Find music and request it from Lidarr or nexcrate with one click.
nexbeat is a small, self-hosted companion to Lidarr, built in the spirit of Nexview: accounts with invitations, per-user quotas counted by request, optional approval, and a discovery page that recommends artists based on what the library and each user already have.
Status: stable. Used daily against Lidarr and nexcrate.
The screenshots show a throwaway instance with a few well-known artists as its library.
- Discover: "for you" and "because you listen to" rows from ListenBrainz similar-artist data, plus weekly trends. Artists already in the library are left out.
- Genres: browse twenty main genres. A genre page shows the most played artists and albums of that genre and related genres to follow. Artists in the library stay in the list, marked as such.
- Search artists and releases in MusicBrainz, browse discographies and similar artists, listen to 30 second previews.
- Request a single album, EP or single. In ARR mode unknown artists are added to Lidarr with only the requested album monitored.
- Whole artists: one request for every studio album and future ones. Only offered when the metadata profile keeps Lidarr to official studio albums.
- Quotas count requests per day, week or month. Rejected and failed requests do not count.
- Accounts: invitations and password reset by email, or as a link to pass on when no mail server is set up.
- About and updates: version, source and licence in the footer. After an update every account sees once what is new; administrators see when a newer version is out.
nexbeat never changes Lidarr settings. It adds and monitors artists and albums and starts searches, nothing else.
Two modes. The administrator picks where requests go. In ARR mode it is
Lidarr, as described above. In NEX mode it is nexcrate, through its
interface for other programs (/api/v1, contract 1 with music): nexbeat asks
for albums and whole artists (studio albums only), reads their state in batches
and listens to nexcrate's event stream, so a change shows up within seconds.
Connecting takes one step: nexbeat asks for a key, nexcrate shows a code, the
owner confirms it there. A key made by hand works too. nexbeat changes nothing
in nexcrate's settings either. Switching modes hands open requests to the new
program once.
mkdir nexbeat && cd nexbeat
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DerKezorm/nexbeat/main/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -dOpen http://<your-host>:8030 and create the first account. It becomes the
administrator. Then, under Settings:
- Services, Target: choose ARR or NEX mode.
- Lidarr: address, API key, root folder, quality and metadata profile. If users should be able to request whole artists, pick a metadata profile that allows official studio albums only. nexbeat checks this and says why when it does not fit.
- nexcrate: enter its address and connect, then confirm the code in nexcrate with the rights Read and Request. nexbeat shows whether nexcrate's music version is ready (profile, indexer with music categories, download client); that is set up in nexcrate, not here.
- Mail (optional): for invitations and password resets. Without a mail server, nexbeat hands out the links for you to pass on.
- Users: invite people, set their quota and whether their requests need approval.
In ARR mode the tab also shows a webhook address. Entered in Lidarr, it lets nexbeat notice finished downloads right away; without it, nexbeat checks every two minutes.
- Updating:
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d - Backing up: the whole data directory, the database and
secret.keytogether. Without the key, the stored credentials cannot be read. - Images are built for amd64 and arm64.
latestfollows releases,mainthe current development state.
cd backend
python -m venv .venv
.venv/Scripts/python.exe -m pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
.venv/Scripts/python.exe -m uvicorn app.main:app --port 8030cd frontend
npm install
npm run devOpen http://localhost:5182 and create the first account.
MusicBrainz, Cover Art Archive and ListenBrainz (open data). Artist images and previews come from the public Deezer API and can be switched off.
Once a day nexbeat asks GitHub for its newest release to tell administrators about updates. Nothing but the request itself goes out, and it can be switched off on the About page.