Navidrome vs Plex
Navidrome and Plex are both media server software. Navidrome is open source under GPL-3.0, with 24k GitHub stars. Plex is a commercial product from Plex, Inc.
Which to pick
- Pick Navidrome when
- You own a music library and want Spotify-style access to it from any device.
- Pick Plex when
- You have a home media library and want polished apps on every device with little setup.
Side by side
A self-hosted music server that streams your own music collection to a web player and to any Subsonic-compatible mobile or desktop app.
A media server that organises your own films, TV, music and photos and streams them to apps on TVs, phones and browsers, plus free ad-supported streaming.
Music only, and the master branch can be unstable, so run tagged releases.
Remote streaming and some features now need a paid pass, and sign-in goes through Plex's cloud even for local use.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Self-hosted server, mobile app, desktop app and cloud service
Go, JavaScript and SQLite
Not published
Open source, GPL-3.0 (strong copyleft)
Closed source, sold by Plex, Inc.
Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
24k GitHub stars
3.5k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 10 years ago, latest release v0.64.2.
Not known
Other comparisons
More media servers
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.