I started out with an old laptop then eventually “upgraded” to a refurbished office surplus desktop. I highly recommend starting out on a project PC as a sort of proof of concept before investing any money into it. Even hosting the family media libraries, I have never had an issue with streaming video, etc. even with pretty dated hardware.

I tried Navidrome, and it’s a plus because it is compatible with any Subsonic app, such as Tempo (FOSS) or Symfonium (paid, independent dev, highly rated).

In the end, I personally had some stability issues (probably because I don’t really know what I’m doing). I find that the music server options in Jellyfin are the best option for me, and there are some very solid apps as well. I use Finamp, although there is also Fintunes, which seems to have more active development (both FOSS).

The built-in music player in jellyfin is pretty solid too, which is especially useful for playing on a TV (family dance party anyone?). Jellyfish is already on every platform, and I never did find a good TV client for Navidrome.

I’m sticking around this thread to find out if there is a good music discovery option because I haven’t found anything remotely close.

Edit: both Navidrome and Jellyfin allow you to set up multiple user logins. I’ve found it’s much better to set up individual playlists and make them available to everyone.