I have had YouTube Premium Music since it was launched. I uploaded nearly 15,000 MP3s at the time. Now that the family plan is $28 a month, what free alternatives are out there for music streaming?
jellyfin and tailscale
A library card, a CD reader for your PC and a chonky harddrive. Pirate hat optional but encouraged
Do you actually have to pay for YouTube Music? I can use it perfectly well in the browser with uBlock Origin. And on the Phone there is Metrolist (yes those client have the possibility to stop working, but for me at least everything works mostly smoothly, and if google manages to block them there is still Morphee using the official client)
I guess you cannot upload so many MP3s in the free tier? But if you have so many I would follow other peoples advice of self-hosting Jellyfin/Navdrone if you are able to. Or depending on your listening style maybe actually just copying them to your phone.
Go self hosted
Lidarr can get your Spotify playlist and download it, navidrome can me the music server. Works awesome
YouTube Music through the ReVanced app
I think Pandora still has a free tier.
On Android; Grayjay
Download revanced manager. Enjoy.
Apps like Metrolist that stream music from YouTube for free and without ads. Basically a NewPipe but for music specifically.
A note that these are temporary. These programs often have issues and will always get shut down in the end. Better to get your own collection.
if you’re up for self-hosting, I generally buy music from Bandcamp or Qobuz. It sits on my home server running Navidrome, and connected to my tailnet. I stream to my phone, tablet, etc. on the go using Tailscale and a subsonic client.
it was about a weekends worth of setup to get in a good spot. couple years ago I’d have said consider setting up your local music library in Plex, get a plex pass, then use Plexamp. But with the pricing changes it’s nowhere near really worth using unless you already have a plex lifetime pass.
Oh, shit, I do have a lifetime pass and hadn’t heard of Plexamp. Thanks.
I can second this. It’s the current best option in my opinion.
MP3s on your own device
FM radio either over the air or streamed
YouTube has a lot of good music, if you’re on Android use a client like Newpipe
I uploaded nearly 15,000 MP3s
Just put those on an old mp3 player
Seriously. Why are people so obsessed with streaming music when they have tons of it that can just be right there with them, no external connection needed?
There are free tiers of streaming services out there. But you’ll get ads.
Best option is self hosting your collection with jellyfin.
Personally I would go with Navidrome over jellyfin as ive found jellyfin’s music streaming to be not great.
Same, started with jellyfin since I was using it anyway, switched over to navidrome for music pretty quickly and I’ve been happy with it.
Jellyfin/Plex and Lidarr. If you want to actually support artists instead of record labels, buy merch and go to shows.
