Ampache Scores No. 1 in My Streaming Media Book
If you’ve been interested in streaming your music collection to anywhere in the world from home, you just simply have to take a look at Ampache. It’s a web-based audio file manager which implements mySQL and PHP to bring a feature rich environment to you and the people you want to share it with. After looking around at other solutions such as Zina, Jinzora, Andromeda, and Orb, I feel that Ampache has the most appealing characteristics. It was easy to setup, easy to learn, and most importantly everything “just worked”. If you do run across problems, their support forums are friendly and quick to help. I didn’t find that with Jinzora’s forums where there were inquiries from two years ago without a single response. Also, I really like the appearance of Ampache’s default theme. It’s clean, light, and doesn’t have 1990 web design look like Zina does. Plus, Ampache is free, unlike Andromeda, and cross-platform, unlike Orb which means that it’s available to anybody running Linux, Macintosh, FreeBSD, Windows, etc. If you haven’t looked at it, I would suggest you do so right away and set your music free.
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March 19th, 2008 at 7:46 am
I’ve been looking around quite abit for something, started using Jinzora(still) but I find it very slow. If you compair the two, what’s the biggest pros/cons and what about the speed of Ampache?
//Andreas
March 19th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Andreas,
Honestly, I was never able to completely install Jinzora so I won’t be able to tell you any performance differences. I can tell you though that Ampache worked very quickly. Even with slower connection speeds, it still performed well for me and my listeners. And the administration panel was really quick as well. It’s not as “graphic-intense” as Jinzora, so I think maybe that helps a little.
Sometimes for me it comes right down to the support one has over the other. Make a post on the Jinzora forums, it might get answered, it might not. Make a post in the Ampache forums, it will more than likely be answered.
I’m not sure how important this is to you, but it is to me. I like too see a project actively developed. The more recent the updates, the better because the developer is actually fixing bugs, listening to the community, and making improvements. Jinzora was last updated in October of 2007 (5 months ago). Ampache was updated on March 16, 2008 (3 days ago).
I really do enjoy Ampache and I would encourage anybody to at least check it out. It is really easy to install, so maybe I’ll write up a good tutorial on how to install it.
I hope this helps you, Andreas.
-Derek
April 20th, 2008 at 4:55 am
I just installed Ampache on a BlueHost server after some tweaking and I’m blown away. A rare killer app because it does things that ITunes, etc., can’t or won’t. I have a feeling this is going to be in the news in the not too distant future.