AzuraCast VS Audioserve

I don't have any experience with it, but it looks like AzuraCast does what you want.

I've used AzureCast - https://www.azuracast.com/ - super simple to stand up and run - you can run multiple radio stations with it.

It’s also worth looking into RadioDj or Azuracast for solid, less complex alternatives. I might be switching back to RadioDj since it’s a tad bit easier to queue up songs.

Okay yeah so this is all wrong. I'm using this as reference for an example docker compose file.

Take a look at AzuraCast. This seems very suited to your need

Azuracast perhaps?

Azuracast. Not quite as powerful but much easier to run. Also Linux, although you can tinker to get it running under Windows. It would run well in a cloud host like Linode or Digital Ocean, which might mean you don’t need a relay service like Alon depending on how many listeners you have. You can also host it at home of course.

So basically, I need something like mStream or Audioserve that you point at a folder and you can play the mp3s in it. Nothing fancy, I don't need tags, etc. something strictly folder-based. It also needs the ability to link directly to the file. Mousikofidi does this, but I need something for Windows (I know, I know...) Essentially Apache but prettier.

Perhaps take a look at Audioserve.

Maybe AudioServ? It's a lightweight, directory based, server but I don't remember what the search is like. https://github.com/izderadicka/audioserve

Absolutely, no point arguing over personal preference. If you prefer a folder structure, perhaps look into Audioserve.

https://github.com/izderadicka/audioserve - serve audio files from a folder structure

Audioserve: Simple personal server to serve audio files from directories\ (8 comments)

I also considered audioserve + app [1], but I did not have the time to try it out.

[1] https://github.com/izderadicka/audioserve

I did, recently I opened an issue on this: https://github.com/izderadicka/audioserve/issues/59