Web Service

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Products > WebService

MusicBrainz supports two Web Services currently:

  1. /ws/2: A REST styled XML based Web Service that is actively maintained and supports all the changes in the database.
  2. /ws/1: The old XML based Web Service, that doesn't support all the latest changes in the schema. Attention.png This service is now deprecated and should NOT be used for new development!

XML Web Service

This is a modern Web Service based on the best practices established by the most used Web Services at Amazon and Google. This service uses a URL scheme using REST concepts and delivers XML responses via the standard HTTP protocol. This Web Service should be used for all new development.

The XML returned by this Web Service is documented in MusicBrainz XML Meta Data and the overall Web Service is described in XML Web Service.

To access the web service you can use standard XML and HTTP tools to retrieve the data, or you can use our Python based python-musicbrainz2 library. libmusicbrainz version 3 and up supports the XML Web Service.

Attention.png Note: All users of the XML web service must ensure that each of their client applications never make more than ONE web service call per second. Making more than one call per second drives up the load on the servers and prevents others from using MusicBrainz. If you impact the server by making more than one call per second, your IP address may be blocked preventing all further access to MusicBrainz.