HolyArrs bundles Sonarr, Radarr and the rest of the arr stack into one 15 MB app

One container instead of six

A new open-source project called HolyArrs, introduced through a Show HN post on Hacker News, attempts to collapse the self-hosted media stack into a single application. A conventional setup stitches together Sonarr for TV, Radarr for films, Lidarr for music, Bazarr for subtitles, Prowlarr for indexer management and Overseerr or Seerr for user requests. That means six services, each with its own login, port, update cycle and API key. HolyArrs takes on all of those roles from one web interface.

The size figure is the headline number: according to the project's README, the Docker image is 14.9 MB, while the six linuxserver.io images it replaces weigh a combined 718.2 MB, roughly 48 times more. The README also reports about 140 MiB of idle memory with a catalog of 10,000 titles spanning 55,000 movies and episodes, measured on 8 November 2026. Images are published for amd64, arm64 and armv7, covering PCs, NAS boxes, Apple silicon machines and older 32-bit ARM boards.

What it does

Running it amounts to a Docker Compose file exposing port 6262, after which a short first-run wizard walks through library folders, a downloader and a source. From there, requests flow through one pipeline: HolyArrs searches configured sources, applies user-defined pick rules covering size, quality and language to select a release, hands it to a downloader and files it into the library, where Plex, Jellyfin or Emby picks it up.

The browsing interface mimics commercial streaming services, with trailers previewing when you hover a title, a calendar of upcoming episodes for followed shows, and a request system where the owner approves items or lets trusted users skip the queue. Subtitles are stored alongside files in the languages you choose; searching for them online is scheduled for after version 1.0.

Notably, the developer says no API keys are needed — titles, artwork and charts come from a HolyArrs-operated metadata server. Stored passwords and keys are encrypted with a master key that lives in the config folder. HolyArrs also does not download anything by itself: it connects to qBittorrent, Transmission, Deluge, SABnzbd or NZBGet, with a built-in downloader planned for a later release. Sources can be any Torznab or Newznab indexer, or Prowlarr and Jackett, and Prowlarr can continue pushing indexer settings into HolyArrs.

Moving an existing stack

A migration tool in the settings reads existing installations — Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Prowlarr, Bazarr, Seerr, Overseerr, qBittorrent and SABnzbd — and imports library folders, titles, quality profiles converted into pick rules, indexers, download clients, subtitle language preferences and pending or approved requests. It runs in a trial mode first, can be undone, and only reads from the old apps, so both stacks can run side by side during evaluation. There are gaps: credentials must be re-entered or imported from a file, custom formats, tags and history do not transfer, and media files themselves never move.

Not there yet

Beyond the absent built-in downloader, the README is candid about limits: no AI or MCP features in 1.0, no native phone or TV apps (the web interface works on phones), and music browsing in the Explore section still under construction. The roadmap is driven by user votes on the project's subreddit, and the FAQ confirms the project is free and open source.

Why it matters

The arr stack has been the default answer for self-hosted media for roughly a decade, but its fragmentation carries a real cost: six things to update, six places to check when an episode fails to appear, and keys shuffled between containers. A 15 MB single-service alternative with an import path for existing setups is a meaningful reduction in that overhead, particularly on low-memory ARM hardware where idle footprint matters. The caveats deserve weight, though. The footprint and memory figures are the developer's own measurements rather than independent benchmarks, the hosted metadata server introduces a central dependency the traditional stack avoided by using user-supplied API keys, and a 1.0.x release that skips custom formats and history will give long-time Sonarr users pause. Still, for anyone starting fresh or running a small NAS, HolyArrs is one of the more interesting simplifications of the home-server landscape to appear recently.