Bandcamp implements Subsonic API
Bandcamp now implements the Subsonic API, which will allow you to stream your collection through the Subsonic clients that we support. (Right now, that’s Amperfy, Feishin, and Submariner. Others may work, you’re welcome to try.)
To get started, go to Fan Settings, scroll down to Subsonic, and generate your credentials. You can then add Bandcamp as a Subsonic or OpenSubsonic server in your Subsonic client with the server URL https://bandcamp.com/api/subsonic.
This is huge because it's a streaming company allowing your library to be consumed over an open standard (Subsonic API), rather than being locked down into some proprietary streaming app. Of course, with Bandcamp you could always just download the files, but if you streamed from the Bandcamp app, now you can alternatively stream over the open Subsonic API.
What it means is that you can use any desktop Subsonic client and type in Bandcamp's subsonic api address then view and play your collection from there.
It's a bit like a hypothetical situation where Spotify decides that their app is trash and lets people use any other music client rather than having to always use Spotify's own app.
https://blog.bandcamp.com/2026/07/16/discover-improvements-and-subsonic-implementation/Open linkView original on tarte.nuage-libre.fr
8 replies
That's kind of insane.
I can just log into my bandcamp account in feishin/symfonium.
Edit: Ok, doesn't seem to work on symfonium, but feishin is supported. I can't try that atm.
Edit: Nothing working on android it seems 🥲
I was able to get this working with Symfonium, though you do need to enable compatibility mode in the media provider settings. I do think this is an exciting development, as there are already so many great Subsonic clients, including Music Assistant.
Neat!
That got my library synced, fails to stream anything tho.
I've been curious about this too so I went and did some testing with subsonic/ opensubsonic compatible Android apps. Navidrome has a great list of those, great starting point! https://www.navidrome.org/apps/?platform=android&api=opensubsonic
The Bandcamp support does feel very beta right now, best I can tell it doesn't support all subsonic API endpoints so apps can have unexpected behavior. Bandcamp seems to support Artists and Albums listings / browsing / playback well enough, but it doesn't support searches. Downloads sort of work too if the app supports it.
From light testing I found Resonus, Substreamer, Firmium seem to work okay for browsing/playing artists and albums. OTOH Tempo and Tempus crash out as soon as you add a Bandcamp server , and Airdrome errors when trying to log into a Bandcamp server. Substreamer and Resonus I like the best - but I'm mainly looking at Android apps that can do downloads and offline playback.
I usually download Bandcamp music and load it into my self hosted Jellyfin server but I recognize not everyone can do that. This Bandcamp stuff did make me realize there are subsonic plugins for Jellyfin to enable the same app support, apparently all those apps I mentioned work great with Jellyfin which was a nice surprise.
I'm mostly excited about shilling this to my friends.
They buy stuff on bandcamp to support the artists, but end up not actually listening to it much due to the app kinda sucking. They still use a streaming service for everyday use most of the time, which means they end up never listening to the stuff they like that's bandcamp exclusive. They aren't like me, collecting everything I like into navidrome and using that as my main listening method.
If they can just hook bandcamp up to some nice clients, boom!
Searching works in Feishin 🤔
That's weird, I wonder what Feishin is doing that the Android apps using the same subsonic/opensubsonic API aren't doing. I don't really need another Linux music app but may give it a test just to see search working at least.
Either way it's a step in the right direction, a lot of these alternative Android apps are way way nicer than the vanilla Bandcamp app. Like you say more people would stream from their Bandcamp accounts if they have a slick app they can use.
I want an open api of bandcsmp itself