Airsonic Advanced

Airsonic Advanced is a community-driven, free and open-source media streaming server for personal music collections. As the actively maintained successor to Airsonic — itself a fork of the original Subsonic project — it focuses on stable, scalable streaming of large libraries across desktops, phones, and dedicated audio clients. The application indexes folder-based and ID3-tagged libraries, transcodes audio on the fly to match each client's capabilities, and exposes both a polished web player and the well-established Subsonic REST API that powers dozens of third-party apps. The result is a self-hosted alternative to commercial streaming services that costs nothing per stream, never hits a device limit, and never removes a track from your library because of a licensing dispute.

Common Use Cases

Audiophiles and music collectors run Airsonic Advanced to stream large lossless libraries — FLAC, ALAC, WAV — to any device without uploading files to a third-party service or paying for streaming subscriptions. Families share a single household server with per-user accounts so each member has their own playlists, listening history, and ratings without crossing libraries. Podcast listeners use the built-in podcast subscription feature to centralize episode downloads alongside their music, so a single server replaces both a music streamer and a podcatcher. Travelers and remote workers leverage the wide ecosystem of Subsonic-compatible mobile clients to access their entire collection from anywhere, with offline caching and on-the-fly transcoding handling poor connections. Audio archivists and DJs store and tag their working libraries on a VPS, then pull tracks down to their workstation or DJ software through the REST API.

Mobile and Desktop Clients

One of Airsonic Advanced's biggest practical advantages is the mature client ecosystem inherited from Subsonic. On Android, DSub, Ultrasonic, and Symfonium are popular free and paid options; on iOS, play:Sub, Substreamer, and Amperfy provide native iPhone and iPad apps; on desktop, Sonixd, Supersonic, and Strawberry connect through the same API. Many clients support offline downloads, last.fm scrobbling, gapless playback, and per-device transcoding profiles. Because every client speaks the same REST API, family members or team members can each pick the application they prefer while sharing a single backend server.

Key Features

• Stream personal music libraries through a web player or any Subsonic-compatible client
• On-the-fly transcoding to match per-device bitrate and format constraints
• Subsonic-compatible REST API supported by DSub, play:Sub, Symfonium, Ultrasonic, and more
• Multi-user accounts with per-user playlists, ratings, and last.fm scrobbling
• Podcast subscription and automatic episode downloads
• Internet radio station support
• Multi-player jukebox mode for simultaneous streaming to multiple outputs
• Smart playlists and play queues that follow you across devices
• ID3 tag and folder-based library indexing
• Cover art, lyrics, and album metadata browsing

Why deploy Airsonic Advanced on Hostinger VPS

Deploying Airsonic Advanced on a Hostinger VPS turns your personal music collection into a private streaming service available from anywhere, without per-track licensing fees or device caps. Dedicated storage and network bandwidth keep large lossless libraries responsive even with multiple users streaming simultaneously, while full root access lets you tune Java memory and transcoding workers for your specific hardware. With Hostinger VPS reliability and 24/7 uptime, family members and friends can access a shared library at any time, and the wide Subsonic-compatible client ecosystem means your server works with the music apps users already prefer on every platform they own. The persistent named volumes ensure that your library index, playlists, and per-user listening history survive container updates and host restarts, so the server keeps growing with your collection rather than starting over each time it is upgraded.