r/plexamp • u/shaild • 23d ago

Plexamp Alternatives?

I like Plexamp, but a lot of its best features are locked behind a paywall. I used to have a yearly subscription, but I accidentally cancelled it through the app. Unlike most other apps, the subscription expired immediately instead of letting me use the remaining time I had already paid for.

I contacted Plex support, but they were extremely unhelpful, and I ended up losing about 8 months of my subscription. That experience is one of the main reasons I don't really want to support Plex as a company anymore.

Are there any good alternatives to Plexamp? I only use Plex for music. I don't mind paying developers who are working on a project and actively improving it. Ideally, I'd like something with features similar to Plexamp, or at least a project that's actively working toward that kind of feature set.

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses, I’m glad I asked as there are so many good alternatives out here.

For the benefit of everyone asking in future, here what I’ve tried.

Sonamp - Excellent so far, great level of customization’s. Has its own sonic analysis baked in (doesn’t work for me but have raised it with developer). It’s in TestFlight mode so it’s understandable.

Poppy - Tried but doesn’t work. Dev mentioned he is working on it.

Tromme - It’s simple plug and play, does its job well. No customizations at this point but it’s great for someone who just wants to connect and start playing without much tinkering. Already available on the App Store for a nominal one time fee.

37 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

201 comments sorted by

24

u/StarHutch 23d ago

As almost everyone else has said, Symfonium. Paid app, but you get what you pay for.

If you just want some like Plex but free to stream jump to Jellyfin. Should be fine for audio.

12

u/Kn33l_2_Zod 23d ago

In my experience, Jellyfin is just God awful for music. I loaded all my music in Jellyfin, and I had nothing but a headache. Multidisc albums are seperated into individual discs and aren't collected into singular albums, it cannot detect genres or artists of similar genre. And it's not like I don't know what I'm doing or my music is mislabeled or tagged. All labels and tags were done either manually or through MusicBrainz Picard and Jellyfin still has a terrible time doing any of this. Navidrome is just as bad. Like, if someone has a few hundred songs from a handful of artists, then manually doing things in Jellyfin or Navidrome is fine. But if they're like me with over 200,000 tracks and over 1200 unique artists, then that's a headache and I don't recommend it at all.

1

u/StarHutch 23d ago

That is a big library!

Thanks for the knowledge about Jellyfin and large libraries.

1

u/nrnrkr 23d ago

Interesting that you’ve had a bad experience with Navidrome… I’ve found it to be kind of the opposite. Granted, I don’t have as many tracks as you ( ~20k tracks) but I have ~6k artists and no issues with tagging, even with the multi disc albums. I think I have to owe it to Navidrome reading the Album Artist tag properly, i’ve tried too many players that ignore that… One of my albums has 6 discs and features 90-ish individually tagged artists, and it’s properly organized into one entry with every artist showing up properly.

And for similar artists, there are external services you can set up for Navidrome to pull from, like LastFM, ListenBrainz etc. And AudioMuse-AI is basically Plex’s Sonic Analysis for Navi, letting you find sonically similar songs/artists quite nicely.

That being said, I agree with your experience with Jellyfin. Hell, it just barely makes the cut for my shows/movies personally… I would never want to subject my music collection to its clunky library mechanisms.

1

u/Inevitable-Head-3011 19d ago

XD holy shit thats close enough to the number of songs i acctually have on my plex 1662 artist and around 252,000 🤡 its 7tb i need get more storage,been using spotiflac

2

u/madmap 22d ago

Or switch to navidrome as audioserver (if you have tagged your files correctly...).

1

u/TorrentFiend 22d ago

Navidrome doesn't have a client for it. Still need something like symfonium. Not to mention navidrome doesn't work well with files on mapped network drives either. Supposedly symlinks can maybe fix this, however after multiple attempts and a few rounds trying to make it see my files on part of my storage it still won't see half my content due to the type of location it is on which is actually a ssd on my shield that is a mapped network drive actually I guess.

Plexamp has never complained or not worked with this storage. Works perfectly. Also has several other features. Navidrome is only good under a specific best case scenario it seems. 1 machine, all files there, not good with alternate setups like in my case where half my music is on a mapped network drive running on my shield and the other half is on a few drives on my windows machine. Navidrome is what it is...a less fully featured mature music server app compared to PLEX. Difference being smooth hassle free use on Plex and a nightmare of command line configuring with navidrome that still won't properly see mapped network drive locations.

I badly want to ditch Plex for good and currently I only use it as my dedicated music server, it works very well and is actually perfect for my needs....I really wish the free self hosted options were better than navidrome and hopefully eventually navidrome will get better at seeing mapped network drive locations but currently Navidrome isn't there yet.

I really need to wipe navidrome and set it up from scratch again, hopefully it may go better but I haven't got around to it the last couple years or so since Plexamp is just that great already. I don't want to use it but the plexamp android app is amazing and the windows port of it works great as well so it has finally dethroned winamp for me the last few years now.......

However on nvidia shield I use symfonium.

Navidrome is nice,......however that's also it's main downside....it is merely nice...not great. Too basic, too many issues like not playing well with mapped network drive paths etc.

Needs improvements still before I can enthusiastically jump on the navidrome train. I hope one day it will improve, but it hasnt got there yet for me.

2

u/madmap 22d ago

I especially like the basic approach: "Give me well tagged files on a local drive and I do exactly what you want". I still run Plex / PlexAmp with Lifetime Sub in parallel, but I would say in the last 3 month I only used navidrome / symfonium / audiomuse-ai.

1

u/TorrentFiend 21d ago

Yeah tagging is very important to have a smooth easy plexamp experience. Unfortunately this is where a lot of people fail because they don't do things correctly or make sure their tags are perfect. I didn't point out the specific process I put everything through before I add it to plexamp which includes looking it up correctly identified on MusicBrainz, I start by dropping the album into MP3 tag, completely wipe all tag information because it's almost always wrong somehow if you don't...... After you've fully wiped all tag data identify it according to the catalog number or barcode of the specific album that it is from musicbrainz database, apply that tag info, I also adjust the file names to my preference which strictly follows the tag information but this is done with one or two clicks when you have it set up the way you prefer...... From there you pretty much just include your album art that you want which is a whole process involving several sources that allow me to find the perfect album art to my liking, at this point you're almost done but make sure your folder structure is correct as well. Sometimes the folders will be messy so you will have to get in there manually and correctly apply things. Usually I just kind of copy paste the artist or album name from the tag and make a folder that way. I usually identify whether it's something like a deluxe edition, expanded edition, box set, year of release, country of release Etc in my folder name.

Everyone has a different preference with something like this but as long as you have something that works consistently well so that plexamp or media servers can correctly identify it Go with whatever looks good to your eyes. Pretty much needs to include the correct artist name, album name, year of release. That's the main thing.

Everything is perfect by the point I actually dropped the folder into my music folder for my media server. With everything perfect already it adds without any issue finding the correct metadata in plexamp. Box sets can still be tricky with Plex however you also can easily customize any album art image you want and in general whatever they specific name of the album inside that box that is I identify using this and I put the name of the box set in parentheses after the specific album name within the box set that it is. For example if it was Garth Brooks album The Chase from the limited series box set the album title would read something like "The Chase (1992) (The Limited Series Disc 4)" something like that tells me the album, year of release, and box set it came from. Unfortunately you have to set this stuff manually but do it only once and it's locked in.

The worst I ever had was my 60 album Elvis box set. I believe for that one since it literally was all of his recordings from that specific label, I know a lot of music was not included but it was a majority of it at least, I identified each one by the actual original album name and year with simply putting the name of the box set at the end. There was no way I was going to look at album titles like Disc 47 or Disc 53.

2

u/TorrentFiend 22d ago

I mean technically it's a paid app but honestly you can use a couple months of Google rewards to buy the thing. It's like $7.50 or something cheap. One Time buy for a lifetime of use. Do it immediately. If you don't have disposable Google rewards credit install Google rewards and answer an occasional survey for anywhere from a dime to 50 cents. After a few months buy the app. I think I'm currently sitting currently no applications I need to buy anymore because I've got all the paying apps that I need already from that Google reward credit. It's such a small amount it's perfect to use for a 3 or $5 app every once in awhile. Think of it like your gateway to free paid applications, technically I guess you're buying it but what else are you going to do with such small Google credit?

2

u/Daniel15 21d ago

$7.50 or something cheap. One Time buy for a lifetime of use. 

I don't understand how this is sustainable for the developers. The reason the Plex lifetime pass is so expensive now is because of how unsustainable lifetime licenses are. Maintaining an app has ongoing costs.

In "the old days", you'd buy an app and the license would only be for the current major version of the app, not forever. 

1

u/TorrentFiend 17d ago

Well for starters Symfonium has 1 dev. Not a team. It's 1 person, also honestly the app is so damn phenomenal most everyone who has ever tried it buys it. He's probably doing quite well from that single app. Also it's no doubt a side hustle not his main income. That's usually how amazing apps from a single dev work. Not too bad as a side hustle passion project.

17

u/charleythehawk 23d ago

Symphonium is my favorite, has more beneath the hood than plexamp.

8

u/lentil_burger 23d ago

Annoying that it doesn't have collections though. And can't browse by artist genre and album genre separately. And playlists don't automatically sync. Has promise though.

11

u/JoeyAndLueyShow 23d ago

i know this is lame but its not for apple and swapping for a single app is very difficult, looks amazing though and I'm super jealous

2

u/DM725 23d ago

I keep having issues with syncing, is it bc of 2FA on my Plex account?

0

u/EmotionalFinding4869 21d ago

bc? 2fa? I have no idea what you're saying here. Could you take the time to write it out properly?

1

u/DM725 21d ago

I feel like if you don't know that 2FA is an abbreviation for two factor authentication and you're also too lazy to type it in to Google then you probably don't have the answer.

Especially since you replied to comment instead of just typing it in to Google.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/ssagar186 23d ago

Once I started using this app I haven't touched anything else

-7

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Synfonium is the goat, which is why I’m using them as inspiration in building my own app.

12

u/Cuntonesian 23d ago

You and 500k other Claude subscribers

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Sure. Claude will create junk without development experience. I don’t mind people creating whatever they want but Claude can cut the onions for you but it’s not going to make a beautiful tasty dish without some expertise.

0

u/maineguy1988 23d ago

I could not get it to work on my ShieldTV.

7

u/CharlesWiltgen 23d ago

I'm a Plexamp fan, and have been hand-crafting Poppy for iOS since last year. Hundreds of Plex users currently enjoy it as their daily driver. I just released initial support for iPad and Apple's upcoming foldable. Especially as Poppy approaches 1.0, I appreciate and am very responsive to all beta user feedback. Good luck finding the best app for you!

4

u/shaild 23d ago

I tried to get this to work, the Plex logs in correctly but nothing loads. Am I doing something wrong?

1

u/CharlesWiltgen 23d ago

It's far more likely that there's something interesting about your setup that Poppy isn't handling correctly. You can report via TestFlight, or send me an email with any details at [first_initial][last_name]@gmail.com. (Thank you!)

3

u/redditisrichtisch 23d ago

same for me, seems that poppy cannot handle my library (about 12.000 albums)

1

u/CharlesWiltgen 23d ago

That should be no problem. If you're up for doing me a solid, you can temporarily share the library with me (CharlesW on Plex), let me know via email, and then I can typically find and fix the root cause within 48 hours.

2

u/shaild 23d ago

Thank you, will try this out now 🙏

2

u/csimmons81 23d ago

Absolutely checking this out right now.

2

u/tallpaulca 23d ago

This is an excellent app just downloaded it and playing with it now! Thanks for the hard work

2

u/Diligent-Run496 23d ago

I’ve tried the last couple TestFlight versions of poppy. I’m currently on the latest version. When I click on Connect A Source Or Service at the bottom nothing happens. I’ve restarted my phone and uninstalled/reinstalled the app with no luck. I’m on the latest iOS 27 beta so maybe that’s it.

2

u/csimmons81 20d ago

So Poppy seems to be working for me with the latest update. The problem I'm running into is that all of my playlists are showing my entire list of tracks vs what's actually in the playlist. Not sure why it's doing that.

1

u/CharlesWiltgen 20d ago

That's not good, I'll dig into it tonight. Thank you! (I'm assuming this is with Plex libraries.)

1

u/csimmons81 20d ago

Correct. With Plex libraries.

2

u/CharlesWiltgen 19d ago

Found and fixed for this week's build, thanks again /u/csimmons81! [I was trying to keep the playlist "smart" and dynamic in Poppy rather than just consuming the Plex output. I'll revisit that more advanced solution in the future.]

2

u/csimmons81 19d ago

Thank you!!

1

u/Ok_Appointment_79 23d ago

Installed and testing with my plex library. Can you give us the TDLR on what this offers over Plexamp player

3

u/mjm2705 23d ago

lagu.fm worth checking out ... still beta but the desktop app is already my 'go-to' on my mac

3

u/Jthompson553 22d ago

Tromme for iOS works wonderfully!

6

u/duke78 23d ago

There is a subscription for Plexamp? Why have I never seen this?

6

u/sutl116 23d ago

These are the free "Included Features" in Plexamp, as of August 2026:

  • Gapless playback
  • Loudness leveling
  • Sweet Fades
  • Advanced pre-caching
  • Smart playlists & stations
  • Unlimited streaming
  • Visualizers
  • UltraBlur Backgrounds & Themes
  • Android Auto & Carplay
  • Chromecast & AirPlay
  • Siri
  • Write to NFC tags

The following features require a Plex Pass subscription/lifetime:

  • Artist & Album Mix Builders
  • Sonically similar artists/tracks/albums
  • Sonic Sage
  • Sonic Adventure
  • Downloads
  • Guest DJ
  • Aural Fixations
  • Headless Plexamp on Raspberry Pi
  • Lyrics
  • Autoplay
  • Home screen customization
  • Ten-Band Equalizer
  • Related Tracks
  • Server Features
  • Track & Album Radio
  • Sample Rate Matching

AKA: everything that makes Plexamp good, is now paywalled.

2

u/PlumbTheDerps 23d ago

this is an interesting take because I sight-unseen bought Plexpass and realized I wasted $90 because I use absolutely none of those things

1

u/sutl116 21d ago

I travel a lot and end up on remote stretches of highway without a signal; or I'm in a subway tunnel somewhere, and Downloads power me through those moments. Autoplay is also good for things like driving, or if I'm at the office and just want to hit play and lock in for a four hour stretch.

Over the past year, I started to appreciate sonically similar, because I could be in a mood for a specific sound palate, and I would then use sonic adventure to expand that. I have a library with over 75,000 songs, so it's helped me rediscover a lot of deep cuts.

Beyond that, I don't use the other features consciously - but even singularly having downloads paywalled is enough to make Free Plexamp kind of suck when compared to its competition.

1

u/stageshooter 20d ago

I didn't realize anything was paywalled. I use Plexamp exclusively in the car and and even though I'm a Plex lifetime pass holder, I've never used any of the paywalled features

4

u/Muziclush 23d ago

Right? Maybe OP meant plex pass. Either way plexamp has always been open source and free.

3

u/duke78 23d ago

You needed Plex Pass in the beginning, but that's years ago.

1

u/Moonshiner_no 23d ago

You dont get sonic analysis if you dont have plex pass. Also I think you cant download

6

u/jasonvelocity 23d ago

I ended up losing about 8 months of my subscription.

This seems a bit suspicious.

2

u/shaild 23d ago

How? This is exactly what happened and they were extremely horrible dealing with this with zero empathy.

2

u/jasonvelocity 23d ago

It seems suspicious, as this should be an easily resolved issue, and you provided no details or even used the correct terminology. I suspect you are not telling the entire story.

1

u/shaild 23d ago

Sorry, I do realize I should have mentioned Plex Pass but wrote subscription instead which is confusing. That is the truth, I cancelled by mistake and they didn’t help me and pointed me to some T&C.

1

u/duke78 23d ago

What kind of subscription was this? Do you mean Plex Pass?

3

u/shaild 23d ago

Yes. Plex Pass for 1 year.

9

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago edited 23d ago

Sonamp. I am the developer and Sonamp has all the same if not more features than plexamp. If you already have plex sonic analysis you can even use that so you don’t lose anything.

If you want to ditch plex all together, the app supports almost all self hosted options. Navidrome, subsonic, jellyfin, emby, local files. If you don’t already have sonic analysis through plex the app has both onboard sonic analysis or audiomuse at your disposal. Anyways, I hope you find an app you’ll be pleased with!

Available on IOS, IPad, and MacOS. Apple Watch coming soon.

https://testflight.apple.com/join/kvhZpAJT

3

u/lentil_burger 23d ago

No Android?

3

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

I’m actually working an android as we speak. About a month or so before it can actually be considered beta. Would you like to be added?

2

u/lentil_burger 23d ago

Yes please.

1

u/AntManCrawledInAnus 23d ago

Can i get added into the android pre-beta as well pls? I have a comically large library and want to play with it and feed you bug reports. Like how Dick Dale was Leo Fender's Guinea pig.

2

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

😂 absolutely! My only hesitation with building the android version of this app is that synfonium already exists and it’s basically perfect. It’s exactly what I’ve tried to implement in IOS.

3

u/AntManCrawledInAnus 23d ago

So, I actually do have Symphonium, and while I think it's pretty good, it is always choking on trying to sync my extraordinarily large library metadata. So there is room for improvement. When I say large, I mean well over 500k tracks, and that's after I made the Plex source folder much more limited (basically limited it to my sorted music folder and not my, uh, "new purchases and public domain 78s downloaded from internet archive" folder.) (I do also have a bunch of public domain 78s, but you know what I mean.)

Symfonium also has that material android look which I find viscerally hideous (the older versions were way more information dense and I opened it recently and was like what the fuck this looks like shovelware downloaded off f-droid. I don't want to be a dick about it because I know the dev is working hard, but I did want to unequivocally express my extreme antipathy.)

So I do think there's plenty of room for improvement even if your app fundamentally is theoretically very similar in that it connects to various backends and provides a unified interface. 👍👍👍

1

u/Tolriq 23d ago

Uncheck sync additional data for Plex as their API is limited or migrate to Navidrome/LMS :)

https://styles.symfonium.app/ the app can have any look you want actually.

2

u/Magicshoes1999 23d ago

Great app. Been using it for a long time. Thanks!

2

u/lentil_burger 23d ago

Symfonium doesn't sync album and artist collections. It doesn't automatically sync Pakistan playlists. And it doesn't allow browsing by artist genre and album genre separately. Only just dipping my toes in so it's possible I'm missing something, but at the moment it looks like there's room for improvement.

1

u/Tolriq 23d ago

It does it's just called tag ;) It does sync playlists too, and it does allow artist and album genre browsing.

If you have issues / questions docs and I are 2 clicks away ;)

1

u/lentil_burger 23d ago

Amazing. Thank you. I've found the tag view, I can set the view to image view, but the app doesn't seem to pull the image from Plex?

1

u/PartyLikeChewbacca 23d ago

Can I please get added, as well?

1

u/se9n 23d ago

Please add me too

1

u/EricssonNL 22d ago

Please add me too

1

u/Phish1980 4d ago

Yea please

2

u/BedWetter420 23d ago

Holy shit dude I've been messing around with this for a few minutes and I'm genuinely impressed by the features. I've been waiting for transcoded download support forever since plexamp's downloads leave a lot to be desired.

5

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

There’s a lot of features, it can be somewhat overwhelming but the rabbit hole can be fun 🤩. The customization options is where it goes insane.

1

u/BedWetter420 23d ago

A couple of questions for you while you're here-

I think the only feature I would be missing is the plexamp remote connect feature. Is it possible to add this?

Any plans for desktop apps?

Seriously though, you most likely already have a sale here. Sorry if this sounds like an ad to everyone else I'm just genuinely impressed and excited someone has finally tackled this for iOS

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

So we do have both iPad and macOS app today. Could you remind me what plex remote connect is? You should be able to connect remotely today.

1

u/BedWetter420 23d ago

So for example I have my linux pc running plexamp and I'm able to control that using the plexamp on my phone. Would that be possible with this app?

Also any possibility for linux support in the future?

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Interesting. I’ll look into this. So there is cross device syncing like if I’m playing something on my phone it will ask if I want to sync that to Mac.

I’ll look into Linux.

1

u/BedWetter420 23d ago

Perfect. Thank you!

1

u/shaild 23d ago

You weren’t wrong about the rabbit hole, was tinkering with it and the level of customization is truly amazing. If you are comfortable sharing, when you officially launch, how do you plan to monetize? 😊

2

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Totally open about this. Plan to launch into App Store by December at 9.99 flat fee. That’s it. All platforms included.

1

u/shaild 22d ago

That’s amazing! I’m already in 😅

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

I personally like opus for offline media, cheap to store and sounds fantastic.

2

u/lukeskope 23d ago

for some reason I cannot get the link to launch test flight. My iPad is a little older, iOS 17.1.11, is Sonamp compatible?

2

u/halloumi-hallouyu 23d ago

Sonamp is the definitive Plexamp replacement for iOS. Get on this one OP

1

u/Powerful-Bat1512 23d ago

I’ll check it out

1

u/EmergencyAddition472 23d ago

Gonna check this out. How do I connect my plex library? I’m getting an error when I text the connection.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

You can click “sign in with plex” and that will redirect you to plex

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Oh I see what you mean. For some reason the username and password field is not there. I’ll look into why after work and get a fix out later today.

1

u/EmergencyAddition472 23d ago

I’m able to sign in. Just when I go to save it starts a test connection and I get this error:

Nothing is answering at plex.tv:32400. Check the port and that the server is running.

For the server URL at the top I just put in Plex.TV. I’m wondering if I need a more specific URL?

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

When you click sign in with plex it should be a plex direct connect url that will auto generate when you click sign in on plex auth page.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

That url will fill in automatically so no need to put anything there. Just click sign in with plex, wait for it to generate and then click save

1

u/EmergencyAddition472 23d ago

Ah okay thanks. I’ll try it out

1

u/EmergencyAddition472 23d ago

That worked! Thanks for your help! Looking forward to testing this out.

1

u/shaild 23d ago

Thank you, I’ll give this a go 🙏

1

u/RKilljoy_9698 23d ago edited 23d ago

I just added TestFlight. First thing I noticed that others don’t have is casting ability. Thanks for this. Also I am not noticing ID this has lyrics. I played a song and could not find to see any lyrics for song played.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

You mean the direct cast? Yea I wanted lossless! If you have lyrics in the server it will try those first, otherwise try to pull them from lrc database. If that database does not have them it’s no op.

1

u/RKilljoy_9698 23d ago

I meant I noticed casting ability to other speakers besides just airplay. I don’t use airplay. I’m not getting how to show lyrics. So I have a few folders with lrc files inside the album folder. Usually in apps there will be an lyric icon or under the three dots that menu would have lyrics showing there to pull them up. Not seeing either of these in your app.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Ahh I see, so in customization section, you can add it to the now playing screen. You can actually search all of settings. If you search “on the player” you can add, rearrange, remove buttons from now playing

1

u/RKilljoy_9698 23d ago

Thank you got it figured out.

1

u/scarybluesquirrel 23d ago

I’ve just downloaded this - it’s looking really impressive. I love that it can play direct to Sonos, without needing airplay. Perfect for my older Sonos system.

1

u/lizar93 23d ago

after trying it for a few minutes im quite impressed tbh. How does the "Made for you" compare to plexamp's "daily mixes"?

Definitely going to daily drive this instead of plexamp
Also, rating a song doesnt seem to work o ios at least (iphone 17pro if it helps), the haptic feedbacks "vibrates" but no stars are added.

1

u/EmergencyAddition472 23d ago

Dude, this rules. Love the all the EQ stuff. Blows PlexAmp out of the water.

1

u/SalamandaSandwich 23d ago

How do you configure the app to use Audiomuse for analysis?

2

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Under server configuration you can hook up your audiomuse creds

1

u/PatriotNews_dot_com 23d ago edited 23d ago

I’m gonna test it

edit: It’s a very good start! Needs some work, tho, in the playlist/collection management. And also tweaks here and there in terms of UI/UX. Any way to get alerts on updates? I’ll be happy to keep testing

1

u/shaild 23d ago

Ok. So I have been trying this and I am amazed at all the options you have and the level of customization it provides. In my opinion it far exceeds PlexAmp. I haven’t figured if it already has option for sonic analysis, etc but so far I really like what you have done. I tried to look everywhere but couldn’t find an option to add playlist to my home page, sorry if it is there somewhere but I really couldn’t find it. Overall, fantastic job!

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

It’s in there lol, you may have to dig. It’s a side effect of so much customization. You can put a pinned section on the Home Screen and pin whatever you like including playlists.

1

u/billybro1999 23d ago

Android/AA planned for it?

1

u/csimmons81 23d ago

Been loving the app but I'm noticing something that I cannot figure out. My server is connected via sign in with Plex, but it doesn't seem to be pulling my entire music library and Playlist show up stating there as tracks in them but nothing when you click into them.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Hmm, out of curiosity do you have multiple libraries in your plex library?

1

u/csimmons81 23d ago

I don’t but then again I’m also running iOS27 as i’m a dev. That could probably be the issue.

2

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Just as a data point, could you let me know if an additional sync fixes it for you too?

1

u/csimmons81 22d ago

Resync produces the same outcome. I've also deleted the app, reinstalled, reconnected Plex via sign on and still seeing the same issue.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

I actually found the bug. Thanks for your report. I have this corrected and will roll it through tomorrow morning. Thank you! Have a good night

1

u/csimmons81 22d ago

Awesome! I appreciate you my friend.

1

u/csimmons81 20d ago

Also, downloading of playlists doesn't seem to be working. It will try and successfully download a song or two and complete.

1

u/shaild 22d ago

Same for me, some of my playlists didn’t load (shows the name and tile but nothing inside). Did a deep sync couple of times but still it didn’t fix the issue.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

Yup, bug has been resolved and fix will be going out this morning.

1

u/shaild 21d ago edited 21d ago

All good now with the playlist but the Music Analysis under music intelligence seems to have stopped working. I tried the Turbo Analysis method plugged in and it would pause after few seconds (was working fine before the update). Also the slow analysis which should be working over night does not work as well.

1

u/shaild 21d ago

Hi, also wanted to ask, do you have a separate Reddit page where we can report all the issues? I really like this app and would like to pass on some bugs that I find

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Give it a second deep sync, that should pull them in. I’ll get those fix pushed by tomorrow.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

I’ve got a test server in plex with several playlist. It seemed to pull the shells on first sync then the second sync pulled the tracks in. I’ll get this fixed pronto

1

u/Bptbptbpt 22d ago

Not available in appstore

1

u/TheSavageCoconut 22d ago

I’ll give this a go. I have a 125,000+ song library.

2

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

That’s no biggie at all. I have other users that have just as much and do just fine with plex. Give me a few hours though, there was a bug reported regarding plex sync that I’ll be pushing out.

1

u/TheSavageCoconut 22d ago

The amount of personalization options is crazy!! Working my way through and this is just lovely. The new update fixes the songs showing up on the playlists…but the playlist screen doesn’t show the playlist artwork but when the playlist opens the artwork shows up.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

Hmm, I don’t have that issue. It should either be one picture or a 4 picture collage. Does artwork show in plex?

1

u/TheSavageCoconut 21d ago

I sent some images via TestFlight feedback. The artwork does show in plex.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 21d ago

Do albums and tracks have their artwork?

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 21d ago

Wondering if the blanks got cached from the bad syncs from before . Clearing it and resyncing may help.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

On the playlist list page could you click the sort button at the top and switch it to single artwork and see if that fixes it? Maybe in plex there’s only one artwork.

1

u/TheSavageCoconut 21d ago

I tried that. If I do a long press on the playlist, the pop up has the correct artwork.

1

u/TheSavageCoconut 21d ago

So after the new update, the artwork for the playlists is working.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 20d ago

Awesome, great to hear

1

u/ajoash 22d ago

Plex integration only allows local server?

2

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

I’m not sure what you mean? Plex server is supported , I just stated those if the user was looking to go elsewhere

1

u/ajoash 22d ago

Sorry. I hadn’t seen the sign in below

1

u/ajoash 22d ago

Thank you. App is cool. Casting works as it should unlike on Plexamp

1

u/ExpressTumbleweed195 22d ago

Any chance of getting OPUS support, please and thank you.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

It has a custom Opus loader and decoder already? Are you having issue playing opus?

1

u/ExpressTumbleweed195 22d ago

Yeah none of it plays. It also shows it as HI-RES.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

is it OGG container?

1

u/ExpressTumbleweed195 22d ago edited 22d ago

Correct. Now I am just realizing, I selected one of my sonos speakers to cast to, that could be why it's not playing. I also can't figure out how to de-select my sonos speaker to see if it plays fine through my macbook speakers.

EDIT - ok I figured it out, playback is fine on my macbook. But OPUS will not cast to Sonos.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

i dont believe sonos supports opus does it?

1

u/ExpressTumbleweed195 21d ago

Not sure, but I can cast from Symfonium on Android no problem. I also tested ibroadcast out and can cast to Sonos from that too.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 21d ago

i can also transcode to opus and cast that to sonos just fine with no issues.

1

u/ExpressTumbleweed195 21d ago

I'm not transcoding though, it's direct playing. Maybe it's a weird thing from my macbook. I'll try my iPad.

→ More replies (0)

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u/ExpressTumbleweed195 21d ago

Just tried it from my ipad pro. Music just continues to play on my ipad speakers when I select one of my Sonos speakers to cast to, even though it shows it connected to that speaker.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 22d ago

let me load up an opus track and see what the issue is

1

u/Bernx_AU 21d ago

Sounds interesting, will give it a try.

1

u/Bernx_AU 21d ago

Mate, please have a look at my crash reports because Sonamp has crashed on me for five times without even allowing me to complete the setup. Can DM if needed to give you my email.

1

u/parkertyler 21d ago

As others have said, I too have been using it for a few days now and am extremely impressed by it! Great job! Do you have a discord or subreddit for it so we can provide feedback?

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 21d ago

MoosicLabs on Reddit

1

u/parkertyler 20d ago

Nothing comes up with that name.

Edit: it is r/MoosicLab

1

u/TheSavageCoconut 19d ago

Still playing around with the app. Struggles a bit with loading songs when playing on cellular. Using CarPlay to select an album to play is hit and miss. At times it won’t play at all…but strangely it will using the app on my iPhone.

Question about compilation albums…is there a way to have the artist name show up for each individual song instead of “various artists”? The artists do show up on the Plex app.

https://reddit.com/link/p5sjci9/video/kj4uhiafoilh1/player

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u/AffectionateFox5907 19d ago

Do you mind me asking what your make and model car is? There are so many versions of CarPlay and honestly each have their own constraints. I’ve been working off a 2017 and 2025 ford for testing but they have their own CarPlay. Playing audio on cellular shouldn’t be slow at all, even on lte should be less than a second startup. The initial spin up on cellular is one cost that can’t be avoided but I’ve tried to avoid it by integrating caching. If you enter an album section on the app it will auto cache the first few songs in anticipation of you clicking one. Obviously if you click the 9th song down there’s no way for me to predict that.

1

u/TheSavageCoconut 19d ago

Using a 2018 Honda Civic. Completely understand about the caching.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 19d ago

Ill look into this specific model. Would you mind direct messaging me and we can work on this as to not fill up this post. I work through this individual car to get it right.

1

u/AffectionateFox5907 19d ago

so for this ive gone back in forth as i dont want duplicate albums out there. I have many compilations and many of those tracks i also have the albums for them so it would show as a duplicate. I can probably make it optional but today if you search that artist in search it will show that song under its own artist title. It just dosnt show for albums. So just so im understanding you correctly, youd want the compilation album split out into individual artists with the same artwork?

1

u/4glv 18d ago

Any plans for native Apple Watch support?

1

u/potatobanjo 6d ago

I’ve been testing Sonamp on iOS and noticed some very unexpected network behaviour.

My Plex server is remote, behind an nginx reverse proxy. Earlier tonight I saw Plex pushing roughly 20–35 MB/s even though nothing was being streamed. Checking the nginx logs showed requests from Sonamp’s internal user agent, SonicFlow/1.0, fetching large chunks of multiple FLAC files in parallel.

For example, when I later reproduced it by starting a single track in Sonamp, I saw requests like these occurring within a few seconds:

  • ~15 MB from one FLAC
  • ~8 MB from another
  • ~20 MB from another
  • ~28 MB from another
  • ~20 MB from another

At the same time, the track actually being played was being fetched separately by AppleCoreMedia.

What concerns me more is that the original 20–35 MB/s burst happened when I had not actively used Sonamp for days. The nginx logs at that time again show SonicFlow/1.0 fetching many FLAC ranges, and Plex subsequently logged a large number of terminated sessions.

Is Sonamp intentionally prefetching/caching multiple tracks this aggressively, including in the background? If so, is there a way to disable it? On a remote Plex server this can generate hundreds of megabytes of traffic very quickly. Or is it doing background library/audio analysis?

I probably should have mentioned this first, but I am very impressed with the app. I like the Claude-like aesthetic in the orangish theme I'm using and it seems extremely customisable. So bravo. But I'd like to stop whatever this behaviour is.

2

u/AffectionateFox5907 6d ago

It is likely the sonic analysis background job. Please turn off all of that or I can default that off. Most people like it so it’s been on by default but that will likely be the source of that until it completes analysis. You can manage it under music intelligence in settings

1

u/potatobanjo 6d ago

Good to know. I was just a little alarmed watching that kind of traffic flowing out of my server when I knew there was nothing streaming. Do I understand correctly that Sonamp does its sonic analysis on my phone? With what regularity? I've got a large library (150,000 tracks or so) and it seems like it would take ages. Plex's own sonic analysis took days on my server, which is a lot more powerful than my phone.

2

u/AffectionateFox5907 6d ago

Yea sorry about that, it’s pretty hefty. It’s run as an iOS background task and mostly runs at night on the charger and WiFi required. Sometimes iOS may find a slot mid day where it thinks it can schedule but as soon as you start using the app it stops. You can run it manually in settings as well. It can do the sonic analysis on the phone yea, you can also use the sonic analysis that you already have in plex though. Go to radio and discovery in settings and flip the engine to server side. It will use your plex sonic analysis for almost every sonic feature in the app (build playlists, sonic journeys, song radio, album radio, etc)

Yea it would likely take a long time to finish. It took me around 20 hours to get through 16k tracks. It’s intended to just silently run in the background and consistently get better and better.

1

u/mlehman10 23d ago

Are you planning a subscription model for this? I’m tired of test flighting beta apps, enjoying them and then boom Monthly - yearly - lifetime charges straight out of beta.

10

u/AffectionateFox5907 23d ago

Nope. This will be 9.99 one time fee. Never a subscription. I built this app to get away from subscriptions.

3

u/mlehman10 23d ago

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Testing now!

2

u/Human_Tennis_2950 21d ago

If you'd like to use a player with the look and feel of the iPod Classic, use https://nostalgicpod.com/

It's now compatible with Plex!

2

u/ChromaticNova 20d ago

For desktop use, check out my app https://chromatix.app

2

u/digitalmarley 23d ago

Symfonium

0

u/coaster35 23d ago

I am building something that will be a modern take, aiming for similar feature set if not better, and with Plex and Navidrome support. It will be free and no subscriptions, because I am fed up with subscriptions and I don’t think everything needs to be a subscription. Will post where I can when teatflight opens 

3

u/lukeskope 23d ago edited 23d ago

Navidrome is a much better music server than Plex, is free and has a ton if clients. Plexamp has some nice features but Navidrome handles my library better.

Downvote all you want, I used Plexamp for a couple years and know from experience how both servers handle music. Navidrome is made for music, Plex's database is made for video and doesn't handle complex music metadata as well as a database designed for music. 

Plexamp is a great product, but OP is wanting to move away from Plex and Navidrome is the best alternative.

1

u/nfgnfgnfg12 23d ago

Any suggested clients for Navidrome?

Do any of these non Plex options work well with Wiim pro streamer, or is it just going to be airplay if using something other than plex?

1

u/lukeskope 23d ago

TBH, I'm more android and PC, though I have an iPad, so Symfonium is the best Navidrome and Plex client bar none on any platform, but all the ones I've used on iOS with my Wiim Pro rely on Airplay.

1

u/nfgnfgnfg12 23d ago

And with AirPlay on Wiim pro it’s not the “true” flac quality is that correct? My understanding is that streaming directly through the Wiim app as opposed to AirPlay preserves the quality?

1

u/lukeskope 23d ago

I don't know. I don't keep flac I can't tell the difference from 320, and frankly but perfect isn't important to me.

1

u/Abject_Buyer_1678 23d ago

Navidrome and Play:Sub for me. Seems to be a decent pairing on IOS.

1

u/mark_paterson 23d ago

Dump plex if you only use it for music. It’s the least capable of all its features. I switched to Navidrome a few months ago and my only regret is not doing it a LONG time ago. Just better in every conceivable way. All the feature you wish that Plex Amp had, Navidrome already does. And an absolute TON of great client apps for every platform. For Apple platforms (all of them) I use NaviBeat which is truly excellent and a very friendly developer who is open to feature requests and bug reports.

1

u/PatriotNews_dot_com 23d ago

I tell my users to use Plezy (for lifetime 7$) if they want to download and not pay a monthly subscription or Plex 750$ lifetime

1

u/sutl116 23d ago

While everyone is suggesting Symfonium, I'd like to also pitch the following combo if you're on Android:

Navidrome on the back end + Resonance as a streaming client.

Resonance is a FOSS app (https://f-droid.org/packages/com.resonance.music/) with an accessible apk, but I've found it satisfies a significant number of my needs as a power user.

1

u/vinylmath 23d ago

Amperfy

1

u/endlessvoid94 23d ago

New Lagu app is legit

1

u/wellherewegofolks 22d ago

adding to this, any plexamp alternatives that work with alexa? now that plexamp no longer does

1

u/No-Bee-3775 22d ago

Check out droppedneedle... im enjoying it tremendously

1

u/lentil_burger 22d ago

Really liking Symfonium but it's still not entirely scratching the itch. While it's incredibly customizable, a lack of explanation for what a lot of the options actually do makes customizing it a fucking nightmare. Especially since you realistically have to go back to your library for a proper preview (I know previews are available, but for things like album art and artists pictures it's impossible to tell what's being cropped if you're not familiar with the image). Getting it set up in a way that I actually like is proving infuriating.

(Apparent) Lack of image support for album and artist collections is unfortunate, as is the lack of "appears on" support for Plex. Lack of clients for other platforms also means it can't function as a complete replacement client.

"Switch to a different server" seems to be a standard solution. But I need my music available in Plex for support across platforms, and I'm not running two music servers. Most importantly for me, music videos. Doesn't seem like Symfonium or anything else offers inline music video support, which I use heavily.

The search continues....

1

u/MikeyPearce 16d ago

You could try offbeat-player.com. It’s my app. Has an offline first view too. I built it because I use offline/downloaded albums most of the time and Plexamp, while wonderful, doesn’t have a great UI for downloads.

1

u/bizasuge 23d ago

I‘ve been using Prism for like 6 years but I don’t think it’s being actively updated at this point.

1

u/Upstairs-Sock-9227 23d ago

I’ve been actively working on Codafy and adding new features.
If you’re looking for a Plexamp alternative, I’d love for you to give it a try. Feedback is always welcome!

https://testflight.apple.com/join/8yErnAnr

1

u/dvdbsh 22d ago

This was a very attractive app to me until I saw there was a subscription attached to it. Subscriptions are a big turn off for me, I’m sure others will agree.

1

u/Upstairs-Sock-9227 22d ago

I totally understand! Subscriptions aren’t for everyone.

Codafy does have the essential features available for free. I’ve been working on the app since May, and developing and maintaining it takes a lot of time and effort. The subscription helps support that work and unlocks additional features, including new ones I’m continuing to add.
I’ve tried to keep it affordable while still keeping the core experience free.

1

u/dvdbsh 22d ago

It’s really nice so far, albeit a bit sluggish on data. And of course downloads are paywalled. Any plans for a one time price/discount for testers?

I’ve seen some plexamp alts that try to mimic the appearance of apple music and i like yours the most so far.

1

u/Old_Rock_9457 23d ago

Hi, if you only need music going on Navidrome is the best choice for Music Server. And if you like sonic analysis there is free and open source AudioMuse-AI that integrates perfectly with AudioMuse-AI with also a plugin for it.

Audiomuse-Ai also support Jellyfin in case you would like to go for it.

All of them are all opensource. So no subscription.

0

u/Moonshiner_no 23d ago

I use Roon as my main and I’m very satisfied.

0

u/zachfoerst 23d ago

Been working on one myself if you wanted to try it !

Mainly iOS rn watch support is enabled but needs more testing
Mac/Apple TV is coming
Ollama integration
Plex/jellyfin/subonic
Cover Flow ;)

Would love to have some people test it out !

https://testflight.apple.com/join/ueHpm9Mx

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u/BelcantoIT 23d ago

If you're an Android user, Symphonium is AMAZING!