Learn · Open source
Is Lightning FM's software open source?
Yes, as of 2026-08-18. The desktop app and the artist-node daemon are both public on GitHub under MIT. The distinction worth knowing: that's the software, and it needs no invite. What's still gated is the hosted convenience layer, covered below.
Desktop app. Publish tracks as signed Nostr events, play back the catalog, run an embedded Lightning node. Tauri + Rust, macOS today.[1]
Artist-node daemon. A headless Lightning node for artists who'd rather run their catalog from their own hardware than the desktop app: your keys, your files, no platform in the money path.[2]
Both are MIT: fork them, modify them, run them commercially, build a competing service on them. Nothing in the license says otherwise.
These are two different things, and conflating them is the easiest way to misread this release:
The software is open, public, and unlocked today. Clone it, build it, run it. Nobody at Lightning FM has to say yes.
The hosted service is a convenience we run on top: listing on our relay, hosting your media files, a lightning.fm name. That's what the current beta gates, first 21 artists, signups underway. It isn't the software, and it was never meant to be the only way to use it.
An open-source client is what makes the leave-with-everything claim checkable rather than promised. If we vanished tomorrow, the code that reads and writes your catalog wouldn't vanish with us; anyone, including you, can already run it. That's the difference between a platform saying "you could always leave" and a platform where leaving requires nothing from the platform at all.
What license is the code under?
MIT, for both repos. It's the least restrictive common open-source license: use it, modify it, fork it, redistribute it, including commercially, with no obligation to share your own changes back.
Do I need to join the beta to run it?
No. The beta gates the hosted service only: a lightning.fm name, relay listing, and file hosting for your catalog, for the first 21 artists. Running the software yourself, on your own hardware, needs nobody's permission and no signup, beta or otherwise.
What exactly is open source, and what isn't?
The desktop app (publishing, playback, the embedded Lightning node) and the artist-node daemon (a headless node for artists who'd rather run their catalog from their own hardware than use the desktop app) are both public. The marketing site and the station server that programs the radio stream are not: they're operational infrastructure, not something an artist runs, and they hold details that don't belong in a public repo.
Can I fork it and run a competing service?
Yes. MIT doesn't restrict that, and we wouldn't want it to. It's the same trade every exit-rights claim on this site makes: openness that only points one direction isn't openness.
Does this change what Lightning FM charges?
No, the two are unrelated. Pricing has only ever been about hosting and delivery convenience (see what platforms take); the software itself was never the fee, because the platform's cut was already 0% by architecture, self-hosted or not.
Facts change. Every claim above links to its source as of the date shown. Check the source, and if we're out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.