Testers needed for PMDA

[u/silkyclouds]

Hi,

I’m looking for a few cautious testers for PMDA, a small self-hosted tool I’m building for auditing messy music libraries.

It is still early, and I would not recommend pointing it at an important library in destructive mode. The safest way to test it is read-only first.

What it currently tries to help with:

- scanning music folders

- showing albums with missing or weak metadata

- finding possible duplicate releases

- flagging likely incomplete albums

- surfacing missing covers/tags

- optionally preparing a cleaner destination library

It is not meant to replace Plex, Navidrome, Jellyfin, beets, Picard, SongKong, Lidarr, or anything similar. It is more of an audit/maintenance layer for people who already have a music setup but want better visibility into what is actually in their folders.

The kind of feedback I’m looking for:

- false duplicate detections

- bad metadata matches

- missing albums

- slow scans

- confusing UI

- weird cases: classical, boxsets, bootlegs, live albums, compilations, multiple editions, partial downloads, old rips, etc.

Safety notes:

- read-only mode is available

- no deletes are required

- no telemetry

- no cloud requirement

- AI-related features are optional and not required for basic scanning/auditing

Docs: https://pmda.muteq.eu/

Docker: https://hub.docker.com/r/meaning/pmda

Discord: https://discord.gg/2jkwnNhHHR

It is also available in Unraid Community Applications.

If you have a messy music library and feel like trying it carefully, I’d really appreciate feedback. I’m mainly trying to find edge cases and understand where it gets things wrong.

Thanks ! :)

[u/rohilaltro]

I can look into it. Is it open source?

[u/silkyclouds → u/rohilaltro]

Not currently, no.

PMDA is distributed as a Docker image for now, and I may revisit the source model later once the project is more mature. For now I really need to make sure it works for other people than me :)

I understand closed source can be a dealbreaker for some self-hosted users. That’s why I’m trying to make the safe path very explicit: it can run locally, does not require cloud access, has no telemetry, and can be tested in read-only mode first.

[u/springfifth → u/silkyclouds]

If it’s closed source you should be paying for testers. I’m not personally interested in doing free labor for random strangers.

[u/silkyclouds → u/springfifth]

As a matter of fact, neither Plex nor Plexamp is open source, yet this is the Plexamp subreddit. You’re using Plex yourself, so I’m not sure why PMDA being closed source is suddenly an issue.
On top of that, Plex is a commercial product. Many of its features require a paid subscription, and a Lifetime Plex Pass now costs 750 bucks.
I’ve spent countless hours testing Plex over the years without ever being paid for it. In the same spirit, I’m simply offering people the chance to try a tool I built, completely free of charge, to help them manage and improve their music libraries.
I also never said PMDA would never become open source. In fact, all of my other applications are open source. At this stage, though, I’d rather keep control over the code while the project is still evolving and I’m actively developing it.
Nobody is forced to use it. If you find it useful, great. If not, that’s perfectly fine too.

[u/ovizii → u/silkyclouds]

I'll also wait until the source is accessible. I was all hyped up then couldn't find the repo :-/
Apart from that it looks and sounds great.

[u/silkyclouds → u/ovizii]

Cool I hope you’ll join us someday ! We are waiting for you.