Which Music Sources and Streaming Services Does cliamp Support?

Updated

cliamp connects to streaming services (Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal, YouTube Music, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, NetEase, Yandex Music), self-hosted media servers (Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, Navidrome, Lyrion), local audio files, podcast feeds, and roughly 58,000 internet radio stations. Every source feeds the same playlist, 10-band equalizer, visualizer, and synced-lyrics pipeline, so you don't learn a different interface per service. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with an Android build linked from the site, and is MIT licensed.

Streaming services

Service Notes from the site
Spotify Listed as a supported streaming provider
Qobuz Listed as a supported streaming provider
Tidal Listed as a supported streaming provider
YouTube Music Listed; YouTube playback needs yt-dlp installed
SoundCloud Listed; needs yt-dlp
Mixcloud Listed; needs yt-dlp
NetEase Listed; needs yt-dlp
Yandex Music Listed as a supported streaming provider

The site also names Bandcamp and Bilibili as sources that rely on yt-dlp. Running cliamp setup walks you through connecting streaming services and media servers, so credentials are handled there rather than through flags you have to memorize.

Self-hosted libraries

If you already run a media server, cliamp can act as a terminal front end for it:

  • Plex
  • Jellyfin
  • Emby
  • Navidrome
  • Lyrion

These are listed alongside the streaming services as first-class sources, meaning your own library gets the same playlist, EQ, and lyrics treatment as a commercial service.

Local files, podcasts, and radio

  • Local files: point cliamp at your own audio. The site notes that AAC, ALAC, Opus, and WMA playback requires ffmpeg installed.
  • Podcasts: podcast feeds are supported directly, so episodes sit in the same queue as music.
  • Internet radio: about 58,000 stations, browsable by country or genre. You can also pass a stream URL directly, e.g. cliamp https://radio.cliamp.stream/lofi/stream.pls, or launch straight into radio with cliamp --provider radio.

How radio favorites behave

Radio favorites are saved locally under Radio → Favorites, keyed by station URL and stored under the station name rather than the currently playing song. Station details, including region, survive a restart. Press f in the Catalog, in search results, or in the playback playlist to favorite a station. A few details worth knowing before you rely on them:

  • The header's star badge counts all starred rows, including ones scrolled offscreen.
  • Playlists with no favorited stations don't reserve a star column.
  • M3U/PLS wrappers keep their original station URL after playback resolution.
  • Toggling a favorite preserves your selected station and loaded catalog pages, even mid-load, and doesn't trigger extra catalog fetches.
  • On Linux and macOS, a shared file lock keeps favorite changes from multiple cliamp instances from clobbering each other.

What stays consistent across sources

The point of supporting this many sources is that the surrounding player doesn't change: one playlist model, a 10-band equalizer, 31 visualizers, synced lyrics, remote control, and Lua plugins. The site's own framing is "every source, one interface" — switching from a Tidal album to a Jellyfin track to a radio station doesn't change how you shuffle, EQ, or read lyrics.

Choosing based on your setup

  • You pay for a streaming service: connect it through cliamp setup and keep your existing library and playlists.
  • You self-host: Plex, Jellyfin, Emby, Navidrome, or Lyrion covers most home-server setups; pick whichever you already run.
  • You want zero accounts: local files plus the ~58,000-station radio catalog work without a streaming subscription.
  • You listen to YouTube-adjacent sources: install yt-dlp first, or YouTube Music, SoundCloud, Mixcloud, Bandcamp, Bilibili, and NetEase won't play.
  • You have lossless or niche codecs locally: install ffmpeg for AAC, ALAC, Opus, and WMA.

Install and verify

One-line install on Linux/macOS:

curl -fsSL https://cliamp.stream/install.sh | sh

Alternatives listed on the site: brew install bjarneo/cliamp/cliamp (Homebrew), yay -S cliamp (AUR), nix run github:bjarneo/cliamp, or go install github.com/bjarneo/cliamp@latest. Windows builds are in Releases.

After installing, run cliamp and let cliamp setup configure your services. To confirm a source works, start playback from it and check that the header shows the expected source (e.g. SRC [Radio]) and that the EQ and lyrics panels respond — if a yt-dlp-backed source fails, the missing dependency is the usual cause.