Is there a good app for stream music?
Too Expensive: 59 apps already serve this, and 30 data points mined from real user reviews across 2 sources show where they fall short. The job is solved but priced beyond a segment. Undercut with a cheaper tier.
Data refreshed September 7, 2026 · scores recompute weekly as new reviews are mined, so re-check before you build.
The product here is the licensed music, not the software. Spotify and Apple Music pay the major labels huge guaranteed advances (and gave them equity) to carry their catalogs, and three labels control 70%+ of recorded music. A better player with no catalog is worthless, and a solo dev can't license the world's music — even well-funded Rdio died trying.
Moat: the licensed catalog is the product · why: Spotify pays ~2/3 of revenue to rights holders · 3 major labels control 70%+ of recorded music · labels took equity in Spotify for catalog access · Rdio shut down despite VC funding
What users complain about
The most common complaints behind apps that try to stream music, mined and clustered from real reviews:
| Complaint area | Type | Mentions | What a user said |
|---|---|---|---|
| music-provider-support | missing-feature | 3 | ADD YOUTUBE MUSIC |
| streaming quotes | missing-feature | 2 | ability keep quotes streaming. Garbage app |
| on-demand song playback | missing-feature | 1 | wish I could have more songs...doesn't always put it on |
| song recognition on streaming platforms | reliability | 1 | Very often it cannot find songs or music that is streamed on popular platforms |
| local music playback | missing-feature | 1 | no way to play your own music easily |
| offline music access | bug | 1 | Won't I'd music when offline. Says it is saved but never is |
| multi-platform streaming | missing-feature | 1 | make it so people that stream on xbox can also multi stream to YouTube |
| slow music download to watch | performance | 1 | It's been over six hours over high speed internet to download a few songs |
| pay to listen to more music | price | 1 | Have to pay to listen to more music |
| song playback access | reliability | 1 | hardly ever lets me play the songs I want to |
| offline playback for non-downloaded songs | missing-feature | 1 | when I don't have WiFi my music doesn't work |
| paid listening for owned music | price | 1 | way Apple has monetized me hearing music I have purchased |
Apps that already serve this
| App | Rating | Ratings | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| SoundCloud: The Music You Love | 4.8 | 2,001,345 | Free |
| Spotify: Music and Podcasts | 4.8 | 42,070,029 | Free |
| Amazon Music: Songs & Podcasts | 4.7 | 3,344,294 | Free |
| YouTube Music | 4.8 | 1,515,215 | Free |
| Pandora: Music & Podcasts | 4.8 | 11,305,104 | Free |
| Apple Music | 4.9 | 3,106,058 | Free |
| Music : Cloud Music Streaming | 4.6 | 10,836 | Free |
| Demus: Easy Music Streaming | 4.1 | 22 | Free |
Should you build it?
The job is solved but priced beyond a segment. Undercut with a cheaper tier. Opportunity here scores 55 out of 100 — a function of demand, how crowded the field is, and how badly the existing apps perform. Use the live map to compare it against adjacent tasks.
Who has tried building this
7 attempts, nearly all active and led by a 47k-star giant — a fiercely live, mature space with entrenched incumbents.
| Project | Status | Stars | Stack |
|---|---|---|---|
| KRTirtho/spotube | active | 46,939 | Dart |
| navidrome/navidrome | active | 21,680 | Go |
| nukeop/nuclear | active | 17,789 | TypeScript |
| koel/koel | active | 17,162 | PHP |
| vfsfitvnm/ViMusic | abandoned | 9,445 | Kotlin |
| blackcandy-org/blackcandy | active | 4,267 | Ruby |
| gokadzev/Musify | active | 3,976 | Dart |
Open-source projects that attempted this task — active ones show today's bar; abandoned ones are a signal to validate why earlier attempts died.
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