Best music release trackers // eight tools compared

The short version: if you want releases landing in a playlist without you doing anything, use Tracknack or crabhands. If an email is enough, MusicButler and Muspy both still do the job and Muspy is free. On Apple hardware, MusicHarbor is the nicest app of the lot. Spotify's Release Radar is already in your account and costs nothing, but it only counts an artist when they're credited as main or featured, so remix credits and production work mostly slip past it.

A music release tracker is a service that watches artists, and sometimes labels, for new output and tells you when something lands. The difference between them isn't really the tracking. It's what happens after the alert fires.

I built Tracknack because that gap annoyed me for years. You get the email, you open Spotify, you search the artist, you save the record, you forget about it by Tuesday.

What a tracker has to get right

Coverage is the first question: does it see the release at all? A tracker reading MusicBrainz knows about records that never reach a streaming service. One reading Spotify catches the Friday drop the second it lands and knows nothing about the pressing that only exists on Discogs.

What it follows is the second. Almost all of these track artists and far fewer track labels, which is the difference between following names you already know and following the people who choose them. When you follow Hessle Audio you're betting that whoever signs the records has better taste than your own search history.

Then delivery. An email is a to-do item. A playlist is music you can press play on.

The eight worth knowing

Tracknack

New releases from the artists and labels you follow get added to a playlist in Spotify or Apple Music automatically, and you can have it email you when something lands there. You never have to go and fetch anything.

It reads Spotify and Discogs together, so following works past the main artist field: producers, songwriters, engineers, and whole labels get tracked the same way a headline act does. Free covers 30 follows with weekly playlist updates. Starter is $2 a month billed yearly for 300 follows and hourly updates, Premium is $5 a month billed yearly for unlimited follows, Spotify follow sync, and automatic playlist clean-up. Full breakdown on the pricing page.

crabhands

The closest thing to Tracknack on this list, and genuinely good. It follows artists and labels on Spotify, creates a dedicated playlist, and filters new releases into playlists by artist, label, or genre. There's an iOS app, an Android app, and a web version.

Two real differences: it's Spotify only, so Apple Music users are out, and there's no free tier, just a 14-day trial with no card required. After that it's 1.99 a month or 20 a year, with the currency set at checkout. Compared month to month that undercuts Tracknack, so if genre filters are what you're after and you only use Spotify, take it.

MusicButler

The one most people mean when they say release tracker. It sends a daily email when artists you follow release something, and you pick whether that means albums, singles, or EPs. You can turn the email off entirely and read releases in a personal RSS feed or on the dashboard instead, which is a nicer option than most trackers bother offering.

You import artists in bulk from Apple Music, Spotify, or Last.fm, and the Apple Music and Spotify connections re-sync roughly every 24 hours. Last.fm is import-only, no sync. It also shows upcoming releases, which Release Radar doesn't. The free Basic plan shows notifications from up to 30 artists, same cap Tracknack's free plan uses, so no complaints from me there. It tracks artists and bands, not labels, which is the main reason people go looking for a MusicButler alternative in the first place.

Muspy

Free, open source under the AGPL, and it checks the MusicBrainz database every day for new albums by artists you've added. Email, RSS, or just the site. No playlist, no labels.

MusicBrainz covers records that never make it onto a streaming service at all, so Muspy flags things a Spotify-native tracker structurally can't see. It works at album level though, which is worth knowing before you rely on it: MusicBrainz files reissues, remasters and alternate pressings under the same release group as the original, so a remaster of a record you already know won't fire a notification.

MusicHarbor

The best native app here if you're on Apple hardware. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision, imports from Apple Music, Spotify, Last.fm, or TIDAL, and covers music videos, news, and concerts alongside releases. You can push releases into your library or batch them into a Spotify playlist.

The app is free, with Premium at $3.99 monthly or $19.99 a year, plus a lifetime unlock. Going by its release notes, label following is part of Premium.

Friend's Tapes

Email alerts, artists only, and I don't mind that at all: an email waits for you, a push notification doesn't. Connect Spotify and it imports your followed artists, likes, and playlists. Free covers 20 artists, and $12 a year takes you to 500.

Spotify Release Radar

Free, already in your account, updates every Friday. For a lot of people that genuinely is enough, and I'd rather someone use Release Radar happily than pay for something they don't need.

The limit is the credit rule. A release reaches your followers' Release Radar only when you're credited as a main or featured artist, and remixer credit doesn't count. So if Four Tet's name is on a record only as the remixer, nobody following Four Tet gets it, and if the thing lands on a Various Artists compilation it reaches nobody at all. Add the ordering on top, where Spotify sequences by what it thinks you'll like and folds in artists you don't follow, and it's a recommendation product wearing a tracker's clothes. I went through how it picks its ~30 tracks separately.

Apple Music New Music Mix

Refreshes weekly, and it's a recommendation playlist rather than a roll call of everyone you've favorited. Favoriting an artist gets you notifications, which is the separate mechanism. Same deal as Release Radar overall: fine as a default, opaque about what it skipped, no label tracking anywhere. More on what works and what doesn't on Apple Music.

The graveyard is worth a glance

Record Bird was the popular one before most of these existed. It scanned your library, imported followed artists from Spotify or Apple Music, and built a release calendar. It shut down in July 2018 and pivoted to a Facebook Messenger product called Sendmate.

Worth knowing before you spend a year teaching a tool your taste. Muspy's source is public, so it can outlive whoever's running it, though the canonical repo hasn't seen a push since 2014. Everything else here needs to make money to keep existing. That's not an argument against the paid ones. It's an argument for being wary of a polished free service with no visible way of paying for itself.

Where most of these stop

Labels get you one step past the name on the front of the record, and only Tracknack, crabhands, and MusicHarbor go that far. Credits are a step further again, and nothing else on this list goes there at all.

That's fine if the artists you care about are the ones on the sleeve. It falls apart when your taste runs through people who mostly live in the credits. Hudson Mohawke is a Warp artist, one half of TNGHT with Lunice, and has production credits on Kanye West records. Three different corners of music, one name, and only one of those threads shows up on an artist page you'd think to follow. Spotify does show song credits, it just gives you no way to follow them.

Label following has the same shape, and in my own account it's the setting that stays on longest. Tracking labels automatically is the closest thing to outsourcing your digging to someone with a better record collection.

Tracknack or crabhands

That's the only genuinely close call on this list, so it's the one worth spelling out. Tracknack does Apple Music as well as Spotify, has a free tier, and follows credits. crabhands is cheaper month to month and has genre filters. Everything else here is a different product for a different person, and the table will sort that out faster than another paragraph will.

Sources and notes

Checked against official product pages, support docs, and app listings on September 10, 2026. Prices are as published and may vary by region and currency.

• Tracknack pricing and how it works
• MusicButler FAQ - daily email, RSS and dashboard options, bulk import, roughly 24 hour Apple Music and Spotify sync with Last.fm import-only, Basic plan showing up to 30 artists
• muspy and muspy about page - daily MusicBrainz check, email, RSS and site delivery, free and open source under GNU AGPL
• MusicBrainz: Release Group - reissues, remasters and alternate pressings share a release group with the original
• crabhands - artist and label following, automatic dedicated playlist, genre filters, iOS, Android and web, 14 day trial then 1.99 monthly or 20 yearly
• MusicHarbor on the App Store - iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision compatibility, Apple Music, Spotify, Last.fm and TIDAL import, $3.99 monthly and $19.99 annual
• Friend's Tapes FAQ - email only delivery, Spotify import, 20 artists free and $12 a year for 500
• Spotify: Getting music on Release Radar - weekly Friday update, main or featured artist rule, Various Artists exclusion, ordering factors
• Record Bird shuts down its apps and site in Sendmate pivot (Music Ally) and 9to5Mac - July 2018 shutdown and pivot