# StemDeck

12 Hacker News commenters recommended StemDeck and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free, open-source stem separator that runs locally with no accounts, telemetry or cloud upload; one critic suspects the code is mostly vibe coded.

## Why people recommend it

- Local processing, no telemetry (2 comments): "Having zero-cloud, zero-telemetry local audio processing in a clean native UI is a huge win." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49487275)) "There are no accounts, advertisements, subscriptions, credits, quotas, or telemetry." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49486082))
- Enthusiastic praise from users (3 comments): "this is amazing with tons of granular functionality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49514057)) "Superb. I am so glad you built this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49492708)) "very nice, excited to try it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49488451))
- Consistent support and positive community (2 comments): "The price is fine for what it does and the consistency, support and positive energy that comes with it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49492555)) "Thank you for bringing back that more hopeful, joyous part of the web and the music community." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49487422))

## What people warn about

- Includes a silly, out-of-place element (1 comments): "a very silly thing to include in an otherwise perfectly legitimate project" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49487933))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Demucs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/demucs.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

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