---
id: musicbrainzngs
version: "0.7.1"
license: BSD 2-clause
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: abandoned
---

# musicbrainzngs — Python bindings for the MusicBrainz NGS and the Cover Art Archive webservices

License: permissive · Maintenance: abandoned · Downloads: 214.3K/mo

## What it is and what it does

musicbrainzngs is a Python client library for the MusicBrainz NGS webservice (version 2) and the Cover Art Archive. It wraps HTTP requests to these remote APIs, allowing you to search for artists, releases, recordings, and other music entities, and to retrieve associated cover art. The library handles authentication for data submission and requires you to set a user agent identifying your application before making queries, per MusicBrainz's rate-limiting policy.

The package has no external runtime dependencies and installs as a pure-Python wheel. However, it has been abandoned since its latest release and receives no maintenance. If the MusicBrainz API has remained stable, existing code will likely continue to work, but you should not expect bug fixes, security updates, or support for API changes on the server side.

Use it for:

- Build a music tagger or metadata enrichment tool that looks up artist and release information from MusicBrainz.
- Retrieve cover art for albums programmatically via the Cover Art Archive API.
- Integrate music database queries into a music library manager or cataloging application.
- Batch-process music files to fetch canonical metadata and identifiers from MusicBrainz.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Provides Python bindings to query the MusicBrainz NGS webservice and Cover Art Archive API for music metadata and cover art.

Yes, if you need MusicBrainz API access and the server-side API has remained stable. The package is simple, dependency-free, and permissively licensed. However, be aware it is abandoned and will not receive updates. Verify that the current MusicBrainz API still matches the binding's expectations before committing to a production deployment.

## Install

pip install musicbrainzngs
uv add musicbrainzngs
poetry add musicbrainzngs

## Installing musicbrainzngs

Before you install: Low install friction with no runtime dependencies. However, the package is abandoned—last release was 2020-01-11. No maintenance activity is expected; use only if the MusicBrainz API has remained stable since then.

License in practice: Dual-licensed under BSD 2-clause (primary) and ISC for one compatibility module. Both are permissive open-source licenses with minimal restrictions on use or redistribution.

Quickstart:

import musicbrainzngs

musicbrainzngs.set_useragent("MyApp", "0.1", "http://example.com")
result = musicbrainzngs.search_artists(artist="Artist Name")

MusicBrainz webservice access rules require setting a user agent before making queries.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the MusicBrainz NGS API has remained backward-compatible since the 2020-01-11 release.
- Whether the package works reliably with modern Python versions despite being unmaintained.
- Current status of the Cover Art Archive API and whether this binding still functions correctly.
- Exact Python version compatibility with versions released after 2020.

## Package facts

- License: BSD 2-clause (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: abandoned
- Downloads: 214.3K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

musicbrainz api python, music metadata lookup, cover art archive client, musicbrainz webservice bindings, query music database, music information retrieval, music-metadata, webservice-client, abandoned

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