Technical overview

How DizyFi works

An overview of the architecture, how to install a node, and the basics of running one day to day.

Overview

Every major streaming platform runs from a central server farm — your music is uploaded to their infrastructure and served through their CDN, on their terms. DizyFi flips that: each artist runs a node, a small always-on computer (typically a Raspberry Pi or similar) that lives in their home. The node holds the music files, serves the audio stream, and signs its own profile with a private key that never leaves the machine.

The DizyFi registry never touches the audio — it only stores signed profiles and helps listeners discover nodes.

Pi NodeArtist hometunnelTunneldizyfi.uk subdomaingossipRegistrydizyfi.uk/apidiscoverListener Appweb / Androiddirect stream (P2P)

When a listener finds an artist on the DizyFi app, they're handed the artist's endpoint URL and stream directly from that node — the audio never passes through the registry.

Installation

Installing a node takes a few minutes. Pick your platform below.

Linux · x86_64 / ARM

One command installs the node, a bundled runtime, and sets up autostart. Runs well on a low-power always-on box, including a Raspberry Pi — both x86_64 and ARM builds are supported.

curl -fsSL https://dizyfi.uk/releases/install.sh | sh

Your node needs to be reachable from the internet — either forward the relevant port on your router, or use a Cloudflare Tunnel instead. If you go the tunnel route, cloudflared needs installing separately, it isn't bundled by the script above. On a Raspberry Pi, this PiMyLifeUp guide walks through setting one up.

Windows

Download and run the installer. It handles service registration and keypair generation, and adds a tray icon to manage the node.

Download DizyFi-Setup.exe
Android

Explore the local city, or wider afield, discover artists with the Android phone app. Install the APK directly — the app isn't on the Play Store yet.

Download dizyfi-1.0.apk

The Linux installer drops everything into ~/dizyfi. The first run generates an Ed25519 keypair on-device — the private key stays on the machine and is never uploaded anywhere.

Basic operational guide

Once installed, a node is mostly self-managing. A few things are useful to know:

Starting and stopping

The installer sets up autostart, so the node comes up on boot. To run or restart it manually on Linux you can use the commandline:

~/dizyfi/wrapper/dizyfi-wrapper

Going live

On startup the node registers with the DizyFi registry and sends periodic heartbeats to signal it's online. If a node misses three heartbeats in a row, it's marked offline in discovery until it checks in again — no action needed, it recovers automatically once the node is back up.

Updating your profile

Profile fields — name, bio, genres, city, endpoint URL — are signed locally and republished with an incremented sequence number, so the latest edit always wins across the gossip network. Changes typically reach every registry within a few minutes.

Controlling track access

Use the web UI to manage your library and set which tracks require a subscription

No restart is required — the node picks up the change immediately. Gated tracks are unlocked with a signed listener token issued after a successful subscription, verified by the node offline against the registry's public key.