mpd
Daemon to remotely play music, stream music, handle and organize playlists. Many clients available.
Maintained, but at a slower pace than the leaders in its category.
Commit activity more than 70% of tracked projects; popularity more than 56%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
| Stars | 2.8k |
|---|---|
| Latest release | — |
| Repo updated | 27 Aug 2026 |
| Licence | GPL-2.0 |
| Built with | C++ |
Is mpd actively maintained?
mpd is under active development: 637 commits landed over the last 11 months, averaging roughly 97 commits a month in the most recent quarter.
Activity is accelerating: the last quarter carried 54% more commits than the one before it.
No tagged releases are published, so there is no stable version to pin to — you would deploy from the default branch or a container image built from it.
mpd ranks #11 of 28 in Media Streaming - Audio Streaming, placing it mid-table for maintenance activity.
What mpd actually does
mpd is a background service that runs on your server to manage, organise, and stream audio collections. Because it operates headless, you connect to it using separate client applications to control playback and manage your playlists remotely.
Best fit: It is well-suited for tech-savvy users who want a lightweight, decentralised audio backend that can be controlled from various client devices across a local network.
Worth knowing: You will need to configure and manage a separate client application to interact with the daemon, as it does not provide a built-in user interface out of the box.
Deployment notes
As a C++ daemon, it typically runs as a system service with access to local storage for your audio files and does not usually require an external database.
Links
Alternatives to mpd
Projects in the same categories, ordered by health score.
Web based audio/video streaming application.
Music library manager and MusicBrainz tagger (command-line and Web interface).
Music streaming server with GUI management tools. Runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Modern Music Server and Streamer, compatible with Subsonic/Airsonic.
Scrobble plays from multiple sources to multiple scrobbling services.
Audiobook and podcast server. It streams all audio formats, keeps and syncs progress across devices. Comes with apps for Android and iOS.