Medusa on a Seedbox: SickBeard Fork TV Automation

What Medusa Is

Medusa is an automated TV show manager. Add a show, Medusa watches your indexers for new episodes, grabs them, renames the files, and drops them into your library. Same general workflow as Sonarr.

It started as a SickBeard/SickRage fork and is one of the more actively maintained ones. The active fork tree from those original projects is: SickBeard (largely abandoned) > SickRage (slow) > Medusa (active) > SickGear (active alternative).

Should You Use Medusa or Sonarr?

Honest comparison:

• Sonarr. Modern, *arr-family, integrates cleanly with Prowlarr, the default for new installs.
• Medusa. Older codebase, different approach to release picking, some users prefer it for that.

If you don't have a strong existing preference, Sonarr. Medusa is here for people on it long-term and people who specifically prefer its style.

Why Run It on a Seedbox?

Same as any *arr app:

• 24/7 uptime so monitored shows get checked
• One-click install
• Indexers, download clients, and Plex/Jellyfin/Emby on the same panel
• 10 Gbit so big back-fills finish quickly
• EU servers in Luxembourg, France, and Netherlands

Installing Medusa

Open the Bytesized Panel, find Medusa in the app catalog, click install. The panel handles the install, the reverse proxy, the URL.

Click "Open" to land on the dashboard.

First-Run Setup

1. Connect indexers. Settings > Indexers. Medusa supports Newznab (Usenet) and Torznab (torrents).
2. Connect a download client. SABnzbd, NZBGet, qBittorrent, Deluge, rTorrent.
3. Set the TV folder. Standard Bytesized layout is ~/files/tv.
4. Add a show. Search by name; pick from the results; Medusa starts monitoring.

Episode Quality

Medusa's quality settings differ from Sonarr's. Instead of tiered quality profiles, you set per-show "preferred" and "allowed" qualities. The grabber takes the highest preferred match it can find.

Defaults are sensible. If you want HD-only, set the allowed list to 720p and 1080p only.

Subtitles

Medusa has built-in subtitle search. Settings > Subtitles, add languages, and Medusa pulls subs after each episode imports. For more advanced subtitle management, Bazarr is the better tool; Medusa's built-in is fine for casual use.

Common Gotchas

Show not found. Medusa pulls from TheTVDB. If a show has been recently added there or has a name conflict, it might not show in search; toggle other indexer sources under Settings > Search.

Episode not grabbing. Check the Manage > Backlog Search; Medusa shows what searches have run and what came back empty.

Renaming wrong. Medusa's rename templates are configurable under Settings > Post Processing. Default is reasonable; customise if your library uses a non-standard layout.

Library scan misses files. Run a manual library scan from the Manage page. Medusa's automatic discovery isn't always immediate after files appear.

FAQ

Is Medusa free? Yes. Free and open source.

Should I use Medusa or Sonarr? Sonarr for new installs.

Will it work with Plex / Jellyfin / Emby? Yes. Medusa renames files into a folder; the media server reads the folder.

Can it auto-import existing TV files? Yes. Library scan adds existing files to Medusa's tracking; subsequent grabs only pick up missing episodes.

How is it different from SickGear? Different forks of SickRage with different feature priorities. Medusa is more *arr-shaped; SickGear is more old-school. Both work.

Ready to Set It Up?

Browse Appbox plans, install Medusa from the panel, plug in indexers and download client.