Mopidy is a free, open-source music server for Python that streams local files, Spotify, SoundCloud and radio. See features, setup, and alternatives.
Mopidy is an open-source, extensible music server written in Python that lets you play music from local disk, Spotify, SoundCloud, internet radio and other sources through a single unified backend. Rather than being a desktop or mobile app itself, Mopidy runs as a headless server process that exposes a control API, letting any MPD-compatible client or web client connect to browse and play music remotely.
The project began in December 2009 as an experiment in combining the classic Music Player Daemon (MPD) protocol with the ability to stream from Spotify. Over more than a decade of community development it has grown into a modular platform with a large ecosystem of third-party extensions, commonly deployed on Raspberry Pi devices, home servers, and always-on Linux boxes to create a whole-home or single-room music hub.
Mopidy's core strength is its extension architecture: separate Python packages can be installed to add new music sources (Spotify, Tidal, SoundCloud, TuneIn, YouTube, podcasts, local libraries), new frontends (an HTTP/JSON-RPC/WebSocket API, MPD protocol support, Last.fm scrobbling), and new audio backends, all without modifying Mopidy's core.
Because it speaks the MPD protocol, Mopidy works out of the box with the large existing ecosystem of MPD clients on desktop, mobile, and web. Its own HTTP/JSON-RPC frontend also powers community-built web clients such as Iris, which provide a modern browser-based interface for controlling playback, browsing libraries, and managing playlists across all connected sources from one screen.
Mopidy itself is completely free and open source under the Apache License 2.0, with no paid tiers, subscriptions, or commercial edition. There is no company monetizing Mopidy directly.
Any costs involved come from what you run it on (a Raspberry Pi or server) and from the underlying music services you connect through extensions, such as a paid Spotify Premium or Tidal subscription, which those third-party streaming services require for API playback.
Yes. Mopidy is fully open source under the Apache License 2.0 and free to download, install, and run with no subscription fees.
Yes, through official and community-maintained extensions such as mopidy-spotify and mopidy-tidal, though these typically require an active paid subscription to the underlying streaming service.
No, Mopidy runs on any Linux or macOS machine, but it is popular on Raspberry Pi because of its low power consumption and always-on convenience.
Any MPD-compatible client, plus web clients like Iris that use Mopidy's HTTP/JSON-RPC/WebSocket API.
Not particularly. Mopidy requires configuration file editing and command-line familiarity, making it best suited to hobbyists and developers.
Mopidy is a community-driven open-source project developed openly on GitHub, not a commercial company.