Quick Verdict

Overview

How They Work Together

Feature Comparison

Do You Need Both?

The Full *arr Stack

Setup Order

Can I use Sonarr without Prowlarr?

Can I use Prowlarr without Sonarr?

Does Prowlarr replace Jackett?

Related Sonarr and Prowlarr aren't competitors — they're partners. Sonarr manages your TV show library and triggers downloads. Prowlarr manages the indexers (sources) that Sonarr searches. You need both: Prowlarr finds where to download, Sonarr decides what to download. People commonly confuse these two because they're both part of the *arr stack and have similar UIs. Here's the distinction: Sonarr is a TV show manager. You add shows, Sonarr monitors for new episodes, searches indexers, sends downloads to your client (SABnzbd or qBittorrent), and organizes the files in your library. Prowlarr is an indexer manager. It stores your indexer credentials (Torznab, Newznab) in one place and pushes them to all connected *arr apps (Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Readarr). Without Prowlarr, you'd add indexers directly in Sonarr's settings. Prowlarr centralizes this so you configure indexers once instead of in each *arr app. You always need Sonarr (or Radarr/Lidarr) — these are the apps that actually manage your media library and trigger downloads. You don't strictly need Prowlarr — Sonarr can manage its own indexers. But Prowlarr saves significant time if you: Yes. Add indexers directly in Sonarr under Settings → Indexers. You just need to repeat this for each *arr app if you run multiple. Technically yes — Prowlarr has a built-in search interface. But it can't download or organize files. It's designed to feed indexers to other *arr apps, not work standalone. Yes. Prowlarr is the *arr team's replacement for Jackett. See our Jackett vs Prowlarr comparison. Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Are you sure you want to ? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse