Building a Subscription Streaming Web App for Danish Hymns
Lyt til Danske Salmer is a subscription-based hymn streaming platform we built for a Denmark-based client. The idea was simple: create a proper digital home for pre-recorded Danish hymns — something that works like a streaming service but is built entirely around this specific cultural content and audience.
There was nothing like it. Hymn lovers in Denmark had no clean way to access, browse, or listen online. The client wanted to change that with a web app that felt modern, ran on a subscription model, and actually held up under daily use.
What the Client Needed
The client had pre-recorded hymns ready to go. What they needed was a platform around them — some hymns freely accessible to anyone, with multiple yearly subscription plans unlocking the full library. The audience ranged from older users who've sung these hymns their whole lives to younger ones rediscovering them, so the interface had to work for both without feeling dumbed down or cluttered.
They also needed a search that actually worked. These users know exactly what they're looking for — by title, by first line, by theme. Vague results aren't acceptable.
How We Built It
We built the platform with Next.js on the frontend and Adonis.js on the backend. Next.js gives us fast page loads and good SEO out of the box — important when you want the platform to show up when people search for Danish hymns online. Adonis.js handles the API, authentication, content delivery, and subscription management cleanly.
Multiple Yearly Subscription Plans
We built a subscription system with several yearly tiers, each giving different levels of access. Users subscribe, get immediate access to the hymn library, and their plan renews annually. Managing subscriptions, handling upgrades, and tracking access — all handled through the backend without needing manual intervention.
Playlists and Favourites
Users can build their own playlists and save favourites. Someone organizing a church service, a choir rehearsal, or just their personal listening can put together exactly what they need. This was one of the features that made the biggest difference in how people actually used the app day-to-day.
Lyrics While You Listen
Users can read the full lyrics of each hymn while the audio plays. For a hymn platform, this matters more than it would on a generic music app — people aren't just listening passively, they're following along, learning the words, or preparing to lead a service. Having the text right there, tied to the audio, makes the platform genuinely useful rather than just a playback tool.
Search and Filtering
We built search that lets users find hymns by title, keywords, or theme. For a library of this kind, search is the most used feature — people aren't browsing randomly, they're looking for something specific. Getting this right was a priority from day one.
The Liturgical Year Wheel — A UI That Changes with the Church Calendar
This is the feature that makes the platform unlike anything else. The entire interface changes color based on the current liturgical season — automatically, every day of the year, for anyone who opens it. Green for Ordinary Time. Purple for Advent and Lent. White for Christmas and the Easter season. Red for Pentecost and feast days of martyrs. Black on Good Friday.
These colors come from the Liturgical Year Wheel used across Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and other Christian traditions to mark the seasons and holy days of the church year. The platform knows what season it is and dresses accordingly — so the experience feels alive and connected to something larger than just a streaming app. It was one of the client's core ideas from the beginning, and it required careful implementation: the color system had to be accurate, automatic, and consistent across the full calendar without manual updates.
Clean Interface for a Wide Audience
Beyond the seasonal color system, we kept the base UI clean and high-contrast — readable without effort, navigable without instructions. It works for someone in their seventies on a laptop and someone in their twenties on a phone browser. No onboarding needed, no features buried.
Results
We delivered the full web platform in 4 months for $12,000. The client launched it, subscribers started signing up for yearly plans, and the platform became the go-to place for Danish hymn streaming. The content was already there — we gave it a proper home.
This Is Part of a Larger Product
We also built the iOS and Android mobile apps for Lyt til Danske Salmer using React Native — same backend, same subscriptions, same playlists. The web platform and mobile apps were built as a package and launched together.
