# MusicBrainz

24 Hacker News commenters recommended MusicBrainz and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free, freely licensed music metadata database that people use to tag, catalogue and look up releases. Critics mainly cite a poor user experience.

## Why people recommend it

- Detailed release and edition metadata (3 comments): "I greatly appreciate the pedantry and flexibility for noting down when creative works are the same versus where they differ" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47067011)) "Listing every issue of an album in every country and every format is precisely what Musicbrainz was founded for" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49906849)) "incredible well thought out postgres database that differentiates, for example, a recording from a release" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46349570))
- Free, openly licensed data (2 comments): "Musicbrainz can represent nearly everything musically related and its all freely licensed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45874814)) "it's a quick and easy way to contribute and then it's available for everyone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46626073))
- Helpful for tagging music files (2 comments): "Beets is what got me into MusicBrainz. It's an incredible resource." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45873975)) "super helpful for figuring metadata tags" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49984137))
- Broad coverage of releases (2 comments): "I very rarely come across releases that don't already exist on MusicBrainz." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49969061)) "It has a huge amount of stuff - it already had 95% of my collection" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47072622))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Discogs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/discogs.md): 12 recommend
- [RateYourMusic](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rateyourmusic.md): 8 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://musicbrainz.org/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "MusicBrainz", https://hackerapproved.com/p/musicbrainz/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).