This uses librespot for the actual communication with Spotify's servers.
Note that to get it to support Spotify Free, you need to compile a custom librespot with this part of the code commented out, that checks for Spotify Premium: https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot/blob/6dc7a11b09b5...
And then use this with spotifyd instead of the original.
In Spotifydlibrespot-org
librespot
Rust2018–2026
librespot-org / librespot
librespot
Open Source Spotify client library
33Distinct people
38Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
7.4KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Open Source Spotify client library
GitHub
Where it is used
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What people are saying
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 8:03:49 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
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HN mentions by year38 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-10-19 19:54:21 UTC to 2026-09-01 20:55:20 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
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| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 1 | 7 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 13 | 1 | 12 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Current maintainers are listed on GitHub.
librespot
librespot is an open source client library for Spotify. It enables applications to use Spotify's service to control and play music via various backends, and to act as a Spotify Connect receiver. It is an alternative to the official and now deprecated closed-source libspotify. Additionally, it will provide extra features which are not available in the official library.
Note: librespot only works with Spotify Premium. This will remain the case. We will not support any features to make librespot compatible with free accounts, such as limited skips and adverts.
Quick start
We're available on crates.io as the librespot package. Simply run cargo install librespot to install librespot on your system. Check the wiki for more info and possible usage options.
After installation, you can run librespot from the CLI using a command such as librespot -n "Librespot Speaker" -b 160 to create a speaker called Librespot Speaker serving 160 kbps audio.
This fork
As the origin by plietar is no longer actively maintained, this organisation and repository have been set up so that the project may be maintained and upgraded in the future.
Documentation
Documentation is currently a work in progress, contributions are welcome!
There is some brief documentation on how the protocol works in the docs folder.
COMPILING.md contains detailed instructions on setting up a development environment, and compiling librespot. More general usage and compilation information is available on the wiki.
CONTRIBUTING.md also contains our contributing guidelines.
If you wish to learn more about how librespot works overall, the best way is to simply read the code, and ask any questions you have in our Gitter Room.
Issues & Discussions
We have recently started using Github discussions for general questions and feature requests, as they are a more natural medium for such cases, and allow for upvoting to prioritize feature development. Check them out here. Bugs and issues with the underlying library should still be reported as issues.
If you run into a bug when using librespot, please search the existing issues before opening a new one. Chances are, we've encountered it before, and have provided a resolution. If not, please open a new one, and where possible, include the backtrace librespot generates on crashing, along with anything we can use to reproduce the issue, e.g. the Spotify URI of the song that caused the crash.
Building
A quick walkthrough of the build process is outlined below, while a detailed compilation guide can be found here.
Additional Dependencies
We recently switched to using Rodio for audio playback by default, hence for macOS and Windows, you should just be able to clone and build librespot (with the command below).
For Linux, you will need to run the additional commands below, depending on your distro.
On Debian/Ubuntu, the following command will install these dependencies:
sudo apt-get install build-essential libasound2-dev
On Fedora systems, the following command will install these dependencies:
sudo dnf install alsa-lib-devel make gcc
librespot currently offers the following selection of audio backends:
Rodio (default)
ALSA
GStreamer
PortAudio
PulseAudio
JACK
JACK over Rodio
SDL
Pipe
Subprocess
Please check COMPILING.md for detailed information on TLS, audio, and discovery backend dependencies, or the Compiling entry on the wiki for additional backend specific dependencies.
Once you've installed the dependencies and cloned this repository you can build librespot with the default features using Cargo.
cargo build --release
By default, this builds with native-tls (system TLS), rodio audio backend, and libmdns discovery. See COMPILING.md for information on selecting different TLS, audio, and discovery backends.
Packages
librespot is also available via official package system on various operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD. Repology offers a good overview.
Usage
A sample program implementing a headless Spotify Connect receiver is provided.
Once you've built librespot, run it using :
target/release/librespot --name DEVICENAME
The above is a minimal example. Here is a more fully fledged one:
target/release/librespot -n "Librespot" -b 320 -c ./cache --enable-volume-normalisation --initial-volume 75 --device-type avr
The above command will create a receiver named Librespot, with bitrate set to 320 kbps, initial volume at 75%, with volume normalisation enabled, and the device displayed in the app as an Audio/Video Receiver. A folder named cache will be created/used in the current directory, and be used to cache audio data and credentials.
A full list of runtime options is available here.
Please Note: When using the cache feature, an authentication blob is stored for your account in the cache directory. For security purposes, we recommend that you set directory permissions on the cache directory to 700.
Contact
Come and hang out on gitter if you need help or want to offer some:
https://gitter.im/librespot-org/spotify-connect-resources
Disclaimer
Using this code to connect to Spotify's API is probably forbidden by them.
Use at your own risk.
License
Everything in this repository is licensed under the MIT license.
Related Projects
This is a non exhaustive list of projects that either use or have modified librespot. If you'd like to include yours, submit a PR.
librespot-golang - A golang port of librespot.
plugin.audio.spotify - A Kodi plugin for Spotify.
raspotify - A Spotify Connect client that mostly Just Works™
Spotifyd - A stripped down librespot UNIX daemon.
rpi-audio-receiver - easy Raspbian install scripts for Spotifyd, Bluetooth, Shairport and other audio receivers
Spotcontrol - A golang implementation of a Spotify Connect controller. No Playback functionality.
librespot-java - A Java port of librespot.
ncspot - Cross-platform ncurses Spotify client.
ansible-role-librespot - Ansible role that will build, install and configure Librespot.
Spot - Gtk/Ru
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
13 sourcesBut you can, in the case of spotify: https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot
In Ask HN: Anyone tired of everything being a subscription now?Have you tried searching for something like "high cpu usage spotify helper" and following the troubleshooting steps?
Odds are, not everyone using Spotify has it use 90% of the CPU as otherwise few people would actually use it, I certainly wouldn't.
Personally, Spotify is right now using about 3% of my CPU when playing songs on Linux, Spotify 1.1.72.439, which doesn't seem so bad to me. It uses more RAM than expected though, but not really a problem that makes me go "How do people accept such abuse?!"
Edit: if you want to solve the problem for yourself and like the service Spotify while not liking the client they offer, you can try open source 3rd party clients based on librespot (https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot/), some of them work really well.
In Ask HN: Why Spotify Helper consumes 90% of my CPU?Yes, you wouldn't get this running on an existing smart speaker (without first rooting it and some serious hacking).
If you'r in the Apple ecosystem and are using AirPlay with your smart speaker(s), it's however possible to also play synchronized audio across to your own DIY speaker setup, using another open source project.
https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync
Or you could of course choose to only use your old dumb speakers with this, and they will pop up as easily selectable sound output devices on all Apple devices connected to your network.
Or combine it (and librespot[2], owntone[3]...) with Snapcast to create a virtual speaker for your whole house that shows up everywhere.
[2] https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot
[3] https://github.com/owntone/owntone-server
In Modernizing my 1980s sound systemIt's not, really – AFAIK the audio is just AES-encypted with a per-session key that you get when logging in (but it's been a long time since I looked). There are a bunch of open implementations, like https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot – I guess it's kind of an open secret that you could rip music if you really wanted to, and you certainly used to be able to do that with libspotify when it was still around. I imagine the lawyers will come for you if you're silly enough to bang on about it.
Certainly there's no need for "special hardware decoders" – Spotify works on loads of devices that have no support for that kind of thing.
In Unofficial Spotify Client for the Nintendo Switch (PoC)Spotify: Suddenly unable to play any tracks · librespot
2 points · Open discussionIn favor of the alternative SDK, whose native SDK seems to be just around the corner. Otherwise there is always librespot (https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot).
7 years to go from announcing the deprecation to actually removing it seems fair to me. Miles difference from what I'd expect any other company to do (looking at you Google, who seem to announce a deprecation and go through with it in the very same month).
In Dear Spotify, can we just get a table of songs?My raspotify/librespot install stopped working last week until i blocked apresolve.spotify.com on my network.
It seems they are switching some regions to a CDN that is not supported by librespot. There is some discussion on the librespot issues github page (https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot/issues/972)
In Sunset of libspotifyAt least there is still https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot I just hope they don't rely on libspotify's api endpoints or I need a new solutions for my Raspberry Pi connected speakers.
In Sunset of libspotifyIs this an alternative?
https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot
In Sunset of libspotifyIn the authenticate function of librespot:
https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot/blob/650d41b02069...
.set_system_information_string(format!("librespot_{}_{}", version::SHA_SHORT, version::BUILD_ID));
In Oggify: Download Songs Directly from SpotifyIt's based on librespot[1] which has been there for a while. Spotify used to official support "libspotify" to download .ogg files, but that was very early stuff that got deprecated in favor of platform specific APIs.
[1] https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot
In Oggify: Download Songs Directly from Spotify> alternative Spotify front ends can only ever control the official Spotify app and Spotify Connect devices which is a real shame
I haven’t used Spotify for a long time since switching from Spotify Premium to Apple Music, but I know of a third party open source library that might be of interest to people who have Spotify Premium and would like to explore alternative frontends:
> librespot is an open source client library for Spotify. It enables applications to use Spotify's service to control and play music via various backends, and to act as a Spotify Connect receiver.
https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot
More details from same GitHub page:
> A sample program implementing a headless Spotify Connect receiver is provided. Once you've built librespot, run it using :
> target/release/librespot --name DEVICENAME
> The above is a minimal
Read the rest
example. Here is a more fully fledged one:
> target/release/librespot -n "Librespot" -b 320 -c ./cache --enable-volume-normalisation --initial-volume 75 --device-type avr
> The above command will create a receiver named Librespot, with bitrate set to 320 kbps, initial volume at 75%, with volume normalisation enabled, and the device displayed in the app as an Audio/Video Receiver. A folder named cache will be created/used in the current directory, and be used to cache audio data and credentials.