Why so many *arr services? Why not 1 service that works with all media types? - eviltoast

I am almost done building my first self hosted streambox through Docker. That’s a total of 16 instances, each fulfilling 1 specific role.

As I’m new to the *arr world, could you please help me understand why it is standard to deploy multiple *arr services for each media type (ex: readarr1 for books + readarr2 for audiobooks) instead of using 1 that does multiple media types?

Thank you.

  • jlow (he/him)@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Because it makes more sense to have software do one thing good and not many things bad. There are many examples of this, iTunes is a classic but also Jellyfin, I like that they’re focussing on video because that is very complex in itself. To also do comics, podcasts, audiobooks, comics, books etc. meana much more complexity, things that can influence and trip each other, diversion of work etc. Yes, would be very cool to have one app that can play everything perfectly but that’s almost impossible. To do one thing good isn’t.

    • Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      iTunes is a double edged sword in that regard, given that while it initially innovated as a digital music distribution storefront, as more and more features were added to it, it started juggling too many tasks at once instead of continuing to innovate with just one.