Best Personal Media Apps
Must have apps for running your own personal media.
Updates:
May 20th, 2022: Replaced Mylar with Mylar3. Removed Cardigan due to discontinuation of development. May 17th, 2022: Removed CouchPotato since it has been officially discontinued and the github repo archived by the author. Added "Readarr" and "Requestrr" to media management and request management. May 16th, 2022: Added additional apps to the Honorable Mentions section. March 27, 2019: Added MediaElch for metadata editing, TagScanner for audio file metadata editing, and Emby as an alternative to Plex. December 3, 2018: Added Soundiiz for online music service playlist synchronization. July 30, 2018: Added Mylar and Ombi. July 28, 2018: Added Honorable Mentions section with other noteworthy media apps. July 11, 2018: Added cTiVo as a media downloader. June 18, 2018: Added a section for Search and Indexer utilities, which may utilized by the various Media Managers also listed below.
1. User Requests
Requestrr is a chatbot used to simplify using services like Sonarr/Radarr/Ombi via the use of chat. Current platform is Discord only, but the bot was built around the ideology of quick adaptation for new features as well as new platforms.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Self-Hosted
Ombi is a front end user facing request system. It connects with your other media managers (CouchPotato, SickRage, SickGear, Sonarr, Lidarr, and Radarr, etc) to automate user requests and adding them into your media library managers.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Self-Hosted
2. Metadata Sources
MusicBrainz is a community music metadatabase that attempts to create a comprehensive music information site. You can use the MusicBrainz data either by browsing this web site, or you can access the data from a client program — for example, a CD player program can use...
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Online
- Android
- F-Droid
Discogs is a crowdsourced music database and marketplace. Discover music, buy and sell music with collectors in the Marketplace in all physical formats.
+10
Launched online in 1990 and a subsidiary of Amazon.com since 1998, IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content, designed to help fans explore the world of movies and shows and decide what to watch.
License model
- Freemium • Proprietary
Application types
Platforms
- Online
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- iPad
- Kindle Fire
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
Track your TV shows and movies automatically with media integration and mobile check-ins. Discover new favorites and use the extensive API across platforms.
License model
- Freemium • Proprietary
Application types
Platforms
- Online
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- iPad
+5
Metacritic's proprietary Metascore distills the opinions of the most respected critics writing online and in print to a single number.
Rotten Tomatoes and the Tomatometer score are the world’s most trusted recommendation resources for quality entertainment. As the leading online aggregator of movie and TV show reviews from critics, we provide fans with a comprehensive guide to what’s Fresh – and what’s Rotten –...
3. Media Managers
Media managers are programs designed to oversee the automation of your media collection. They take metadata for content you are interested in, track what you already have and what you still need, then watch indexes as content becomes available
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Windows
- Linux
- Mac
- FreeBSD
+1
A fork of Sonarr that is targeted for Movies. It isn't yet perfect, but it is getting very close to being able to be a full on replacement for Couchpotato.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Lidarr is a music collection manager for downloading and organizing music libraries. It is a fork of Sonarr designed for music.
+4
Currently the only option for music that comes close to functionality in terms of its equivilents in the television and movie categories.
Readarr is an ebook and audiobook collection manager for Usenet and BitTorrent users. It can monitor multiple RSS feeds for new books from your favorite authors and will grab, sort, and rename them. Note that only one type of a given book is supported.
+6
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Self-Hosted
4. Search & Indexer Utilities
Prowlarr is an indexer manager/proxy to integrate with your various PVR apps. Prowlarr supports management of both Torrent Trackers and Usenet Indexers. It integrates seamlessly with Lidarr, Mylar3, Radarr, Readarr, and Sonarr.
An NZB indexer proxy which supports built in result deduplication, load balancing queries across multiple upstream servers, result caching, and nzb caching. Also can be used as a search engine directly and can send desired results to download managers.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
A torznab proxy which adds support for various bittorrent trackers to any media manager which supports the newznab API. Meaning any media manager which doesn't natively support a given bittorrent tracker for searching, can now be utilized indirectly through Jackett.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Online
- Self-Hosted
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Online
- Self-Hosted
5. Downloaders
NNTP binary client. NZBGet performs better than SABnzbd in my testing by a factor of 4:1, however does not have all the bells and whistles as SABnzbd. Meaning some downloads that may fail in NZBget don't fail in SABnzbd. Only negative is that article sets that have lots of missing articles on primary servers, will cause the queue to slow down due to the way the logic handles how and when articles are fetched. Meaning an article set that has a high number of missing articles can block your queue where as NZBGet's competitor, SABnzbd would begin simultaneously starting the next article set in queue, meaining you don't have idle bandwidth going to waste if using SABnzbd. That said, all things considered, I prefer NZBget over SABnzbd due to the massive performance difference on downloading, reassembly, and unpacking.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- BSD
- Self-Hosted
+12
NNTP binary client. Uses more CPU than NZBGet but it is a time tested and proven client, and powers through circumstances where NZBGet may fail. SAB uses a non-blocking method of trying secondary servers for articles.
Transmission has the features you expect in a BitTorrent client: encryption, a web-based interface, peer exchange, UPnP and NAT-PMP port forwarding, web seed support, watch directories, tracker editing, global and per-torrent speed limits, and more.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- Flathub
- PortableApps.com
- Haiku
- Cloudron
- Xfce
+3
Combined online storage and torrent download service that lets you fetch and stream media without downloading to your computer.
6. Presentation & Playback
#1. My number one choice for media playback of any type. Integrated sharing, accessibility via real time conversion and streaming or raw file bitstreaming to the Plex app made for every platform on any device.
License model
- Freemium • Proprietary
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Chrome OS
- Android Tablet
- Windows Phone
- iPad
- Apple TV
- Daydream
- Kindle Fire
- Android TV
- Kodi
- Roku
+3
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- BSD
- iPad
- Flathub
- Flatpak
- Raspberry Pi
- Fire TV
+5
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- BSD
- iPad
- AppImageHub
- Apple Watch
- Snapcraft
- Google Chrome
- Apple TV
- Flathub
- PortableApps.com
- F-Droid
- Kindle Fire
- Haiku
- Android TV
- Homebrew
- Chocolatey
+4
Honorable Mentions
Apps that are noteworthy.
Download videos from YouTube and over 1000 sites using a platform-independent command-line tool, requiring Python. Integration with other programs is possible.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- Python
- TrueOS
Watcher is an automated movie NZB & Torrent searcher and snatcher. You can add a list of wanted movies and Watcher will automatically send the NZB or Torrent to your download client.
FlexGet is a multipurpose automation tool for all of your media Support for torrents, nzbs, podcasts, comics, TV, movies, RSS, HTML, CSV, and more.
+1
OpenFLIXR Media Server is an all-in-one media server for automated downloading and serving media. Tools like CouchPotato, SickRage, Headphones and SABnzbd to download and Plex Media Server to bring everything to your screens.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Self-Hosted
- CouchPotato
- SickRage
- SABnzbd
- Plex
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Online
- Self-Hosted
+5
Medusa is a TV episode manager with a focus on anime and handling the anime episode numbering scheme.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Self-Hosted
Cardigann is a torznab proxy search similar to Jackett but written in Go language. Cardigann compliments Jackett as it has support for many trackers which Jackett does not and vise versa.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Linux
A stable and well supported fork of SickBeard. SickBeard balances continued development with good testing and quality control. It's the safe choice when needing something more up to date than SickBeard but more stable than SickRage.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Self-Hosted
+3
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Self-Hosted
- Cloudron
Discontinued, but has some awesome features like adding subscriptions t to iTunes top movies, and auto updating these and submitting them to your media managers.
+1
The original PVR for TV episodes from usenet. From SickBeard came the forks SickRage, then later SickGear. SickBeard slowed development and became stale. SickRage picked up where SickBeard left off, and SickGear is a newer fork of SickRage with an emphasis in quality control on software testing and deployment.
cTiVo grabs tv shows from your TiVo via your network, and can transcode them or simply place and organize them into a local or network folder. It can automatically delete the successfully transferred content off your TiVo keeping space available for more content.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Platforms
- Mac
+2
Free e-book manager offering library management, multi-format conversion, syncing to devices, news download as e-books, built-in viewer, editor, and privacy.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- Self-Hosted
- Flathub
- PortableApps.com
- Homebrew
+4
Calibre Web is a web UI to Calibre, a utility for automating book downloading and library management.
Emby, formerly Media Browser, is a media aggregator plugin for Media Center that takes your recorded, digital, or ripped media and presents it in a simple, easy to use interface. Emby prides itself on delivering a fast, intuitive, media rich experience for the whole family.
License model
- Freemium • Proprietary
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- BSD
- Windows Phone
- iPad
- Self-Hosted
- Apple TV
- Kindle Fire
- Cloudron
- Playstation
- Xbox
+3
Mylar has been replaced by Mylar3, an updated version of Mylar coded in Python 3.
MediaPortal, MP3tag and MPTagThat deserve at least honorable mention!