# Nightingale karaoke app

26 Hacker News commenters recommended Nightingale karaoke app and 14 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free, open-source karaoke app that works with any song on your computer, though critics say it downloads its own binaries and can fail to start.

## Why people recommend it

- Free and open source, no premium tier (2 comments): "The whole stack is open source. No premium tier, no "open core" - just the app." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422943)) "Open source, local and passion driven." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47423823))
- Works with almost any song (3 comments): "Being able to go to a party with just the deck and a microphone and have a karaoke with any song people want sounds good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47426239)) "Processed Kenny Rogers' The Gambler perfectly - took out the lead vocal but left the backing vocals." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47426769)) "The beauty of the approach is that you don't have any limitations." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47425240))

## What people warn about

- Downloads its own runtime and binaries (4 comments): "How come this is trying to install its own vendored dependencies, including executable binaries, instead of checking for what's already installed?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47426648)) "the application didn't work because it couldn't find the Python interpreter that it itself downloaded" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47427348)) "This app should have probably bundled the runtime instead of downloading a new one though." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47428419))
- Vibecoded with questionable tradeoffs (4 comments): ""Why does this new software do X?" is probably answered by "the vibe worked on my system"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47430182)) "Because the person who vibecoded this had no idea they should have been doing that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47426729)) "The app is vibecoded. The author isn't making decisions about these tradeoffs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47431306))
- Lyrics fail to sync on some songs (2 comments): "Just tried it with B.E.D - Walk Away, unfortunately it lost track of the lyrics after 30 secs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424152)) "It fetched the lyrics but didn't seem to be able to align them so no lyrics show up." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47432906))
- Leaves vocals on some songs (3 comments): "it's not removing the singing at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47424935)) "when there are multiple singers harmonizing it only removes one" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47425172)) "Just tried No_4mat's 1992... unfortunately it didn't work :(" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47427322))

## Cite as

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