Familiar Player vs Plinth Player

Familiar is a self-hosted music player that understands the sound of your music, not just its metadata. Ask for "something that sounds like rain on a window" and it actually works. Point Familiar at your own home server (macOS Docker, Linux, Synology, OpenMediaVault — whatever you run). Nothing leaves your network. No cloud accounts, no subscriptions, no tracking. • AI chat and playlist creation — Powered by the Claude API using your own key. Describe a mood, a setting, a vibe; Familiar pulls from your library. • Semantic audio search — CLAP embeddings let you match by how music sounds, not just artist or genre. • Deep feature analysis — BPM, key, energy, brightness, danceability, valence, instrumentalness, and more, extracted on your server. • Ambient mode — continuous drone plus ghostly snippets from your library, tuned to the current key. • Community analysis cache — opt in to share anonymized audio fingerprints so others skip hours of analysis, and benefit from theirs. • Smart playlists — rules-based playlists that update automatically as your library changes. • Offline playback, lock-screen controls, synced lyrics (LRCLIB), Last.fm scrobbling. • Works with FLAC, ALAC, MP3, AAC, Ogg, Opus. Familiar is open-source (MIT) and requires you to run your own backend. Setup guides for Docker, macOS, and common NAS platforms are on GitHub.

Plinth puts your own music library in your pocket. If you run Emby or Jellyfin — or someone in your life does — Plinth is the native iPhone app that connects straight to your server. No re-uploading your collection to someone else's cloud. No subscription to listen to music you already own. Just your library, the way you organised it, wherever you go. Stream or take it offline Play anything on your server over Wi-Fi or cellular, or download albums, playlists, and podcast episodes to your iPhone for the gym, the plane, or the subway. Downloads are yours to keep until you remove them, and Plinth shows you exactly what's stored and how much space it's using. Built for real libraries • Browse by album, artist, song, or playlist • High-quality playback, including lossless FLAC and ALAC • Create playlists in the app — they sync back to your Emby server • Podcast shows and episodes alongside your music • A Home screen that surfaces your playlists and recent listening • Clean offline mode with a clear banner when you're off-network Your server, your rules Plinth talks directly to your own Emby or Jellyfin instance. Your music never passes through our servers — we don't have any. Sign in with your existing server account and you're listening in seconds. Connect over HTTPS for a secure link, or your local network at home. Made for everyone in the house Whether you run a full home-lab NAS or you're just signing into a family member's server, Plinth keeps the setup simple: enter your server address, sign in, and play. Private by design No ads. No tracking. No account with us. Plinth connects only to the server you tell it to. Read our privacy policy at https://www.zielsdorfsolutions.com/plinth/privacy. Plinth is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Emby LLC or the Jellyfin project. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/