ListenBrainz
Hacker ApprovedScrobbling service
Open-source Last.fm alternative that tracks listening history and recommends music, with open data and no monetization. Matching can be fuzzy for covers and live performances.
Open-source Last.fm alternative that tracks listening history and recommends music, with open data and no monetization. Matching can be fuzzy for covers and live performances.
23 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 96%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 22 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Open, exportable listening data
“listenbrainz supports uploading your Spotify backup raw, and will keep it all in a easily parseseable, query-able backup”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “How I archived 10 years of memories using Spotify” “I've moved over to ListenBrainz, it's quite nice and I like that the data is open and not trying to be monitized”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Last.fm is now independent” Recommendations from listening history
“You can use ListenBrainz to discover new music based on your listening activity from your self-hosted library.”
Comment from 6 Jan 2026 in “How Spotify Made Me Self Host” “Then, logged in, I look here for "for you" tab recommendations”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “The state of Linux music players in 2026” “which has a recommendations mechanism”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “Why media fans want to escape algorithms with CDs, DVDs and vinyl” Works with Navidrome and Last.fm
“You could scrobble to Last.fm or ListenBrainz to track your personal library listens.”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Last.fm is now independent” “is an open source alternative to Last.fm that I can confirm works with Navidrome”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “Why media fans want to escape algorithms with CDs, DVDs and vinyl” “Listenbrainz has a page that allows you to fetch your history from last.fm”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Last.fm is now independent” - Comment from 6 Jan 2026 in “How Spotify Made Me Self Host”
Hosted, no self-hosting needed
“an open source alternative that you don’t have to host yourself”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “2002: Last.fm and Audioscrobbler Herald the Social Web” “a decent alternative if you don't want to self-host”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “RSS Feeds for Last.fm”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Fuzzy matching on covers and live tracks
“Listenbrainz is the closest I've found because it just has Title and Artist, but even that can be fuzzy for covers and live performances.”
Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “Music Discovery”
What people said
25 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“if you don't mind making it public it would help train open source recommendation algorithms”
“which has a recommendations mechanism”
“is an open source alternative to Last.fm that I can confirm works with Navidrome”
“a decent alternative if you don't want to self-host”
“Listenbrainz has a page that allows you to fetch your history from last.fm”
“You could scrobble to Last.fm or ListenBrainz to track your personal library listens.”
“I've moved over to ListenBrainz, it's quite nice and I like that the data is open and not trying to be monitized”
“I don’t see how LB has a worse UX than LFM.”
“which is also self-hostable”
“they seem to intentionally go and make everything as utterly ugly as possible”
“has been an excellent alternative for me”
“some recommendations with clearer ownership”
“I've heard good things about Listenbrainz”
“Listenbrainz is the closest I've found because it just has Title and Artist, but even that can be fuzzy for covers and live performances.”
“Then, logged in, I look here for "for you" tab recommendations”
“Find new released music on Listenbrainz”
“You can use ListenBrainz to discover new music based on your listening activity from your self-hosted library.”
“I've recently started using ListenBrainz in combination with Navidrome.”
“are better if you actually want to track these things”
“listenbrainz supports uploading your Spotify backup raw, and will keep it all in a easily parseseable, query-able backup”
“Listenbrainz has a really intuitive and permissive api!”
“I find myself exploring more on listenbrainz”
“It keeps working like little magical tool in the background.”
“with the advantage that it leverages the musicbrainz database and connects listens to artist and track IDs instead of names”
“an open source alternative that you don’t have to host yourself”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.