably under 100MB of RAM. Airsonic's Java baseline costs 3–5x that before it's even indexed anything. Jellyfin's number looks large next to the other two, but it's the cost of a general-purpose server, not a music-specific inefficiency — if you're already paying that RAM budget for video, the music support rides along for free.

KEY-STAT: Under 100MB — Navidrome's idle RAM footprint for a library in the tens of thousands of tracks, a fraction of Airsonic's 300–500MB Java baseline

Is Airsonic still a safe pick?

No, not for a new build in 2026. Airsonic-Advanced still installs and runs, and its Subsonic-API compatibility means old mobile apps keep working — but its own repository has had no stable release since 2020, and the self-hosting community has treated it as effectively unmaintained since at least late 2023. It still shows up in comparison roundups as a live third option; it shouldn't be one you pick fresh.

Mobile apps: Symfonium, DSub, Substreamer

The app you'll actually use daily matters more than the server's web UI, and compatibility isn't uniform across all three servers.

App	Navidrome	Airsonic	Jellyfin
Symfonium	Yes (Subsonic API)	Yes (Subsonic API)	Yes (native Jellyfin support)
DSub	Yes (Subsonic API)	Yes (Subsonic API)	No
Substreamer	Yes (Subsonic API)	Yes (Subsonic API)	No

Symfonium is the one app in this comparison that talks to all three servers, because it implements both the Subsonic API and a native Jellyfin integration separately. DSub and Substreamer are Subsonic-API clients only — they work with Navidrome and Airsonic, but won't connect to Jellyfin without a compatibility layer. If you're picking Jellyfin specifically to keep one app for video and music, plan on Symfonium or Jellyfin's own official apps, not the classic Subsonic client ecosystem.

Transcoding: what happens when a track doesn't fit the connection

Audio transcoding is cheap compared to video — Navidrome and Airsonic handle it through the same lightweight Subsonic-style pipeline, and neither taxes even modest hardware. Jellyfin's audio transcoding is similarly light on CPU (public benchmarks put FLAC-to-AAC around 110x real-time on a modern desktop CPU), but it currently has a known limitation: output is hard-capped at 256kbps regardless of the source file's quality, an open issue on Jellyfin's own GitHub tracker. For a library built around lossless files and a listener who cares about that difference, this is a real point against Jellyfin specifically for music.

Metadata and library organization

Navidrome's tag-matching is built for music from the ground up: artist/album grouping, multi-disc handling, and tolerance for inconsistent tagging all assume you're organizing a music collection, not a mixed media library. Jellyfin's metadata providers were built video-first and later extended to music — functional, but it shows in edge cases like classical music, compilations, and messy legacy tags where Navidrome's music-specific matching does noticeably less manual cleanup.

Which one should you actually run

If the library is music-only and the listening happens mostly on a phone, Navidrome's combination of low resource cost and broad Subsonic-app compatibility makes it the default answer. If a Jellyfin instance is already running for video, its music support is good enough that adding a second dedicated server is optional polish, not a real upgrade — unless lossless audio quality specifically matters, in which case the 256kbps transcoding cap is worth weighing. Airsonic is the answer to neither question today.

Setting it up: Navidrome in a Proxmox VM

Consistent with running Docker services inside a dedicated VM rather than on the Proxmox host itself, Navidrome drops in as a single container:

services:
  navidrome:
    image: deluan/navidrome:latest
    ports:
      - "4533:4533"
    environment:
      ND_SCANSCHEDULE: 1h
      ND_LOGLEVEL: info
    volumes:
      - navidrome_data:/data
      - /path/to/music:/music:ro
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  navidrome_data:

Point the /music mount at wherever the library actually lives — for storage sizing and RAID options on a dedicated box, this site's NAS OS comparison covers that decision separately, and readers starting from zero can begin with the homelab beginner's guide before adding this as a second service. Anyone already running Jellyfin for video can compare its built-in music support against a dedicated Navidrome instance before committing to either.

Tip

Set ND_SCANSCHEDULE to an hourly interval rather than leaving it on Navidrome's default — a large library benefits from picking up new files without waiting for a manual rescan.

Frequently asked questions

Is Airsonic still maintained?

Not really. Airsonic-Advanced's own repository has had no stable release since 2020, and the self-hosting community has treated it as effectively abandoned since late 2023. It still runs, but a new build in 2026 should default to Navidrome instead.

Does Navidrome work with Sonos or Chromecast?

Not natively — Navidrome speaks the Subsonic API, which most dedicated mobile and desktop clients support, but Sonos and Chromecast expect their own protocols. Some third-party bridges exist, but this is a genuine gap compared to commercial streaming services.

Can I run Navidrome alongside Jellyfin?

Yes, and it's a common setup — Jellyfin handles video while Navidrome runs as a lighter, music-specific server. They don't conflict; they can even point at the same underlying music folder.

Is Navidrome free to use?

Yes. Navidrome is free and open-source software; the only ongoing cost is the hardware and electricity to run it, which is minimal given its sub-100MB idle RAM footprint.