# Last.fm 120 Hacker News commenters recommended Last.fm and 33 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 20 years (30 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** People use it to log decades of listening history and find new music through similar listeners and neighbors, though many feel features have been stripped over the years. ## Why people recommend it - Long-term listening history tracking (8 comments): "I still scrobble to Last.fm from Spotify (and other media players). I rarely use it for discovery anymore, but it's occasionally interesting to look at my historical listening trends." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47531848)) "I'm still using it, connected through Spotify! 23 years and counting, and it pretty much captured 100% of my listening activity." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48301590)) "Last.fm was great -- I never used it that much for discovery, but rather to get insight into what I was listening to." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268631)) - Discovery via neighbors and similar listeners (8 comments): "Using a platform like last.fm where it’s clearer that recommendations are based on genres and similar listeners is still ok and encouraged" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49932582)) "I would say my current music taste is largely thanks to Last.fm and its compatibility and "Similar Artists" features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268893)) "everything is still connected with last.fm too, so once a while I'll also take a look at my neighbours there" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48934307)) - Detailed listening stats breakdowns (3 comments): "Last.fm is great! I do like the breakdowns you can do there, especially the query for the top songs/artists of the last 30 days, year & all time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46490850)) "It's really cool seeing how my music taste has changed, and seeing what I've come back to over and over again." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46277032)) "I use it with Spotify to track my listens and sort by artist, album and the like." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48296253)) - Stable, usable API (3 comments): "The API hasn't really changed in 15 years, which makes it easy to build tools where a username alone is enough." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46267491)) "Glad they're not changing the API! I'm hopeful things will get better with them regaining their independence." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48302938)) "am able to generate recommendations via their API just fine and without being a pro subscriber" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48299197)) ## What people warn about - Features and customization stripped away (3 comments): "They turned off their music player, disabled all the profile customization, alternative services quit having built in scrobbling to it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46268405)) "they have recently taken a rather drastic step towards undermining this community aspect of the site by gating the comment" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48299441)) "It stripped so much functionality that the site became useless except for merely tracking one's own listens" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49905452)) - Account sign-up blocked by firewall (3 comments): "Your request was blocked. To protect our website, our security firewall has flagged this request as potentially unsafe." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48298878)) "The wrong guesses apparently blocked me, since the sign-up page now always goes 403 for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48301025)) "unable to create an account on my laptop (WiFi) or phone (Verizon) - even in incognito." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48296863)) - Inconsistent or less open API (2 comments): "How is it possible that two almost identical endpoints have the key names differ on several spots or complete absent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49904426)) "I still use it to scrobble. I hope it goes back to the more open api" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48301096)) - Privacy concerns about public tracking (2 comments): "I've become much more wary of being tracked and have no desire to give them information for free, much less pay for the privilege!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48300209)) "I've cooled on Last.fm in recent years because I've realized that it's a very good, public indicator of when I'm at my desk." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48167614)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Rocksky](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rocksky.md): 10 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.last.fm/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Last.fm", https://hackerapproved.com/p/last-fm/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).