the problems with starr apps

if you go to any selfhosted community (r/selfhosted is the main one im talking about) its impossible to ignore the prevelance of starr apps. i know some people just call it "the *arr stack" but idc its called the starr apps. for those who (dont) know, the gimmick of the starr apps is that they automatically fetch the media that the makers make. sonarr automatically gets shows, radarr automatically gets movies, etc. they are considered a gift from god.

to start out, im going to compliment the starr apps hard. its helped me develop my digital media collection, get all seasons of house md, helped me watch shows with my friends, helped my family get shows they wouldve had to pay for, and its all incredibly convenient. and im probably one of the people who benefit the least, ive seen people say that its gotten them laid (though to be fair most of the selfhosted community are middle aged men who hate their marriage)

and theres a lot to love about it! paired with jellyseer or overseer, its extremely easy to use, my fucking grandma was able to get multiple seasons of succession, and it was honestly pretty convenient to pair it with my usenet client (sabnzbd). i recommend everyone with a homelab to get into the starr stack, and honestly its what got me into homelabbing (and cost me way too much money)

this is where my compliments end.

THERES TOO MANY APPS

have you ever noticed how many starr apps there are? some of them i understand, you need prowlarr, maybe something like tdarr, but holy shit every time i go on r/selfhosted theres another 50 starr apps.

THEY ARE TOO HARD TO USE (for some things)

have you ever tried having custom formats? custom qualities? special file sizes? good fucking luck not taking up 20tb per season because holy shit it is so difficult. lets look at the menu for file size:

how do you expect anyone except the creator to understand this? the fact that we need external apps to manage this and cant just do this inside is a tragedy. or maybe the fact that we have third party apps means that this is a dumb complaint. however, it took me months of using the apps to discover the third party apps, and there are multiple to choose from so i dont even know what to choose from

concloooosion

this blog was shorter than i thought, but i felt there should be at least some critique on the internet regarding the starr apps. i genuinely want these problems solved, but in the meantime i guess the third party apps are good enough. i just wanted to complain. bye chat