Scryer vs. Prowlarr
Prowlarr exists because Sonarr and Radarr each hold their own indexer list. It centralizes indexer definitions and pushes them to every *arr. With one application for movies, series, and anime, Scryer has one indexer list already.
Side By Side
Section titled “Side By Side”| Prowlarr | Scryer | |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Separate app syncing to each *arr | Indexers configured once in Settings → Indexers |
| Definitions | Cardigann YAML for hundreds of trackers, plus native indexers | Native plugins for major trackers and Usenet indexers, generic Newznab and Torznab, and a Cardigann engine plugin that runs Prowlarr-style definitions |
| Per-app routing | Sync profiles decide which *arr gets which indexer | Facet routing decides which indexer serves Movies, Series, or Anime |
| Cloudflare | FlareSolverr as an indexer proxy | FlareSolverr-compatible challenge solver, works with Byparr |
| Health | Prowlarr health checks and history | Indexer status, backoff, and history in Scryer |
| Migration | n/a | The migration wizard imports indexers from Prowlarr, Sonarr, and Radarr |
What Changes In Practice
Section titled “What Changes In Practice”No sync step. Adding an indexer in Scryer makes it available to every facet immediately. Routing lets you restrict it, for example an anime-only tracker that should never serve movie searches.
Keep Prowlarr if you want. Prowlarr exposes each indexer as a Newznab or Torznab endpoint, and Scryer’s generic Newznab and Torznab plugins consume those. This is a reasonable bridge while migrating or when other apps still depend on Prowlarr.
Interactive search is faster. Scryer parses and scores large result sets quickly, which shows most on long-running series and anime. See Context-Aware Release Parsing.
What Prowlarr Still Does That Scryer Does Not
Section titled “What Prowlarr Still Does That Scryer Does Not”- Prowlarr serves indexers to apps other than Scryer, including Lidarr, Readarr, and Mylar.
- Prowlarr’s definition library is larger. If a tracker has no native Scryer plugin and no Cardigann definition, use Prowlarr as a Torznab bridge.
Related
Section titled “Related”- Indexer and Routing define the concepts.
- Plugins covers installing indexer plugins.
- Migrate From Sonarr/Radarr imports Prowlarr indexers.