{"slug": "sonarr", "name": "Sonarr", "category": "selfhosted", "category_name": "Self-hosted and home server", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 8, "warners": 0, "score": 4.372, "rising": 3.0, "first": "2026-03-30", "latest": "2026-10-17", "why": "they aren't especially heavy to run and are not fragile", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 5, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "they aren't especially heavy to run and are not fragile", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://sonarr.tv", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Sonarr"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 801778369, "item_id": 50111148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50111148", "by": "Cyph0n", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Here is the stack I recommend:", "excerpt": "Indeed. The other thing to point out is that, once you have set them up, they will chug along fine for years with near zero input. Here is the stack I recommend: * Radarr (movies) with optional second instance for 4K versions * Sonarr (shows) with optional second instance for 4K versions * Sonarr (anime), separate instance to have control over quality settings * Prowlarr (tracker/indexer management) * SABnzbd (Usenet", "context": "", "use_case": "TV and anime management", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}, {"id": 801776480, "item_id": 50111030, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50111030", "by": "birdsongs", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Highly recommend them to OP. My stack went down once in the past 4 years and it was my fault.", "excerpt": "I think it just sounds intimidating if one hasn't tried, but they are really well designed pieces of software, that are relatively simple to set up (just have to go through the motions and connect everything with API keys). Highly recommend them to OP. My stack went down once in the past 4 years and it was my fault.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}, {"id": 801775776, "item_id": 50110986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50110986", "by": "eleventen", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they aren't especially heavy to run and are not fragile", "excerpt": "> Sonarr, Lidarr, Radarr, etc. Every time I read about setting it up, it just sounds like a resource-intensive mess that\u2019s fundamentally prone to frequent breakage. That\u2019s the opposite of what I\u2019m looking for when choosing self-hosted services. I just checked on my *arr stack. Sonarr and Radarr idle at 157MB and 159MB of memory and approximately no CPU. Jellyfin currently idles at 330MB. I'm not sure where you got th", "context": "", "use_case": "media automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["media automation", "tv download automation", "media management", "tv and anime management", "automated tv downloads"], "compared": [{"slug": "radarr", "name": "Radarr", "co": 8, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "jellyfin", "name": "Jellyfin", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "prowlarr", "name": "Prowlarr", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "qbittorrent", "name": "qBittorrent", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "seerr", "name": "Seerr", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50109715", "title": "What I self-host", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50108872", "title": "Someone on Torrent Sites Kept Fucking with My Sonarr", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48986091", "title": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759341", "title": "WiiFin \u2013 Jellyfin Client for Nintendo Wii", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47553910", "title": "From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in Our Office Lab", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 802118274, "item_id": 50132392, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132392", "by": "aaravchen", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The blacklist feature of Sonarr/Radarr can be hooked into Prowlarr pretty easily", "excerpt": "Since no one is explaining: Cleanuparr uses the built-in Sonarr/Radarr blacklist feature, so if you encounter something where there's nothing to import, it will backlist the torrent. You can set it to cover stuck torrents too if you want, so it blacklists the \"dead\" torrents and will make Sonarr/Radarr move on and search again. The blacklist feature of Sonarr/Radarr can be hooked into Prowlarr pretty easily so that t", "context": "", "use_case": "TV download automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Someone on Torrent Sites Kept Fucking with My Sonarr"}, {"id": 801795169, "item_id": 50112198, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50112198", "by": "gib444", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Whenever I use them I wonder if they could be one unified app with plugins...?", "excerpt": "There must be large amounts of similar code between Radarr, Lidarr, Sonarr etc. Whenever I use them I wonder if they could be one unified app with plugins...?", "context": "", "use_case": "media management", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}, {"id": 801778369, "item_id": 50111148, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50111148", "by": "Cyph0n", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Here is the stack I recommend:", "excerpt": "Indeed. The other thing to point out is that, once you have set them up, they will chug along fine for years with near zero input. Here is the stack I recommend: * Radarr (movies) with optional second instance for 4K versions * Sonarr (shows) with optional second instance for 4K versions * Sonarr (anime), separate instance to have control over quality settings * Prowlarr (tracker/indexer management) * SABnzbd (Usenet", "context": "", "use_case": "TV and anime management", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}, {"id": 801776480, "item_id": 50111030, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50111030", "by": "birdsongs", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Highly recommend them to OP. My stack went down once in the past 4 years and it was my fault.", "excerpt": "I think it just sounds intimidating if one hasn't tried, but they are really well designed pieces of software, that are relatively simple to set up (just have to go through the motions and connect everything with API keys). Highly recommend them to OP. My stack went down once in the past 4 years and it was my fault.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}, {"id": 801775776, "item_id": 50110986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50110986", "by": "eleventen", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they aren't especially heavy to run and are not fragile", "excerpt": "> Sonarr, Lidarr, Radarr, etc. Every time I read about setting it up, it just sounds like a resource-intensive mess that\u2019s fundamentally prone to frequent breakage. That\u2019s the opposite of what I\u2019m looking for when choosing self-hosted services. I just checked on my *arr stack. Sonarr and Radarr idle at 157MB and 159MB of memory and approximately no CPU. Jellyfin currently idles at 330MB. I'm not sure where you got th", "context": "", "use_case": "media automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}, {"id": 783807573, "item_id": 48987973, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48987973", "by": "wildzzz", "date": "2026-07-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Seerr tells radarr or sonarr to query my private trackers", "excerpt": "Thats what I used to have 15 years ago when I was streaming over SMB to my Xbox running XBMC. It works but having something like Plex or Jellyfin is just so much nicer. It gives you the \"Netflix\" experience of browsing your media library. My Jellyfin is setup to offer an automatic \"skip intro/credits\" button. I used to use Plex and was a yearly subscriber mostly for the ability to download media to my phone for offli", "context": "", "use_case": "automated TV downloads", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team"}, {"id": 764296306, "item_id": 47768519, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47768519", "by": "nyolfen", "date": "2026-04-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "they get grabbed by sonarr/radarr", "excerpt": "i didn't have much trouble services: jellyfin: build: dockerfile: jellyfin.Dockerfile container_name: jellyfin group_add: - 44 - 993 environment: - TZ=<redacted> - JELLYFIN_PublishedServerUrl=<redacted> - DOMAIN_NAME=<redacted> ports: - 8096:8096 - 8920:8920 - \"7359:7359/udp\" volumes: - ./config:/config - ./cache:/cache - ./config/index.html:/jellyfin/jellyfin-web/index.html - type: bind source: /mnt/storage/Video ta", "context": "", "use_case": "media automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "WiiFin \u2013 Jellyfin Client for Nintendo Wii"}, {"id": 761297797, "item_id": 47581112, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47581112", "by": "h4kunamata", "date": "2026-03-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have setup a LXC container running Radarr, qBittorrent, Sonarr, Jackett", "excerpt": ">A lot of our week is made up of the same kinds of small tasks: provision a VM, tweak storage settings, pass through a device, replicate a dataset, share a file, test an image, throw the machine away, do it again. None of that is exciting. All I read is that they are still doing ClickOPS over DevSecOps!! At no moment I heard automation, if you aren't using automation in 2026, your future in IT is cooked. I run Proxmo", "context": "", "use_case": "media automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in Our Office Lab"}]}