Kalinka plays the music you already own in bit-perfect, gapless sound — then indexes every track, fixes the messy tags, and lets you find anything just by describing the mood you're in. Self-hosted on Linux, and ready to play in minutes.
The server runs on a Linux single-board computer wired into your hi-fi — it decodes and plays the music through a DAC. The app lets you browse, search and control playback from any device — phone, tablet or laptop.
Kalinka understands what your music feels like, not just what it is named. Describe a mood, a genre, or a moment — it searches your own collection and builds the answer. All of it runs locally, and the same search works across Jamendo when you enable it as a source.
No subscription, no cloud library, no middleman. Kalinka runs on your machine and works with the files you already have — and makes sense of them.
Completely free and runs on your own hardware. Your library never leaves your machine — no accounts, no tracking, no monthly fee.
Currently supports MP3 and FLAC, with gapless playback. Bit-perfect output is available for supported formats, but it is most meaningful with FLAC where there is no lossy compression.
Find music by describing a mood or a genre. “Something melancholic for tonight” returns the right tracks from your library — no playlists required. Works across Jamendo too.
Point it at your folders and Kalinka scans every track, building a fast, searchable index of everything you own.
Untitled tracks, blank artists, wrong albums — Kalinka detects gaps and identifies the right metadata automatically.
Once tagged, your library sorts itself into clean artists, albums and genres — the structure you always wished it had.
Alongside your own files, Kalinka can now stream Jamendo — a catalog of independent, Creative Commons–licensed music — with the same AI mood & genre search and smart suggestions working across it. To enable the source, create a free API key on the Jamendo developer portal and add it to your server's configuration.
Kalinka is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Jamendo S.A. Playback uses the official Jamendo API and is subject to the Jamendo API Terms of Use; tracks are streamed under the licenses chosen by their rights holders. “Jamendo” is a trademark of its respective owner.
Most music libraries are a graveyard of track01.mp3 and blank artist fields. Kalinka indexes the lot, works out what each track actually is, and puts it in order.
Two steps: stand up the server on the computer wired into your hi-fi, then install the remote app on your devices.
The server is where the music actually plays. Running on a low-power SBC wired into your hi-fi, it decodes your files and feeds a DAC — an onboard, HAT or USB DAC for analogue out, or S/PDIF (coaxial or optical) to your external DAC. It also handles the library, tag repair and AI mood search.
curl -fsSL https://kalinkaplayer.com/install.sh | sudo bash
Control everything from the device in your hand — your phone, tablet or laptop. Browse your collection, run
mood searches and drive playback (play, pause, queue, volume) on the server wired to your hi-fi, so the
sound always comes from your speakers, never your screen. Install it on as many devices as you like — or
skip the install: the server now ships a browser player, so any device on your network can open
http://<server-ip>:8000 and take the controls.
Free & local-first · server on Linux / SBC · remote apps for desktop, mobile & any browser · Initial setup · App manual