Groovy was the biggest Discord music bot in the world when YouTube’s takedown letters ended it in August 2021. Servers running Discord on desktop lost their default jukebox overnight, and the survivors have spent the years since either self-hosting quietly or building around Spotify and Deezer instead of YouTube. If your server still has an empty music slot on desktop Discord, these seven Groovy alternatives cover the range: public bots that survived the takedown wave, self-hosted picks that give admins control, and multi-source options that route around any single provider going dark again.
Quick comparison table
| App | Best for | Free plan | Starting price/mo | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jockie Music | Multi-source public bot | Yes, up to 250 songs queued | $5.99 (Premium) | Plays Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, SoundCloud in one bot |
| FredBoat | Self-hosting Java admins | Yes, fully free open-source | Free forever | Ten-year-old codebase with a large support community |
| Aiode | Playlist heavy servers | Yes, fully free open-source | Free forever | Cross-platform playlist import and rich queue commands |
| Green-bot | MEE6-team maintenance | Yes, unlimited songs | $2.99 (Premium) | Actively maintained by the MEE6 team |
| Tempo | Spotify-first servers | Yes, 24-hour queue | $2.99 (Premium) | Plays Spotify links directly without workarounds |
| ChipBot | Music plus soundboard | Yes, unlimited public tier | Free (donations) | Bundled soundboard and TTS commands |
| JMusicBot | One-server home admins | Yes, one-file jar | Free forever | Runs on a Raspberry Pi with a single java -jar |
Why Groovy ended and what changed for desktop Discord
Groovy died because YouTube sent it a cease-and-desist. The bot streamed YouTube audio without a license, which the ToS had always banned, but the volume made enforcement unavoidable once it hit 250 million users. Rythm followed a few weeks later. Server admins on desktop Discord lost the two biggest public music bots in the same quarter, and the replacement scene split three ways.
The public survivors moved off YouTube. Jockie Music and Tempo route Spotify and Deezer directly, so a Groovy alternative on desktop Discord no longer means a bot that plays YouTube links. It means a bot that plays a playlist you already own.
The self-hosted path grew. Aiode, JMusicBot, and FredBoat all publish deployment guides, and admins who don’t want another takedown surprise now run their own instances. Desktop Discord doesn’t care where the audio comes from, and a self-hosted bot in your own Docker stack won’t disappear on a Friday morning.
Free public bots got smaller queues and more paywalls. Where Groovy was unlimited and free, most public alternatives now cap the queue length or the uptime on the free tier. Servers with active voice channels usually end up on a $3 to $6 monthly plan, or self-hosting.
The alternatives
Jockie Music – Best for multi-source public playback
Jockie Music runs up to four bots per server on the free tier, which lets a busy Discord server share four voice channels with music at once. It plays Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp links directly, so playlists you own move over without conversion.
Where it falls short: Free-tier queues cap at 250 songs, and the fourth bot slot triggers a Premium upsell on servers that scale past casual use.
Pricing:
- Free: One primary bot, 250-song queue, 24/7 disabled after voice inactivity
- Paid: Premium at $5.99/mo, unlocks unlimited queues and 24/7 mode
- vs Groovy: More paid than Groovy ever was, but the multi-source support is a genuine upgrade
Migrating from Groovy: No importer, but Jockie reads Spotify and Apple Music playlist URLs directly. A Groovy YouTube queue rebuilds by pasting your Spotify equivalent playlist.
Download: jockiemusic.com
Bottom line: Pick this if the server has multiple active voice channels and admins want one bot family instead of stitching together four.
FredBoat – Best for admins who self-host on Java
FredBoat is a decade-old open-source Discord music bot with a large support community and a stable JDA fork. The public instance is smaller than it used to be, but the codebase is well-documented and admins running Docker or bare-metal Java can spin up a private FredBoat that plays across their servers without a shared queue.
Where it falls short: Setup takes a Lavalink node and JDA fork, so first-time self-hosters lose an evening to configuration. The public bot’s queue commands stall during peak load.
Pricing:
- Free: Public bot, self-hosted bot both fully free
- Paid: None
- vs Groovy: Free forever, at the cost of running your own infrastructure
Migrating from Groovy: No direct importer. Paste playlist URLs from Spotify or SoundCloud into ;;play and the bot rebuilds the queue.
Download: fredboat.com
Bottom line: Pick this if you already have a Java-friendly home server and want a Groovy-style commands layout without the takedown risk.
Aiode – Best for playlist-heavy servers
Aiode (formerly Botify) is open source, self-hosted, and built around playlist import. It reads Spotify and YouTube playlists into a shared library, so a server-wide queue command works the same way Groovy’s did without the YouTube exposure.
Where it falls short: No public instance, which means every server pays in setup time. The web dashboard is bare and admins configure most things through commands.
Pricing:
- Free: Fully free open-source, self-hosted only
- Paid: None
- vs Groovy: Free, with a one-time setup cost instead of a running-cost surprise
Migrating from Groovy: Aiode’s playlist commands mirror Groovy’s syntax closely, and its import feature accepts Spotify playlist URLs directly.
Download: github.com/robinfriedli/aiode
Bottom line: Pick this if the server relies on shared playlists and admins can host a Java service.
Green-bot – Best for a MEE6-team backed public bot
Green-bot is the MEE6 team’s music-only companion, and it inherits MEE6’s uptime and support cadence. The free tier includes unlimited queue length and no daily minute cap, which is unusual for a public music bot in 2026.
Where it falls short: DJ role controls and 24/7 mode gate behind Premium. Voice-channel skip votes need Premium to configure.
Pricing:
- Free: Unlimited songs, no time cap, basic commands
- Paid: Premium at $2.99/mo, unlocks 24/7, DJ role, and audio filters
- vs Groovy: More generous free tier than most competitors, closer to the old Groovy experience
Migrating from Groovy: No importer. Command syntax closely matches Groovy’s /play, /queue, /skip.
Download: green-bot.app
Bottom line: Pick this if the server wants a Groovy-shaped public bot without the paywall creep.
Tempo – Best for Spotify-first servers
Tempo plays Spotify links directly without a YouTube lookup fallback, so the audio matches the artist you asked for. That single detail matters on servers where wrong-track results were a running Groovy joke.
Where it falls short: 24-hour queue timeout on the free tier drops long-running voice channels. Non-Spotify sources are secondary and audio quality caps below premium tiers of paid rivals.
Pricing:
- Free: 24-hour queue limit, no filter controls
- Paid: Premium at $2.99/mo, unlocks unlimited queue and audio filters
- vs Groovy: Similar public-bot experience, with a Spotify-only audio path
Migrating from Groovy: Paste Spotify playlist URLs into /play, and Tempo reads them straight through.
Download: tempo.arcaneteam.pro
Bottom line: Pick this if server members share Spotify playlists more than YouTube links.
ChipBot – Best for music plus voice utilities
ChipBot bundles music playback with a soundboard, text-to-speech, and voice-channel utilities in a single free-tier install. The public tier has no queue cap and the soundboard is fully open for donations-only servers.
Where it falls short: The soundboard and TTS features sometimes crowd the music latency on busy servers, and mobile Discord users report stuttering more often than on desktop.
Pricing:
- Free: Unlimited queue, soundboard, TTS
- Paid: Donations only, no paywall
- vs Groovy: Broader feature set than Groovy, at the cost of a smaller developer team
Migrating from Groovy: ChipBot’s /play and /queue mirror Groovy’s syntax.
Download: chipbot.gg
Bottom line: Pick this if the server wants a music bot that also handles soundboard clips and admin voice tools.
JMusicBot – Best for one-server home admins
JMusicBot is a single-file Java bot that runs on any machine with a JVM, including a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. One config file, one java -jar command, and the bot joins your server as a private music player owned only by you.
Where it falls short: No web dashboard, no multi-server support, no playlist import beyond text files. Every server needs its own JMusicBot instance.
Pricing:
- Free: Fully free open-source
- Paid: None
- vs Groovy: Not a public bot, so scale is single-server rather than global, in exchange for full control
Migrating from Groovy: Paste YouTube, SoundCloud, or Bandcamp URLs into !play, and JMusicBot handles them.
Download: github.com/jagrosh/MusicBot
Bottom line: Pick this if you want a Groovy replacement for one small server and already own the host machine.
How to choose
Pick Jockie Music if your server has more than one active voice channel and members share Spotify or Apple Music playlists.
Pick FredBoat or Aiode if a technical admin can spare the setup time and you want a public-bot experience with no ongoing rug-pull risk.
Pick Green-bot or ChipBot if you want the closest match to what Groovy used to feel like on a public bot, without hitting a paywall the first week.
Pick JMusicBot if the server is small, the admin has a spare Raspberry Pi, and the goal is to never worry about a music bot going offline again.
Skip Tempo if the server plays anything other than Spotify. Skip FredBoat if nobody on the admin team has run a Java service before.
FAQ
Are there any Discord music bots like Groovy still working in 2026? Yes. Jockie Music, Green-bot, ChipBot, and Tempo run public bots today, and FredBoat, Aiode, and JMusicBot self-host cleanly. The tradeoff is that public bots now paywall 24/7 mode and unlimited queues, and self-hosted bots need an admin to run them.
Why did Groovy shut down? YouTube sent Groovy a cease-and-desist in August 2021 because the bot streamed YouTube audio without a license. The ToS had always required it; the volume of users made enforcement unavoidable. Rythm shut down for the same reason a month later.
What is the best free Groovy alternative? Green-bot and ChipBot have the most generous free tiers, both with unlimited queue length. For self-hosted, JMusicBot is the lightest to run and Aiode is the best for playlist-heavy servers.
Can I still play YouTube music in Discord? Yes, but not through most public bots. Self-hosted bots like FredBoat, Aiode, and JMusicBot still play YouTube URLs. Public bots have mostly moved to Spotify, Apple Music, and Deezer to stay clear of YouTube’s ToS enforcement.
Which Discord music bot has the best sound quality? Tempo and Jockie Music, both because they play licensed sources like Spotify and Apple Music directly instead of routing through YouTube. Self-hosted FredBoat and Aiode can also hit high bitrates when configured for Lavalink with premium sources.
