Below is a table of online music databases that are largely free of charge. Many of the sites provide a specialized service or focus on a particular music genre. Some of these operate as an online music store or purchase referral service in some capacity. Among the sites that have information on the largest number of entities are those sites that focus on discographies of composing and performing artists.
Performance rights organisations (PRO) typically have their own databases as per country they represent, in accordance with CISAC, to help domestic artists collect royalties. Information available on these portals include songwriting credits, publishing percentage splits, and alternate titles for different distribution channels. It is one of the most accurate and official types of databases because it involves direct communication between the artists, record labels, distributors, legal teams, publishers and a global governing body regulating PRO's. Many countries that observe copyright have an organisation established, currently there are 119 CISAC members, [1] and they may be not-for-profit. The databases are typically known as 'repertory searches' or 'searching works' and may require an account while others are open to view for free as public including the USA's ASCAP Songview and Ace services, [2] Canada's SOCAN, [3] South Korea's KOMCA, [4] France's SACEM, [5] and Israel's ACUM. [6]
| Database | Services | No. of tracks | No. of releases | No. of artists | Notes | License | Full free access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AllMusic | Music information and reviews. | ~20,000,000 [7] | ~2,200,000 [7] | Song samples only. | |||
| Discogs | • Database: user-generated cross-referenced database of physical & digital releases, artists, and labels. With catalogue numbers, codes, and other markings taken directly from each release. • Companies/organisations: cross-referencing those involved in music production (record companies, manufacturers, distributors, publishers, rights holders, venues, studios, etc.) • Images: for releases, artists, labels, and other companies/organisations listed. • Marketplace: for trade of physical music releases. | 151,200,000 [8] | 15,000,000 [9] | 8,000,000 [9] | • Multi-lingual. • Free membership (which also removes all site ads). • Marketplace lists over 35 million items (largest physical music items marketplace online). • 1 billion edits. | PD/CC0 [10] | Free API and XML data dumps. [11] |
| SongLyrics | Updated daily with lyrics, reviews, features, meanings and more. | 400,000,000 | 400,000,000 | CC | Yes | ||
| Internet Archive | Large live music archive, hosts hundreds of free music netlabels | 13 million (as of 2021) [12] | CC/PD | Yes | |||
| Jaxsta | Online database of official music credits | 19,000,000 [13] | • 115,000,000+ Individual Music Credits • 100,000+ Credits Ingested Daily | API available. | |||
| Last.fm | Music community website. | ~26,484,587 [14] | ~3,304,568 | ~1,383,340 | Automatically creates online library/collection of listened to music and generates recommendations. | ||
| The MLC | Complete publicly available database of all recordings and musical works for payment purposes. The Music Modernization Act requires The MLC to make its database of musical works available in a bulk, machine/computer-readable format and through a widely available software application. [15] | ~110,000,000 [16] | Streaming services are required by law to provide full information. [17] | Free API Available [18] | |||
| MusicBrainz | Open content music database. | 45,520,390 [19] | 3,258,314 [19] | 2,371,603 [19] | GPL/LGPL/PD/CC BY-NC-SA. | Free API [20] and XML data dumps. [21] | |
| MusicID | Official charts and indicative revenue data going back to 1900 [22] | Aggregator of chart data from sources such as Billboard, OCC and more [23] | |||||
| Rate Your Music | Music database, community ratings, reviews and lists | 23,335,038 [24] | 6,415,864 [24] | 1,777,397 [24] | API is planned but not functional as of 2024 [update] . [25] [26] | No special rights granted. Web scraping is prohibited. [27] | |
| Soundcharts | Airplay, charts and social media tracking data. | 45,000,000 [28] | 11,500,000 [28] | Cites major record labels as customers. API available. [28] | Freemium | ||
| Album of the Year | Music database, critic ratings and reviews, community ratings, reviews and lists | 219,588 | ~768,740 | ~276,896 |
| Database | Services | No. of tracks | No. of releases | No. of artists | Notes | License | Full free access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Encyclopaedia Metallum | A heavy metal encyclopedia with information, complete discography, links, images, and reviews. | ~1,900,000 [29] | ~265,000 [29] | ~102,000 bands, ~535,000 artists [29] | |||
| Prog Archives | Progressive rock discography and reviews. | 63,978 [30] | 11,308 [30] | No special rights granted [31] | Yes. Log on to submit band information | ||
| RollDaBeats | Drum N Bass music database, physical releases only. | 175,969 [32] | 62,103 [32] | ||||
| Riddim Guide | Reggae and dancehall database; catalogues riddims | 57,875 [33] | 4878 (riddims) [33] | 5937 [33] | 2570 record labels [33] | Yes | |
| VGMdb | Database for soundtracks and related music, with a primary focus on video games. | 2,576,985 [34] | 130,726 [34] | 58,598 [34] | |||
| vkgy (ブイケージ) | Visual kei database. | 14,578 [35] | |||||
| VocaDB | Database for vocaloid artists, releases and events. | 558,109 [36] | 25,393 [37] | 102,158 [38] | Yes | ||
| Jazz Music Archives | Jazz discography and reviews. | ||||||
| Database | Specialization | Services | No. of tracks | No. of releases | No. of artists | Notes | License | Full free access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Freesound Project | Audio samples | Repository of Creative Commons-licensed audio samples. | 445,000 [39] [40] | CC Sampling Plus. | ||||
| Genius | Lyrics | Allows users to provide annotations and interpretation of song lyrics. | ||||||
| SongLyrics | Lyrics | Music website that has established itself as a go-to platform for finding lyrics. | ||||||
| Musixmatch | Lyrics | Audio based music recognition and provision of song lyrics. | Yes. | |||||
| SecondHandSongs | Covers | User-generated database of covers and samples of songs, with links to public recordings. | >1,100,000 performances | >100,000 works | Multilingual recordings. | No special rights granted | ||
| Sound Credit | Credits | Multimodal platform for entering and editing music credits with a datahub that includes a database upload option. | Database uploads are free, and is free to view. | |||||
| WhoSampled | Sample identification | User-generated database of comparison between original tracks and covers, remixes, or songs that use samples. | 1,100,000 | 338,000 | ||||
| SIMUC | Chilean music and musicians | SIMUC is a Non-profit organisation that collects data on composers, academics, institutions, people and other topics related to classical music and Chile. | Managed by the organization and subscribers. |
| Database | Services | No. of tracks | No. of releases | No. of artists | Notes | License | Full free access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Choral Public Domain Library | Sheet music archive of choral and vocal music in the public domain or otherwise freely available for printing and performing | 36,869 [41] | Yes | ||||
| International Music Score Library Project | Music scores and parts, mostly scanned from publications now in the public domain; some recordings. | 42,000 (370,000 scores) | 14,500 composers, 387 performers. [42] | PD/CC BY-NC-SA. | |||
| MuseScore | Sheet music | 6,487,223 [43] | 780 [44] | Also includes free music notation software to enable a wide range of instrumental music scores to be created, printed and shared | Music is available under a variety of licenses. It is tagged and searchable by license. | Music protected by copyright is only downloadable by obtaining a paid Pro subscription. | |
| Musipedia | Search by melody (entering notes, Parsons code, whistling, or tapping rhythm) | Yes, but via other sources. | |||||
| Mutopia Project | repository of free content sheet music. | 2,247 [45] | 328 [46] | ||||
| Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) | Database of historical music manuscripts and music printed editions that includes full descriptions and current physical locations in libraries worldwide. | >1,400,000 | ~40,000 composers | Search available in 5 languages. Link to digitized images when available. | CC BY | Yes |
| Database | Services | No. of tracks | No. of releases | No. of artists | Notes | License | Full free access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACRCloud | Music recognition & audio based music retrieval | ~40,000,000 [47] | Commercially available with SDKs, APIs for file scanning, airplay monitoring, shazam-liked features | Free trial available in 15 days | |||
| Gracenote | Identification service for CDs and other media. | ~100,000,000 [48] | ~8,000,000 [48] | 1 billion "submissions". [49] | |||
| Quantone | Database of physical/digital products, venues, photos, artists, participants, composers, movements, labels, publishers and rights. | 12,000,000 [50] | 301,000 | For commercial business-to-business usage only. | API available. |
| Database | Services | No. of tracks | No. of releases | No. of artists | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| freedb | Identification service for CDs. | Licensed under GPL. freedb.org and its services shut down in June 2020; succeeded by gnudb. | |||
| LyricWiki | Lyrics wiki on Fandom. | ~1,653,416 [51] | ~159,749 [51] | ~82,226 [51] | Founded in 2006, API-restricted since 2016, closed in 2019. Deleted in September 2020. |
| MetroLyrics | Lyrics lookup. | 1,000,000+ | 16,000+ | The site abruptly went offline in late June 2021, and as of November 2022 its owners and maintainers have made no explanation. | |
| MusicMight | Biographies and discographies. | 659,000 | 92,000 | 59,400 | Was active from 2005-2010. |
| Wikifonia | Free lead sheets in MusicXML format, contributed and editable by users. | 6,236 [52] | Was active from 2006-2013. |
The following tables compare general and technical information for many wiki software packages.
Vocaloid is a singing voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project between Yamaha Corporation and the Music Technology Group in Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. The software was ultimately developed into the commercial product "Vocaloid" that was released in 2004.
Add-on is the Mozilla term for software modules that can be added to the Firefox web browser and related applications. Mozilla hosts them on its official add-on website.
The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers is an international non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation that aims to protect the rights and promote the interests of creators worldwide. It advocates for strong legal protection of copyright and authors' rights. It is the world's largest international network of authors' societies, also known as collective management organisations (CMOs), copyright / royalty collection societies, collecting societies, or performance rights organisations (PROs).
Notable issue tracking systems, including bug tracking systems, help desk and service desk issue tracking systems, as well as asset management systems, include the following. The comparison includes client-server application, distributed and hosted systems.
Gramps, formerly GRAMPS, is a free and open-source genealogy software. It is developed in Python using PyGObject and utilizes Graphviz to create relationship graphs.
The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL), also known as the ChoralWiki, is an online database for choral and vocal music. Its contents primarily include sheet music in the public domain or otherwise freely available for printing and performing.
LyricWiki was an online wiki-based lyrics database and encyclopedia. In March 2013, it was the seventh largest MediaWiki installation with over 2,000,000 pages including 1.5 million songs. Prior to its shutdown, users on the site could view, edit, and discuss the lyrics of songs, which were also available for purchase from links on the site. Users were told to be mindful of copyright while contributing, and copyright violations were removed upon request. All the lyrics on LyricWiki were licensed through LyricFind.
Gracenote, Inc. is a company and service that provides music, video, and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies worldwide. Formerly CDDB, Gracenote maintains and licenses an Internet-accessible database containing information about the contents of audio compact discs and vinyl records. From 2008 to 2014, it was owned by Sony, later sold to Tribune Media, and has been owned since 2017 by Nielsen Holdings. In 2019, Nielsen Holdings announced plans to split into two separate publicly traded companies, Nielsen Global Connect and Nielsen Global Media. In October 2022, Nielsen Holdings, including the Gracenote subsidiary was acquired by a private equity consortium.
CDDB, short for Compact Disc Database, is a database for software applications to look up audio CD information over the Internet. This is performed by a client which calculates a (nearly) unique disc ID and then queries the database. As a result, the client is able to display the artist name, CD title, track list and some additional information. CDDB is a licensed trademark of Gracenote, Inc.
MetroLyrics was a website dedicated to song lyrics. It was founded in December 2002, and its database contained over one million songs by over 16,000 artists. Unlike other lyric websites, MetroLyrics places a warning on songs that contain explicit lyrics so that users can proceed with caution. The site abruptly went offline in late June 2021, and as of November 2022 its owners and maintainers have made no explanation.
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build such a connection or interface is called an API specification. A computer system that meets this standard is said to implement or expose an API. The term API may refer either to the specification or to the implementation.
OpenStack is a free, open standard cloud computing platform. It is mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software platform consists of interrelated components that control diverse, multi-vendor hardware pools of processing, storage, and networking resources throughout a data center. Users manage it either through a web-based dashboard, through command-line tools, or through RESTful web services.
Thomas "Tawgs" Salter is a Canadian musician, songwriter, producer and recording engineer. His extensive body of musical work includes a vast array of artists ranging from Josh Groban, Lights and Lenka to Chantal Kreviazuk, Fefe Dobson, Dear Rouge, Midway State and USS. Salter has also worked alongside Grammy-winning writer/producer Walter Afanasieff. Salter's music, production and collaborations have been featured on television shows, including Vampire Diaries, Grey's Anatomy, American Idol and The Simpsons to films such as Prom Night and Joe Somebody.
Mozilla Location Service (MLS) was an open geolocation service that allowed devices to find their position by processing received signals of publicly observable radio transmitters: cellular network antennae, Wi-Fi access points, and Bluetooth beacons. The service was provided by Mozilla from 2013 to 2024. The service used Mozilla's open source software project called Ichnaea.
The Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) is a South Korean non-profit copyright collective for musical works, administering public performance and broadcasting rights, and mechanical recording and reproduction rights. Founded in 1964, it is the second collective rights management organization for musical works in Asia, after JASRAC in Japan. It is also one of the largest in Asia, with over 50,000 members. In 2023, it collected ₩407 billion in licensing fees and distributed ₩389 billion in royalties to its members.
