Lavalink guide for Discord music bots

What is Lavalink?

Lavalink is a standalone Java server built on Lavaplayer. Your Discord bot sends play/stop commands over WebSocket; Lavalink handles source loading (YouTube, Spotify via plugins, SoundCloud, etc.) and streams audio to Discord voice. That split keeps your bot's event loop responsive under load.

Setup checklist

1. Create a Lavalink node (managed plan, dedicated node, or free public node for testing).
2. Copy host, port, and password from the panel — use TLS/wss in production when offered.
3. Point your bot library at the node; keep the bot process separate from Lavalink (CPU isolation).
4. Pick the region closest to your guild voice channel; re-test latency after you scale past ~50 concurrent players.
5. Run the live audio test on this site before paying for a managed plan.

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Libraries

Example application.yml (snippet)

lavalink:
  server:
    password: "your-password"
    sources:
      youtube: true
      soundcloud: true
    bufferDurationMs: 400
    playerUpdateInterval: 5

Use JDK 17 or 21 LTS. Raise bufferDurationMs slightly if you see stutter on mobile networks.