How far are we from a "roon-like" software solution ?

klaus99 said:
I can't listen to this whining about Roon anymore. People spend hundreds of dollars or euros on HI-FI snake oil, but when it comes to management and playback software, they skimp and settle for DIY software that is anything but convenient and stable.
Click to expand...
You aren't being forced to read it. FYI Lyrion is very stable and no more inconvenient than Roon which I believe cannot run on a Raspberry Pi.
 
LMS is great, but it’s written in Perl, unfortunately, a language that is dying. Highly unlikely that WiiM would want to get involved in furthering its development.
 
I used to use Lyrion, have trialed Roon, but settled on Music Assistant server which has most of the same functionality as Roon for free.

www.music-assistant.io

Music Assistant

Music Assistant is a music library manager for local and streaming providers
www.music-assistant.io www.music-assistant.io

This will run on a raspberry pi, or other platforms which support the underlying Home Assistant OS, and does support Apple Music as a provider, and all other leading streaming services, as well as local files.

1769170798401.png

In the car I access my collection using Symfonium (Android), synced to my Jellyfin server - also running on my Home Assistant server.
 
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FreakyKiwi said:
I used to use Lyrion, have trialed Roon, but settled on Music Assistant server which has most of the same functionality as Roon for free.

www.music-assistant.io

Music Assistant

Music Assistant is a music library manager for local and streaming providers
www.music-assistant.io www.music-assistant.io

This will run on a raspberry pi, or other platforms which support the underlying Home Assistant OS, and does support Apple Music as a provider, and all other leading streaming services, as well as local files.

View attachment 32893

In the car I access my collection using Symfonium (Android), synced to my Jellyfin server - also running on my Home Assistant server.
Click to expand...
No Amazon Music though which I’d consider a leading streaming provider
 
Burnside said:
No Amazon Music though which I’d consider a leading streaming provider
Click to expand...
Yeah, that was probably poorly worded, it certainly doesn't rate at all down here.

There are insurmountable DRM issues with Amazon music apparently, Roon and Lyrion don't support it either.

I only use the server for my own collection and use native apps for any streaming services.
 
Playing with Music Assistant. Nice modern UI, but lacking in many ways. First and foremost, there's no way to filter by genre, a basic requirement for any music app. Its Qobuz interface is rudimentary, at best. My typical use case is to check new jazz albums released in the recent past, which is simple in the Qobuz app, but impossible with MA, sadly.

It also appears to have a lot of issues updating metadata, especially from MusicBrainz:

Code: 
2026-01-27 18:06:15.352 ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant.webserver] Error handling message: metadata/update_metadata: Cannot connect to host musicbrainz.org:443 ssl:default [Connection reset by peer]
2026-01-27 18:08:15.337 ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant.metadata] Error while updating metadata for library://artist/34: Cannot connect to host musicbrainz.org:443 ssl:default [Connection reset by peer]
2026-01-27 18:08:45.344 ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant.metadata] Error while updating metadata for library://artist/1: Cannot connect to host musicbrainz.org:443 ssl:default [Connection reset by peer]
2026-01-27 18:11:23.557 INFO (MainThread) [music_assistant] Loaded metadata provider MusicBrainz
2026-01-27 18:14:15.355 ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant.metadata] Error while updating metadata for library://artist/43: Cannot connect to host musicbrainz.org:443 ssl:default [Connection reset by peer]
2026-01-27 18:16:06.278 ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant.metadata] Error while updating metadata for library://artist/36: Cannot connect to host musicbrainz.org:443 ssl:default [Connection reset by peer]
2026-01-27 18:17:21.114 ERROR (MainThread) [music_assistant] Error doing task: Task exception was never retrieved
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/music_assistant/providers/qobuz/__init__.py", line 396, in library_add
    result = await self._get_data("favorite/create", artist_id=item.item_id)
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/music_assistant/helpers/throttle_retry.py", line 124, in wrapper
    return await func(self, *args, **kwargs)
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/music_assistant/providers/qobuz/__init__.py", line 862, in _get_data
    raise MediaNotFoundError(f"{endpoint} not found")
music_assistant_models.errors.MediaNotFoundError: favorite/create not found

Maybe in a few years' time it'll catch up to Lyrion. Nice to see it's written in a modern language (Python) at least!
 
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I use Plex, not as inexpensive as it once was and probably not as good as Roon.
Runs on a NAS, or any old pc, really simple to set up and none of the faffing about that you have to do with open source stuff.
WIIM have improved the integration but it's still not 100% there yet.
It's pretty reliable until Wiim breaks it with one of their firmware updates but they do usually fix it fairly quickly.
Of course you may like the challenge of setting up the free alternatives but having spent many years of my life working in IT, trying to get software to run properly, I decided now I'm retired, to take the easy way out.
Good luck...
 
CliffyBC said:
I use Plex, not as inexpensive as it once was and probably not as good as Roon.
Runs on a NAS, or any old pc, really simple to set up and none of the faffing about that you have to do with open source stuff.
WIIM have improved the integration but it's still not 100% there yet.
It's pretty reliable until Wiim breaks it with one of their firmware updates but they do usually fix it fairly quickly.
Of course you may like the challenge of setting up the free alternatives but having spent many years of my life working in IT, trying to get software to run properly, I decided now I'm retired, to take the easy way out.
Good luck...
Click to expand...

No issues with PI/LMS once it's setup it works well, open source, multi platform and free
 
CliffyBC said:
I use Plex, not as inexpensive as it once was and probably not as good as Roon.
Runs on a NAS, or any old pc, really simple to set up and none of the faffing about that you have to do with open source stuff.
WIIM have improved the integration but it's still not 100% there yet.
It's pretty reliable until Wiim breaks it with one of their firmware updates but they do usually fix it fairly quickly.
Of course you may like the challenge of setting up the free alternatives but having spent many years of my life working in IT, trying to get software to run properly, I decided now I'm retired, to take the easy way out.
Good luck...
Click to expand...
WHat do you count as "faffing about"? All software has a learning curve.
 
slartibartfast said:
WHat do you count as "faffing about"? All software has a learning curve.
Click to expand...

Also if there isn't "faffing about" it's going to be pretty limited. For something like this I'd prefer it complex as hell, steep learning curve but once it's done...never have to worry about it going out of date, stopped support for example with LMS I started

On a laptop probably version 6.5.0 or somewhere around that
Bought a NAS put music on that
Bought another NAS that allowed to install LMS onto it.
Bought a smartphone installed Logitech LMS app
Bought another NAS quad core much faster LMS
NAS support ended, bought a Pi5 moved LMS onto that
All the while no ads, no payment, open platform can access from phone browser, phone app, PC Windows browser, PC Linux browser. Free firmware updates for even Squeezebox touch now
 
r5yk5 said:
In my experience
LMS/Open Subsonic/Music Assistant = major faff
Plex/Emby = minor faff
Roon = minimal faff

The bigger the price the less the faff.
Click to expand...

LMS isn't a major faff at all, especially if you have a NAS that allowed to install onto it. Easy peasy. Central location, boots up ready.

Pi5 is more difficult, but again once picoreplayer is setup (a little bit complicated) going into LMS is easy peasy

Roon is a absolute rip off
 
rccarguy said:
LMS isn't a major faff at all, especially if you have a NAS that allowed to install onto it. Easy peasy. Central location, boots up ready.

Pi5 is more difficult, but again once picoreplayer is setup (a little bit complicated) going into LMS is easy peasy

Roon is a absolute rip off
Click to expand...
I can imagine Docker would be a major faff but I've never tried faffing with it 😂
 
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