[Developer] Official alternative to libspotify

[blacklight]

libspotify has been deprecated a few years ago, but Spotify hasn't provided viable alternatives in the meantime to programmatically stream content through an external application using a premium account.

LibreSpot seems a viable alternative for some of the features provided by libspotify, but it's not an official library and it doesn't offer much support if something changes or is broken on Spotify's end.

The main issue is that there are still many developers out there (open-source and not) who need an official library to build 3rd-party applications that can stream music through a Spotify premium account. Spotify Connect is a solution to some of these problems, but not all of them - it requires another device running an official Spotify app that can stream content to a receiver, it doesn't support the case where you want to run your own stand-alone player.

The deprecation of libspotify has resulted in multiple issues and dropped support for several pieces of hardware and software, such as:

• Hi-Fi and smart speakers (example 1, example 2)
• Smart TV apps (example)
• Games with external music support (example)
• Spotify plugins in other players (example 1, example 2, example 3)
• Cars with integrated Spotify support (example 1, example 2, example 3)

[kingosticks4]

And to be clear, Spotify's Web Playback SDK is not a suitable replacement for libspotify since playback with that is only possible in a Web browser. A replacement for libspotify was originally promised but never materialised. Please fulfil your promise.

[blacklight]

The issue we have been experiencing lately with libspotify seem to be related to the hosts associated with ap.spotify.com being often down - probably as part of a decommissioning process or just lack of maintenance?

[polynatic]

libspotify was used in a custom built radio box for my 1,5 old niece by her dad, that she was able to understand and control from being 1 year old on. the premium account in their family was just for this device. not only did turning off libspotify support cost you a premium subscription that is now useless, you also made a small child very unhappy. I still like Spotify, but yeah, this is just sad, as there is no alternative.

[vamavechedan]

This was it for me, I was only paying premium in order to use my Mopidy Spotify home project which fitted my needs perfectly.

Goodbye, Spotify, I will switch to Youtube Music for any future app listening.

[I2eptileX]

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@blacklight wrote:

libspotify has been deprecated a few years ago, but Spotify hasn't provided viable alternatives in the meantime to programmatically stream content through an external application using a premium account.

LibreSpot seems a viable alternative for some of the features provided by libspotify, but it's not an official library and it doesn't offer much support if something changes or is broken on Spotify's end.

The main issue is that there are still many developers out there (open-source and not) who need an official library to build 3rd-party applications that can stream music through a Spotify premium account. Spotify Connect is a solution to some of these problems, but not all of them - it requires another device running an official Spotify app that can stream content to a receiver, it doesn't support the case where you want to run your own stand-alone player.

The deprecation of libspotify has resulted in multiple issues and dropped support for several pieces of hardware and software, such as:

• Hi-Fi and smart speakers (example 1, example 2)
• Smart TV apps (example)
• Games with external music support (example)
• Spotify plugins in other players (example 1, example 2, example 3)
• Cars with integrated Spotify support (example 1, example 2, example 3)

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[I2eptileX]

This is the reason I'm about to change to tidal, I will evaluate if the audiobooks for my children are there, if so my account is going to be canceled here. There is such a big community of people that love to stream the music the stuff through other clients and you are actually breaking all of them with this.