Research: Self-hosted Collaborative Music Tag Editing

Research date: 2026-08-22 Question: Is there an existing open-source, self-hosted service that loads music from storage adapters and lets users collaboratively edit tags on music files (genre, cover, album, …)? Or should we build our own?

Hard requirements

#	Requirement	Notes
①	OIDC user management	Native support for logging users in against an external OIDC identity provider (Authentik, Keycloak, Authelia, …). Reverse-proxy-only gating does not count.
②	Free license	OSI-approved license, including all features needed here (no paywalled SSO/collaboration).
③	Powerful music file editing	Editing-first UX; writes ID3v2 / Vorbis comments / MP4 atoms + embedded cover art back to the audio files.

Soft/context requirements: storage adapters beyond local disk (SMB/S3/WebDAV), collaborative multi-user workflows (suggest/approve, roles, history), editing-focused interface rather than playback-focused.

Verdict

No existing project satisfies all three hard requirements simultaneously. The landscape splits into two camps that do not intersect:

• Camp A — dedicated file-tag editors: genuinely write tags/artwork to disk, but ship only single/basic local auth and zero collaboration.
• Camp B — streaming servers: have OIDC-ish auth or collaborative edit workflows, but edit their internal database only — never the audio files.

The combination "OIDC + collaborative + writes to files" is an unoccupied niche → building our own solution is feasible and justified.

Documents

File	Content
candidates-editing-first.md	Camp A: music-tag-web, Ampache, TuneWright, Tagr, TagLab, AzuraCast
candidates-streaming-servers.md	Camp B: Funkwhale, Jellyfin, Koel, Navidrome
adjacent-tools-and-inspiration.md	CLI/desktop taggers, TagStudio, proprietary services as inspiration, open metadata infrastructure
build-feasibility.md	Feasibility assessment, recommended component stack, build strategies, pragmatic stopgap
sources.md	All references consulted

Quick comparison

Project	License	OIDC	Writes tags to files	Collaboration	Storage adapters
music-tag-web	GPL-3.0 + non-commercial addendum ⚠️	❌ (single admin account)	✅ excellent	❌	❌ (volume mount only)
Ampache	AGPL-3.0 ✅	❌ (LDAP/HTTP/PAM/custom)	✅ (MP3/FLAC/OGG since v4.4)	❌	partial (catalog concept)
TuneWright	unverified ⚠️	❌ (local invites)	✅	basic multi-user	❌
Tagr	unverified ⚠️	❌ (single user)	✅	❌ (edit history only)	❌
TagLab	open source ⚠️ tiny	❌ (env user/password)	✅ (FLAC focus)	❌	multi-library paths
AzuraCast	Apache-2.0 ✅	❌ (declined OAuth)	✅ standard fields	RBAC roles	local folders
Funkwhale	AGPL-3.0 ✅	❌ (OAuth2 provider ≠ OIDC client)	❌ DB only	✅ best-in-class	partial (federation/S3)
Jellyfin (+SSO plugin)	GPL-3.0 ✅	✅ via plugin	❌ DB/NFO only	❌	plugins
Koel core	MIT ✅	❌ paid "Plus" feature	❌ DB only	❌ paid "Plus"	cloud drivers = Plus
Navidrome	GPL-3.0 ✅	❌ (proxy header auth only)	❌ refused by design	❌	local folder(s)

Legend: ✅ meets requirement · ❌ fails · ⚠️ caveat noted