Automation apps have gotten more popular over the years so yes, they are still a thing.

Sonarr/Radarr are the most popular ones but there are others too. Most work with torrents and usenet but you'd need to check the individual projects to be sure.

It very much IS still a thing!

Depending on your preferences, there's even been a pretty big update to Sonarr which allows custom formats, thus bringing out some pretty powerful abilities!

For example, I have it set up EXACTLY how I want for anime. X265 PREFERRED, Dual Audio PREFERRED, a whole smack of uploaders were essentially blocked from ever being downloaded, and there's a few users who trump all else and will always be downloaded first if they are available. So good.

There's a few guides if you want to give it a try! :)

Sonarr and Radarr ARE THE THING, without them I hardly would use Torrents nowadays lol.

The search results are as good as your trackers, in my experience.

Have a look at Jackett, it re-produces the search results for hundreds of torrent sites as Torznab feeds, what that means is that these can then be added to indexes for Sonarr and Radarr.

If you had issues with search results then the problem is your indexers, Sonarr queries the sources you give it, if you give it bad sources then it's going to have bad results.

I use Sonarr and Lidarr with private trackers and usenet where usenet is the preferred download source. I also use Jackett to combine the trackers so I can make one query from Sonarr to multiple trackers. Previously, for the longest time, going back to 2007, I used a torrent client with an RSS feed to download new TV show releases. It worked, but Sonarr provides far more granularity. And it is wife friendly, she can easily go on and add a show by herself. I don't know of anything that works better than Sonarr, so OP... what would we have been using instead of it?

I use it. I got a Usenet acct and just use torrents as a backup.

I still use it. It still works well enough for me that it's mostly fire and forget.

Very much so. I just switched to prowlarr from jacket to handle searches. I use pirate bay for all media 1337x, and eztv for television and find most everything that's not obscure. Have it all behind a VPN though obviously.

Searching for files is not what Sonarr and Radarr are really strong in. They do an excellent job of managing files and keep track of shows. And occasionally ask an indexer to find them.

Indexers are what actually search files. Jackett was the popular manager, Prowlarr is the new hotness and really simplifies the process a lot.

But bigger point being Sonarr, Radarr, and Prowlarr work together to find and manage files. They are only as good as what you set them up to do. Prowlarr can search 50+ torrent websites for a file at the same time if you set up all the integrations for those. It is better than any one website because it can search them all, even RarBG when it was up. It also works with NZBs and search them all at once. Then you set Sonarr and Radarr to the quality and type you want and they'll pick from the search results automatically.

Radarr/sonarr/jackett is the way

You can still self-host a local copy of (almost?) all the rarbg torrents for *arr apps to use as index, a lot of them still have seeds.

I use sonarr for a few weekly shows i watch and never had any big problems. I use torrents with jackett for my indexers. Downloading whole seasons works prefectly too assuming the show is popular enough to have seeders. Ive been recommended prowlarr over jackett but ive not had any reason to swap yet!

yeah they work great here's how I have mine setup

Sabznbd Prowlarr Sonarr Radarr Docker container for Flaresolverr https://github.com/FlareSolverr/FlareSolverr

Now if you want to go further than that you can setup profiles https://trash-guides.info/ for quality.

But the truth is the problem isn't Sonarr or Radarr it's just that Torrents can be kind of garbage with automation, I would suggest you look into Usenet. It costs a bit of money to spend but a much more consistent experience.

I've exclusively used Sonarr/Radarr/Readarr for TV/Movies/Books and audiobooks for the past several years. Combined with a few usenet indexers and a decent usenet provider these programs are fantastic (fully automated other than selecting the content and speeds often max my gig connection). It does take a bit of reading and tweaking to get it all setup but I can't recall the last time I couldn't find content.

Very much still a thing. Been using both with little issues for years.

The devs for these projects are kind of uppity tbh. Like I'm appreciative of their efforts, but I'd never contribute to the code base itself as they're very rude.

I'm still using it. I binded 1337 and torrGalaxy and so far, not a single issue as far as results.

You need good trackers and tags to filter to good releases, otherwise the default quality profiles and tags will not do the heavy lifting.

It's great with Usen3t.

With Prowlarr or Jackett you can use it with (almost) any other site, or you can use RSS feeds

I'm still using it. I binded 1337 and torrGalaxy and so far, not a single issue as far as results.

I started using real debrid once rarbg fell. Game changer