Currently I’m using sickrage which as been working great… So the old adage if it ain’t broke don’t fix…
But having said that… Can someone tell me what’s better about sonarr as I like the layout and have been testing it out but I not sure if I should change to it
I do like the trakt integration that sickrage does have but sonarr does not
So no one can tell me what’s better about sonarr?
I think it’s a question that will only provoke biased answers. Trying not to speak for others, but I think anyone here feels sonarr is better for one way or another, otherwise we wouldn’t be here right? 
Speaking strictly for myself:
I have never tried sickrage. I used to use sickbeard because there was nothing else, and everyone was using it. Then I discovered sonarr (called nzbdrone), and I gave it a go. I have never looked back since. I have to be honest, this was already version 2.x, I don’t know what 1.x looked like or what features it had.
Things I absolutely love:
I stumbled upon this program because I was tired of having to fix American Dad. I don’t even watch it myself anymore, because (personal opinion!) it really sucks hairy butt in the later seasons, but other people in the house still enjoy it. So initially I thought “ok, let’s give this a go for this single show”. I was so impressed that I moved 100+ shows over to sonarr on the same day and kicked sickbeard out the window.
I really don’t want to knock the competition, but for me it’s a fact that sonarr is miles ahead.
Okay, yeah, I’m gonna stop now. So far I haven’t listed a lot of “real” advantages and this post starts to look too fanboy-ish, or like a raving madman, depending on your point of view.
I don’t mind biased views, want peeps to tell me good things about sonarr, sickrage is a fork of sickbeard but I do like the look of sonarr…
So please, biased views and features welcome,
Speaking as someone who started with Sickbeard, jumped to Sickrage and then to Sonarr, I give full thumbs up to Sonarr for a few reasons.
For me, the first noticeable improvement was installation, which was a snap compared to Sickrage. With Sickrage I had to instally Python and do a bunch of command line tweaks to get the back end running. With Sonarr it’s a quick install. You still have to fiddle around under the hood a bit (just like Sickbeard and Sickrage) but it’s a much simpler and quicker process.
Then you see the UI and it’s miles ahead of the other guys. Aesthetically pleasing, well thought out and easy to use and understand.
Other features that are worth the jump for me:
That’s all that I can think of right now. I will say that I have zero regrets making the jump to Sonarr!
Overall Sonarr looks better and also works better imo
But for me personally Sonarr isn’t friendly to users who dont have their server 24/7 on. That’s a reason for me to stick with Sickbeard/sickrage. At least my shows/upgrades etc are being downloaded. I do hope Sonarr will handle this better in the future but for now my personal preference is sickrage. After all… when it works good you hardly need the program/user interface as shows will be downloaded automatically and imported into xbmc anyway.
Im interested also…I used Sickbeard for a short time, found mrorange piratebay version, and now sickrage…been with sickrage since and am loving it.
Sonarr is attracting me basically due to the looks and the community, but I am hesitant for two reasons, it seems that sickrage has more torrent providers and I hear that sonarr isnt as good for backlog searches?
Can someone explain those two areas…I am using torrents only, so should I just stick with sickrage?
Thanks in advance
Depends on the trackers you need, here is the list as of today:
Sonarr doesn’t do automatic backlog searches because they are incredibly wasteful and insane to do (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result): https://github.com/Sonarr/Sonarr/wiki/FAQ#how-does-sonarr-find-episodes
I’m also one who started with sickbeard, migrated to sickrage, and scrapped them both for sonarr. My two favorite features: manual searches (so I can select the release I want, if it wasn’t grabbed automatically), and setting a file size specification (so I can tell sonarr that I want all HD releases but only if they’re under 2.5gb).
Oh, and simpler integration with sabnzbd (no messy post-processing scripts needed!)
Sickrage had automatic subtitle downloading which I really miss, but I’m getting by with subtitle downloads in Kodi.
I’ve just moved across from SR. There’s a lot of infighting there at the moment on who owns the code. It got pretty pathetic and childish so I left.
Overall I’m happy with Sonarr so far. Taking a little getting used to but overall looks great.
My journey started with PLEX, and found it a great method to distribute media across the variety of devices in my home. ROKU was the first media device, that supported PLEX app, and did a great job sorting and playing my library. Soon a second ROKU joined the devices, and now two distinct streams from my server provided a seem less path for more than one viewer. But I was still manually searching and retrieving my own content via uTorrent, so searched for SB used it for awhile till I discovered SR. Used it for 6 months and was quit happy with it’s performance and convenience in feeding PLEX. Over a year ago I dumped my Sat provider and strictly moved to online sources for what we had viewed on Sat. It was about 6 months ago when I came home after an extended holiday, Found an update had been done on SR, and now my capture/seeking of SR was broken. Could never get it back to the pre update reliability I had experienced. So after searching for a better process SONARR came on the scene, installed it, set up my series, and have not looked back since. Just enough custom controls for the average user. Still need to find a better wiki service for SNR setup, but more are getting onboard, and providing nice suggestions on install and setup. Yet patience on some SNR Code to be updated kept my attention focused on this platform, and very little aggravation. With a very active support community, I feel that development will, and has been moving forward. No looking back with regrets for me. Good job SNR team! Forge ahead!
As i provide a 24/7 tv show streaming service to 70 or so people in plex, i needed something to handle my downloads / organisation needs (im really fussy), i tried sickbeard and so forth and found them to not meet my needs then while in plex pass forums someone was talking about sonarr, so i have it a shot.
I have set it up to fully interact with my 60tb storage rack and sonarr just loves it though it was a pain in the ass to setup, but once going sonarr is working fluidly with no issues or drawback.
the UI is just sexy, i would like to see likes of a android / IOS management app or something so i can make changes when im not at home.
but no biggy, still works just fine.
I gave up on sickbeard because it couldn’t handle failed downloads. The only problem I have with sonarr is that some series like storyville and HBO documentaries are not properly indexed so sonarr never finds episodes, but AFAIK this isn’t sonarr’s fault.
Sonarr’s installation on fedora looks really complicated. Creating user, systemd service… firewall rules… autostart service… For sickrage, I just had to run a python script. I dont want to run sonarr 24/7… cant it just run for a while, fetch episodes and then i can close it?
Edit - I just downloaded the archive and fired it up. Its running. I will explore and post later 
At first I thought that the “Handle Failed Downloads” just was a thingy everyone used as an argument since SR didn’t have it, but it is so useful that I can’t go back