Lagu — a cross-platform Plex music client with Spotify Connect-style remote control (Looking for beta testers)
Hi everyone,
I've been working on Lagu for a while, and I'm finally at the point where I could use more people beating on it outside of a small closed alpha.
Lagu started as a personal project because I wanted a desktop player with a bit more style for my Plex music library. As I added more to it, the feature I really wanted was something similar to Spotify Connect: leave music playing on the desktop or TV, pick up your phone, and control everything from there. That turned into Lagu Remote, and eventually grew the project into a cross-platform client.
The Apple apps are native SwiftUI, Android is Kotlin/Compose, and desktop is Electron on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The Linux build is available, but hasn't had a proper hardware verification pass yet (I'm setting up a CachyOS machine for testing in the coming days). iPhone/iPad, Apple TV, and Apple Watch are in TestFlight, Android is in the Google Play beta, and the Windows and macOS (Apple Silicon) builds are signed/notarized. CarPlay is built and included in the current build, but is still being verified in real cars.
To be upfront about it, Lagu is closed source and will be paid at launch. Desktop will stay free, while the mobile apps will be $1.99 as a one-time purchase per store. Family Sharing/Family Library will be enabled, and there are no subscriptions or additional in-app unlocks. Everything is free while the beta runs.
Remote is local by design. There is no Lagu account or relay involved. Your phone talks directly to Lagu on your desktop or Apple TV over your LAN. Nothing else needs to be hosted besides the Plex Media Server you already have.
Right now I mostly want to see how it holds up against really big libraries. The closed alpha group has found plenty of bugs, but I especially want to get Lagu in front of people with unusual music libraries: high track counts, multiple music libraries, giant playlists, weird metadata, lots of hi-res files, etc. That's not a requirement to join though.
Some of the current features:
- Lossless/gapless playback, streaming quality controls, and offline downloads
- Multiple music libraries on the same Plex server browsed together
- Lagu Remote between iPhone/Android and desktop/Apple TV
- Synced lyrics, ratings, radio/mixes, Last.fm/ListenBrainz, and listening stats
- Standalone Apple Watch streaming (downloads work but are still being stabilized, expect some flakiness)
It's still a beta, so I'm expecting things to break. That's kind of the reason I'm posting now.
Anyone can join the beta list at https://lagu.fm/download. I'm planning to start sending the first larger wave of invites this weekend. If you have a particularly large library and want to help stress-test it sooner, feel free to PM me and I'll get you in faster.
Bug reports can be sent to me or submitted via the website.
The full feature/status pages are at https://lagu.fm if you want to see what's actually finished versus still being verified.
AI disclosure: AI was used during development for task breakdowns, scaffolding, repetitive porting work between platforms, and to help shape some of the website copy. The resulting work is reviewed and tested on real hardware before shipping. The current exception is the new Android tablet layout, which is still in verification because I don't own an Android tablet yet.
Happy to answer any questions about the apps, playback, or remote features!