I use symfonium, you do have to pay for it but imo it's a great music player. It links to multiple services (not just jellyfin) and can play local files.
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2026
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I use it too, but there's always something that rubs me the wrong way about the developer. Every reply I've read from them is either sarcasm, snark or rude dismissal.
I love Jellyfin and use it for all my videos, but have to question if it is really the most optimized platform for music.
In my opinion, running a navidrome server on the side is a better option. It is designed just for music and because it supports the subsonic protocol there are tons of different clients to suit different needs.
It looks like there have been some attempts at a subsonic plug-in for Jellyfin which would give you access to many more clients, but I donβt know the state of them.
I keep reading about navidrome and your comment reminded me to check it out. I see as one of the install options they include a ready to go podman quadlet. I'm sold and I'm going to try it right now.
Update: Its great! Glad I finally set it up
Jellyfin is definitely not optimized for music. I tell everyone every chance I get that Navidrome is where its at. And there are so many clients available for Navidrome/Subsonic on all platforms, its a no-brainer to set it up if one has a decent music library.
@ItsNotImportant24 i have my music on a Jellyfin instance, but I access it through #musicassistant
I'm not familiar with musicassistant so I can't speak for it. Just saying jellyfin itself doesn't handle music libraries all that well. I'm so satisfied with Navidrome I can't think of any reason to try something else currently. It's just great.
@ItsNotImportant24 yup, I get that. I canβt speak to navidrome either - The joys of open and free systems where we can choose π
Well, I always used the Finamp Beta, which is pretty good! (You need to download it manually or join the beta test on google play/app store, did you try the normal version or the beta version?)
It's been a while since the last time I used them.
I have been enjoying Musicolet
I was in the same boat, so I set up a Navidrome server (others have mentioned it here, too). I specifically use Tempus and DSub2000 as the client apps on Android. I think DSub2000 hits exactly what I want. haven't touched Tempus in a couple months.
Bonus, for desktop listening, I use Supersonic.
Thanks! My Navidrome instance is still up. So I'm gonna check it out.
While I have finamp, I mostly use navidrome. Its there for ease of access, but TBC if I want music I use the music server.
Same content accessed by the navidrome server anyway.
My wife uses finamp, but she doesn't download, doesn't do complex playlists, etc. About the only time she points out an issue is when she goes through a dead zone for cell coverage here and there.
I just remembered how I can access my Navidrome, but apparently my PW manager is out of date for that service. π
I use Finamp Beta on both Linux and Android and have zero complaints.
Symfonium.
Not free or (F)OSS but great and worth it.
Great except for one major problem (in my opinion): it does not keep up to date with the Jellyfin library (content, favourites, playlists) with performing a manual full sync in the app and even then playlists and favourites mismatches seem to often persist.
It does. Just not 100% live.
But you can (as you said) force it.
I just went through every possible client I could find for android myself. I was mostly interested in a decent offline download experience and turns out all clients that advertised them as being offline-first were terrible.
Got stuck on Symfonium and will likely make the purchase, works really well in comparison to everything else out there.
Have you tried the release Finamp or beta? Beta is a much different beast and I love it
Installed it today. Looks(sounds) good so far.
Navidrome backend and navic for phone. on fdroid store
People have already recommended Symfonium and it's great. But I want to recommend Twelve, the music app for LineageOS. It integrates with both Jellyfin and Subsonic. It's clean and simple (I hate how some clients require more than one tap to access the album list). And it's free and open source. Only downside: you can't download music for offline playback within the app.
https://github.com/avdept/JellyBoxPlayer
I haven't tried jellybox yet (or Jellyfin at all) but it seemed interesting to me because of the Spotify-like playlists. I just saw a reddit post about it on r/self hosted.
I've only been using Navidrome and Tempo lately for a couple days. Works pretty well. I am thinking about setting up AutoMuse for smart playlists but haven't gotten that far.
Tempo has been abandoned for quite some time, if you still use Tempo do yourself a favour and check Tempus: a fork of Tempo that's actively maintained: https://github.com/eddyizm/tempus
I stumbled across Tempus a couple weeks ago and it's great. I moved off of Tempo. Thanks for the suggestion!
I like Tauon pretty well.
Edit: nvm that's for desktop. I use Phocid on Android, but I only play local files so idk how or if it works with streams.
Desktop recommendations are also welcome. Although I'd like something keyboard-focused, like jellyfin-tui.
Finamp beta supports android auto and offline play (and can transcode the files while downloading to save space on my phone) in conjunction, so my frequently listened to playlists are available whether I have good data service or not.
Just got it via Obtainium. Good impressions so far, thanks!
You're welcome! I've been super happy with Finamp, it completely replaced spotify for music in my car!
Try out Poweramp, I would disable network access but otherwise this is gonna be hands down the best in my opinion. It's a premium option though, you'll have to pay to use it eventually but let's you use it for like a month or two for free. Can buy it on their website and then they'll give you an apk to download so no google services needed
Otherwise, on F droid I really like Lotus music player, looks super nice and works well. Def suggest this one as well and of course its free, so even better
How would I use Jellyfin without network access? π
My bad, I misinterpreted. I thought you were just asking about Android music players that just play music locally. Then I saw we were in the Jellyfin sub hah. Hopefully you find a solution to your problem
Ah! Yeah, I could have put it in the title. Don't sweat it.
I like Linthra which is FOSS and works either with local files or self hosted servers like Jellyfin. I haven't tried hosting Jellyfin yet so I haven't tested that, but I really like it's interface for local files
I've started using Wavio. It is partially vibe coded but it is open source. I used to use Symphonium but I didn't like how it does (or rather doesn't) keep in sync with the Jellyfin library without manual intervention.