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Roon on a Raspberry Pi: Roon Bridge, and Roon through HQPlayer

4 min read

Checked on 2026-10-17 against Roon's own help pages, and on 2026-10-22 against Roon's installer for the 64-bit Pi; the sources are at the end.

On this page6

Short answer: a Raspberry Pi makes a Roon endpoint, not a Roon Core. Roon Bridge, the part that plays, runs on a 64-bit Pi; Roon Server, the Core that holds your library, does not: on Linux it runs on x64 machines only. So the Pi plays what a Core elsewhere sends it: a PC, a Mac, a NAS. And to listen through HQPlayer, the Pi needs HQPlayer's NAA rather than Roon Bridge.

Roon Bridge, Roon Server and Roon Ready

  • Roon Server is the Core: library, browsing, processing. Roon: "Roon Server for Linux runs on x64 platforms", and "ARM builds only support Output functions". Its recommended hardware is an Intel Core i3 or better, 4 GB of memory and an SSD.
  • Roon Bridge is "a lightweight software package designed to do exactly one thing: add audio outputs to your Roon setup over the network". It runs on Linux x64, armv7hf and armv8 — armv8 being a 64-bit Raspberry Pi.
  • Roon Ready is not software you install: it is Roon's certification of devices that carry Roon's streaming technology, RAAT, in their own firmware. A Pi with Roon Bridge receives the same RAAT stream, without the certification.
  • Roon itself costs $14.99 a month, $149.88 a year or $829.99 for life (US dollars, Roon's pricing page).

Ways to turn a Pi into a Roon endpoint

  • Verox, formerly RoPieee. A free system image dedicated to the job, for the Pi 3, 4 and 5: a Roon Bridge endpoint, plus AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, an HQPlayer NAA and a UPnP renderer among others. RoPieee took the name Verox in September 2026; existing installations moved over with their settings.
  • Roon's own installer, on Raspberry Pi OS or Debian, below.
  • A general-purpose streamer: Volumio has a Roon Bridge plugin, and moOde manages Roon Bridge once you have installed it.

With Roon's installer

On a 64-bit system, where uname -m answers aarch64. The installer needs bzip2 to unpack Roon Bridge:

sudo apt install bzip2
curl -O https://download.roonlabs.net/builds/roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv8.sh
chmod +x roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv8.sh
sudo ./roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv8.sh

It asks for a confirmation, then installs Roon Bridge in /opt/RoonBridge, keeps its data in /var/roon/RoonBridge, and runs it as root, as the roonbridge service, started at every boot. On a 32-bit system (armv7l), the same steps take roonbridge-installer-linuxarmv7hf.sh.

On DietPi, Roon Bridge is in its software list: dietpi-software install 121 (DietPi 9.20).

Roon through HQPlayer

Roon can send to HQPlayer, which then does the processing and plays to its own output: on a Raspberry Pi next to the DAC, that output is HQPlayer's NAA (see HQPlayer NAA on a Raspberry Pi).

  • The Pi needs the NAA, not Roon Bridge. Tested on 2026-09-26: Roon played through HQPlayer to the NAA with Roon Bridge stopped.
  • The two should not fight over the DAC. Roon's help: "Both Roon and HQPlayer expect to have exclusive access to the device" — if HQPlayer uses a device, disable it in Roon's audio settings. HQPlayer's developer, Jussi Laako, said the same of a Roon Bridge left running beside an NAA on one machine: Roon takes the DAC unless that output is disabled in Roon.
  • In HQPlayer, turn on "Allow control from network" so that Roon can drive it.

DSD from Roon to a Linux endpoint

Roon's DSD Playback Strategy setting decides what reaches the endpoint. Its default is Convert to PCM. Native DSD works on Linux when the system's driver exposes native DSD for your DAC; otherwise Roon's help suggests trying DSD over PCM (DoP).

With Audiogravity

In its Pro edition, and during its 30-day trial, Audiogravity installs Roon Bridge with Roon's own installer, from its Audio Software tab, and runs it through profiles that say what they play, such as Roon Bridge + HQPlayer NAA: "Roon directly, or through HQPlayer — one at a time". It also registers as a Roon extension: once you enable it in Roon, under Settings → Extensions, your Roon zones and library appear beside your other sources.

The details are in the manual: Outputs & engines → Roon, and Library & streaming → Roon.

Sources