Comparison to Other Tools¶
This chapter provides a rough comparison between tools I discovered while I’m working on MusicDB. They all have some features in common and some other features an concepts are totally different. I extracted the features from their documentation and demo websites, so I cannot guarantee that the information are complete. It should just give you an overview of other tools existing. Of cause they are all open source, too.
Metrics¶
- Focus:
What is the focus of the tool. Streaming, file management, tag management, …
- Information sources:
What are the sources for the information the tool handles. For example file meta data, filename, external databases, …
- External sources:
Does the tool access external sources for information collecting.
- File management:
Does the tool manages the files in the file system (renaming, moving, audio-editing)
- File meta data:
Does the tool changes the meta data of files? And when?
- Artwork management:
Does the tool manage the artwork of albums. It should at least be possible to assign an artwork to each album. So inside the environment of the tool, all albums must have artworks to fulfill this metric
- Lyrics management:
Does the tool manages the lyrics of a song. Similar to artworks, the assignment of lyrics to a song are important for this metric.
- Export:
What are the possibilities to export the information inside the tool environment. The focus of this metric is to determine if it is possible to use the Music outside the tool.
- Streaming:
Does the tool stream the music into the internet, and how does it do that. With streaming, a broadcast is meant. Not only accessing a file from the web browser. Using Music Player Daemon (MPD) for streaming is OK.
- User Interface:
What user interfaces does the tool provide.
- Playlist:
Organization of the playlist.
- Multiuser:
Does it support multiple user
Comparison¶
Candidates are:
Some tools use MusicBrainz. This project collects music meta data and provides them to the world. In general this is a good idea. Sadly the information quality is too bad for my requirements. So using MusicBrainz is both, a feature and an anti feature.
Web UI and Streaming Capabilities¶
The most obvious features of MusicDB are the WebUI and the streaming features. The following tables compares all tools regarding these features.
Metric |
MusicDB |
beets |
CherryMusic |
Ampache |
Sonerezh |
Modipy |
mpd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Streaming |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Web UI |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No (1) |
No (2) |
(1): There are extensions to access the server from the web. Modipy also supports MPD Clients.
(2): There exist also Music Player Daemon Clients
The Beets project may not be a replacement for MusicDB, but it might be a very good addition. Beets could be a tool that is used to prepare a music collection or an album before importing it into the MusicDB universe.
Detailed Look¶
Metric |
MusicDB |
Ampache |
Modipy |
mpd |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Focus |
Presenting music, Music queue |
Remote music managing via WebUI |
Streaming server, web player (1) |
Streaming server and clients (2) |
Information Source |
Filesystem, Tags, Analysis |
Tags, MusicBrainz |
Tags |
Tags |
External Sources |
FFmpeg |
MusicBrainz |
None |
|
File management |
Yes |
None |
None |
|
File meta data |
Read |
Read? |
Read |
Read |
Artwork managing |
Yes |
No |
||
Lyrics managing |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Export |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
Playlist |
Queue, Random |
Playlist, Random |
Playlist |
Queue, Playlist, Random |
Multiuser |
No |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
(1): There are extensions to access the server from the web. Modipy also supports MPD Clients.
(2): There exist also Music Player Daemon Clients
Conclusion¶
If you are looking for something like Spotify you should try Ampache. In case you only want to access your music from your web browser, then Sonerezh and CherryMusic are a good choice. When you have a totally messed up collection of files you want to organize, the Beets is the tool you need and you should start with. MusicDB is for those who manage their files by himself and want to have music centric WebUI and streaming solution. If you cannot live with any of those tools and you want to develop your own solution, Music Player Daemon is the streaming backend you want to use. If MPD is a level to low, try Modipy. It provides the possibility for extensions on server side as well as on client side. In fact Modipy is very similar to MusicDB. It just follows the common concepts of audio file management and audio players while MusicDB introduces different concepts and approaches.