DroppedNeedle Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Deploy DroppedNeedle hosting and run your own music request, discovery and library app on your own domain. xCloud runs the pinned DroppedNeedle 2.15.0 image as one container, mounts persistent volumes for your settings, library index and music, and publishes it over HTTPS in minutes — you then connect your own slskd or SABnzbd download client from inside the app.

Deploy your DroppedNeedle

No terminal
No technical skills needed
No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is DroppedNeedle?

DroppedNeedle is a self-hosted app for requesting and discovering music and managing a library, delivered as one container. You search the MusicBrainz catalogue, request the album or the single track you want, and DroppedNeedle drives a download client that you supply and run yourself, scores the candidates, verifies every file and shelves the result in your library.

It only drives your own client over that client's local HTTP API, ships no indexers and hosts no audio, so what you fetch is your call and your responsibility. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0.

From Sign-Up to Your Music Library In Just 3 Easy Steps

A DroppedNeedle install normally means a container, six mounted paths, a reverse proxy with a raised upload limit, a domain and a certificate before the first request. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

Step 01
Sign Up
Create your xCloud account and pick DroppedNeedle from the OneClick catalog. Choose your domain and target server — there are no extra fields to fill in and no credentials to generate.
Step 02
We Deploy It For You
One click. We bring up the official DroppedNeedle image, pinned by immutable digest, as a single container with no other services, mount the droppedneedle_config, droppedneedle_cache, droppedneedle_plugins, droppedneedle_imports, droppedneedle_data and droppedneedle_music volumes, and publish it over HTTPS on your domain with a 2 GB upload limit for drop imports. The first start can take a few minutes while it prepares its database.
Step 03
Create The Admin Account
Open your HTTPS DroppedNeedle URL right away and create the admin account yourself — whoever opens a fresh install first becomes the admin. Then add your own SABnzbd or slskd under Settings, Download Client, and keep the default /music library root.

Everything DroppedNeedle Does, On Your Own Server

DroppedNeedle runs in full here: music requests, discovery and a scanned library in the browser, with your own download client doing the fetching.

Request Albums Or Single Tracks
Search the full MusicBrainz catalogue and request the album or the single track you want, with an approval queue for users with the User role.
Drives Your Own Download Client
DroppedNeedle scores candidates from your slskd or SABnzbd, verifies each file and shelves the result in your library. You supply and run the client yourself.
A Library It Scans And Indexes
Browse, filter and rescan your library under /music; unmatched files wait in a manual-review queue instead of being guessed at.
Drop Import And Free Music
Drag in a zip or loose files with Drop Import, or use the Internet Archive free-music source, which needs no download client, account or API key.
Discovery And Following
Trending, charts, genre browsing and recommendations, plus a new-release radar for artists you follow.
Play From Your Existing Apps
OpenSubsonic and Jellyfin APIs let apps such as Symfonium, Finamp and Feishin play from your library.

Everything You Need To Run Your Music Library 24/7

Managed hosting for DroppedNeedle, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

DroppedNeedle 2.15.0 deployed instantly
Official image pinned by digest
Six persistent volumes
Kept behind xCloud nginx
Free SSL certificate
Server backups and snapshots
Server security updates included
30+ server locations
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With DroppedNeedle

Request music from one interface
Search the MusicBrainz catalogue and ask for the exact album or track, instead of hunting through a download client by hand.
Put your SABnzbd or slskd behind one front end
Connect your own SABnzbd or slskd under Settings, Download Client and let DroppedNeedle score, verify and import what they fetch.
Keep a library that is scanned and indexed
Point it at the /music library root, scan, and browse what was found, with unmatched files held for manual review.
Import music you already own, no client needed
Use Drop Import for album zips (up to 2 GB per upload here) or the Internet Archive free-music source, neither of which needs a download client.

DroppedNeedle Screenshots

DroppedNeedle home page with trending artists, popular albums and personalized recommendations

DroppedNeedle discover page with personalized album recommendations

DroppedNeedle library overview with statistics and recent additions

DroppedNeedle vs Alternatives

Lidarr: Upstream's own tagline for DroppedNeedle is "No Lidarr. One container." — it covers requests, discovery and the library in a single app without a separate music manager.
slskd on its own: slskd is the Soulseek client DroppedNeedle can drive; used alone you search and download in its interface, while DroppedNeedle adds MusicBrainz requests, scoring and verification on top.
SABnzbd on its own: SABnzbd is the Usenet downloader DroppedNeedle can drive; used alone it fetches NZBs you queue yourself, while DroppedNeedle searches your indexers and imports finished files into the library.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for DroppedNeedle hosting. Pick the one that fits, and resize any time.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Cloud VPS 16 GB

More headroom if DroppedNeedle sits alongside your download client and media apps.

$59.99per month

16 GB RAM
6 vCPU cores
200 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Billed monthly with no lock-in — delete the server and the unused balance comes back to your account. DroppedNeedle itself is licensed by its maintainers under AGPL-3.0.

Docker hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy DroppedNeedle on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

Free

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10 sites

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Agency

The same platform, discounted at 11+ servers.

$3per server / month

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Unlimited sites
All features included
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Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Run Your Own Music Library?

DroppedNeedle on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Deploy faster. Own the server. Stay in control.

Fast Provisioning
Deploy faster using an xCloud Managed Server built with optimized stacks and high-speed SSDs.
Enterprise-grade security
Protect your infrastructure with a free SSL certificate and more advanced security features at no additional cost.
Intuitive Control Panel
From Server creation to application deployment, everything can be managed from our intuitive control panel.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

How do I sign in?

The first visitor to a fresh install creates the admin account, so open your HTTPS URL right after install and do it yourself. There is no preset password and no public sign-up; afterwards every request needs a login, and a second setup attempt is refused.

Does DroppedNeedle download music by itself?

No. Connect your own SABnzbd or slskd under Settings, Download Client; they are not included. Without one you can still use Drop Import and the Internet Archive free-music source.

What runs alongside DroppedNeedle?

Nothing. It is a single container with no database or other service to run.

Is the site exposed before I create the admin account?

Yes, briefly: until the admin exists, whoever opens the site first can create it (upstream design, and upstream has no way to seed the first admin). Claim it straight after install. If you want a second lock, you can configure Basic Auth at the reverse proxy; the template does not enable it.

How large can an import be?

Drop Import uploads up to 2 GB; the template raises the proxy upload limit to match, because the 100M default would reject album zips.

Where do my settings live?

Account, library and download-client settings are stored inside DroppedNeedle (Settings in the app), not in the environment file, so changing them there has no effect.

Do I need to share a downloads folder with my download client?

Yes. An external download client must share its completed-downloads path with the container to hand files over; upstream's README explains the path rules for slskd and SABnzbd.

What should I back up?

The droppedneedle_config, droppedneedle_cache and droppedneedle_music volumes. The encryption key in the config volume protects stored integration secrets, so keep it together with the data.

Backups in xCloud

What survives a restart?

Accounts, settings, the library index and your music, because they live on persistent named volumes. In QA, the configuration and an indexed file were still present after a container restart.

Does xCloud automatically back up or update DroppedNeedle?

No. The template pins DroppedNeedle 2.15.0 by immutable digest; existing sites are not automatically upgraded. Back up first, read the upstream release notes, then bump the readable tag and digest together on your own schedule. Server-level backups and snapshots are available on every Cloud VPS.

What are the server requirements, and why does this page sell 6 GB?

The template's baseline asks for 1 CPU core, 512 MB of RAM and 10 GB of disk; measured idle use in QA was about 172 MiB. This page sells the 6 GB tier as the entry rung, with real headroom for scans and imports above that baseline.

Is HTTPS enforced?

HTTP redirects to HTTPS with a valid certificate. QA noted that the HSTS header is not sent by default.

Is xCloud officially partnered with DroppedNeedle?

No. No official partnership or endorsement between xCloud and the DroppedNeedle project has been verified. This is a deployment and server-management option for the open-source DroppedNeedle project.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.