Prowlarr

intermediate

Indexer manager for Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr.

Overview

Prowlarr is a centralized indexer manager developed by the Servarr community to streamline the configuration and management of torrent trackers and Usenet indexers across media automation applications. Originally created to address the fragmentation and maintenance issues with Jackett, Prowlarr provides native integration with Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, and Readarr, automatically synchronizing indexer configurations and credentials across all connected applications. This eliminates the need to manually configure each indexer in every *arr application, significantly reducing setup time and ensuring consistency. This Docker configuration deploys Prowlarr as a standalone service that acts as the central hub for all indexer management within your media automation stack. Prowlarr maintains its own database of indexer configurations, statistics, and search history while providing API endpoints that your *arr applications can query directly. The container includes support for over 500 indexers out of the box, with Cardigann definitions for custom tracker integration and automatic updates to indexer definitions as sites change their APIs or structures. This setup is ideal for users running complete media automation stacks who want to eliminate the complexity of managing indexers across multiple applications. Home lab enthusiasts, media server administrators, and anyone maintaining Sonarr, Radarr, or Lidarr instances will benefit from Prowlarr's centralized approach to indexer management, automatic application synchronization, and comprehensive search testing capabilities that ensure indexers remain functional and properly configured.

Key Features

Central management of 500+ torrent trackers and Usenet indexers with automatic definition updates
Native *arr application sync that automatically propagates indexer configurations to Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr
Cardigann custom indexer definitions for private trackers and specialized sites not included in the default collection
Built-in search testing and health monitoring to identify broken indexers and connection issues
Comprehensive statistics tracking including search success rates, grab counts, and indexer performance metrics
Flaresolverr integration for accessing Cloudflare-protected indexers without manual browser interaction
History logging of all searches, grabs, and indexer interactions across connected applications
Automatic indexer category mapping and capability detection for optimal *arr application compatibility

Common Use Cases

1Centralizing indexer management for complete Sonarr, Radarr, and Lidarr media automation stacks
2Migrating from Jackett to a more integrated and actively maintained indexer management solution
3Managing private torrent tracker credentials and configurations across multiple media applications
4Setting up new *arr applications without manually configuring dozens of indexers in each one
5Monitoring indexer health and performance to identify and replace unreliable sources
6Implementing Usenet and torrent hybrid setups with consistent indexer availability across all applications
7Home lab media servers requiring centralized configuration management and automated indexer synchronization

Prerequisites

Minimum 256MB RAM allocated to the container for optimal indexer definition storage and search processing
Port 9696 available for Prowlarr's web interface and API endpoints used by *arr applications
Existing Sonarr, Radarr, or Lidarr installations to take advantage of automatic indexer synchronization
Valid credentials for private torrent trackers and Usenet providers you intend to configure
Understanding of indexer types, categories, and the relationship between trackers and media automation
Flaresolverr instance if you plan to use indexers protected by Cloudflare anti-bot measures

For development & testing. Review security settings, change default credentials, and test thoroughly before production use. See Terms

docker-compose.yml

1services: 
2  prowlarr: 
3    image: linuxserver/prowlarr:latest
4    container_name: prowlarr
5    restart: unless-stopped
6    environment: 
7      PUID: 1000
8      PGID: 1000
9      TZ: UTC
10    volumes: 
11      - prowlarr_config:/config
12    ports: 
13      - "9696:9696"
14
15volumes: 
16  prowlarr_config:

.env Template

.env

1# No additional config needed

Usage Notes

1Docs: https://wiki.servarr.com/prowlarr
2Access at http://localhost:9696 - no default credentials
3Add indexers: Indexers > Add (torrent/usenet trackers)
4Sync to *arr apps: Settings > Apps (add Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr)
5Use Cardigann for custom indexer definitions
6Flaresolverr integration for Cloudflare-protected sites

Quick Start

terminal

1# 1. Create the compose file
2cat > docker-compose.yml << 'EOF'
3services:
4  prowlarr:
5    image: linuxserver/prowlarr:latest
6    container_name: prowlarr
7    restart: unless-stopped
8    environment:
9      PUID: 1000
10      PGID: 1000
11      TZ: UTC
12    volumes:
13      - prowlarr_config:/config
14    ports:
15      - "9696:9696"
16
17volumes:
18  prowlarr_config:
19EOF
20
21# 2. Create the .env file
22cat > .env << 'EOF'
23# No additional config needed
24EOF
25
26# 3. Start the services
27docker compose up -d
28
29# 4. View logs
30docker compose logs -f

One-Liner

Run this command to download and set up the recipe in one step:

terminal

1curl -fsSL https://docker.recipes/api/recipes/prowlarr/run | bash

Troubleshooting

Indexer sync failing to *arr apps: Verify API keys are correct and applications are accessible from Prowlarr container network
Search results not appearing in connected applications: Check indexer category mappings and ensure capabilities match application requirements
Prowlarr web interface showing 502/503 errors: Increase container memory allocation as indexer definitions require significant RAM
Private tracker indexers failing authentication: Verify credentials are current and account hasn't been suspended for inactivity
Cloudflare-protected indexers timing out: Configure Flaresolverr integration in Settings > Indexers > Indexer Proxies
Application sync removing manually configured indexers: Disable 'Remove' option in Apps settings to preserve existing configurations

Community Notes

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