sonarr

Sonarr is a self-hosted media management application for organizing and downloading TV series. It manages show tracking, episode/file downloads via external download clients, and automates workflows based on configurable rules.

Evaluated Mar 30, 2026 (28d ago)

Homepage ↗ Repo ↗ Infrastructure media-management tv-shows self-hosted automation downloads content-organization

⚙ Agent Friendliness

/ 100

Can an agent use this?

🔒 Security

/ 100

Is it safe for agents?

⚡ Reliability

/ 100

Does it work consistently?

Score Breakdown

⚙ Agent Friendliness

MCP Quality

Documentation

Error Messages

Auth Simplicity

Rate Limits

🔒 Security

TLS Enforcement

Auth Strength

Scope Granularity

Dep. Hygiene

Secret Handling

Sonarr is typically deployed behind a reverse proxy/HTTPS, but TLS enforcement is not guaranteed by the package itself (depends on configuration). Authentication is usually API key/session-based without fine-grained scopes. Proper network hardening (bind to LAN, firewall, reverse proxy, HTTPS) is important.

⚡ Reliability

Uptime/SLA

Version Stability

Breaking Changes

Error Recovery

Best When

You want local automation for TV episode acquisition with configurable quality policies and integration with existing download infrastructure.

Avoid When

You need enterprise-grade auth controls (fine-grained scopes, SSO) out of the box or you cannot safely expose the web interface/API to your network.

Use Cases

• Automatically track TV series and download new episodes
• Set quality/format preferences and manage upgrades
• Coordinate episode downloads through Usenet/BitTorrent download clients
• Organize a media library with consistent naming and routing

Not For

• Serverless/hosted-only use without self-hosting capability
• Use cases requiring strict SaaS-style SLAs or guaranteed support contracts
• Teams that cannot expose the app over a network (for API/control) or manage local security hardening

Interface

REST API

Yes

GraphQL

gRPC

MCP Server

SDK

Webhooks

Authentication

Methods: session/cookie auth for web UI API key/token-style access (commonly supported by Sonarr)

OAuth: No Scopes: No

Sonarr deployments typically use an API key (or equivalent) and local web authentication. Fine-grained OAuth scopes and SSO are not evident from high-level package info; exact behavior depends on configuration and Sonarr version.

Pricing

Free tier: No

Requires CC: No

Self-hosted open-source software; costs are primarily infrastructure (server/VPS) and bandwidth/storage.

Agent Metadata

Pagination

none

Idempotent

False

Retry Guidance

Not documented

Known Gotchas

⚠ Media workflows are stateful (downloads/episodes/queue). Retries can cause duplicate actions unless the caller de-duplicates by resource identity.
⚠ Operations may be asynchronous (requests return before processing finishes); agents need to poll or wait for state changes.
⚠ Authentication and CSRF/session behavior for the web/API can vary by deployment and version; ensure the agent uses the documented API mechanism rather than UI scraping.

Alternatives

Radarr (for movies) Readarr (books) Lidarr (music) Bazarr (subtitle management for media) Media server automation via bespoke scripts plus a download client

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Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-30.