Koel is an open-source, self-hosted music streaming server built with Laravel and Vue. Compare its free Community edition, Koel Plus pricing, and rivals.
Koel is a self-hosted, open-source personal music streaming server created by developer Phan An and in active development since 2015. Built with Laravel on the backend and Vue.js on the frontend, it lets users stream their own music library through a private, Spotify-like web app running on their own server.
The Community edition is free forever, while an optional Koel Plus upgrade adds features for more advanced or shared setups. Koel is aimed at self-hosters and homelab users who want full ownership of their music rather than a subscription streaming service.
Koel supports transparent lossless streaming, cross-device playback sync, smart playlists, an equalizer, visualizers, and radio and podcast playback. It speaks the Subsonic and OpenSubsonic APIs, so any existing Subsonic-compatible client can connect, alongside Koel's own native Koel Player apps for iOS and Android.
Metadata is enriched through integrations with MusicBrainz, Wikipedia, Last.fm, Spotify, and YouTube, and the interface offers multiple themes while staying fast even on large libraries.
The Koel Community edition is free and open source with no artificial limits. Koel Plus is a one-time, pay-what-you-want purchase starting at 19.99 euros rather than a subscription.
Koel Plus unlocks cloud storage drivers, individual per-user libraries, collaboration and sharing tools, and single sign-on, features aimed at multi-user households or more advanced self-hosted deployments.
Yes, the Koel Community edition is free and open source. Koel Plus, a one-time paid upgrade starting at 19.99 euros, adds premium features like cloud storage and multi-library support.
Koel was created by developer Phan An and has been in active development since 2015.
Yes, Koel speaks the Subsonic and OpenSubsonic APIs, so it works with many existing Subsonic-compatible mobile apps, and also has its own native Koel Player app.
Koel is built with a Laravel (PHP) backend and a Vue.js frontend.
Yes, Koel supports transparent lossless audio streaming.
Koel and Navidrome are both free, open-source, self-hosted Subsonic-compatible music servers; Koel is built on PHP/Laravel with a one-time-purchase premium tier, while Navidrome is written in Go and remains entirely free.