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4.7 star rating
0
What is the best alternative to MPV?
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VLC
All
18
Experiences
Pros
13
Cons
4
Specs
Top
Pro
Free, open source, and cross-platform
VLC is licensed under the CC-SA v3.0+ and available on Windows, OSX, and Linux with source code available here.
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Top
Con
Not really meant to be a music player
VLC is made to be a video player. Therefore, it won't carry out actions such as managing your music library.
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Pro
Simple to setup and use
VLC is an incredibly robust application but very simple on the surface. It makes playing music simple, yet still manages to give the user all the tools he/she wants in a music player.
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Top
Con
Lacks libraries and advanced music player features
VLC is a media player first and foremost. There is no library management (aside from playlists), limited usage of tags, and no rating system. VLC is best at playing a file directly from a folder, but falls behind when it comes to helping you manage or find good songs in your music library.
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Pro
Very versatile and easy to use
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Top
Con
Absence of personalization
VLC Player has only one basic interface in white or black, and overall personalization opportunities are quite narrow. Unfortunately, you're pretty much stuck to the default look.
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Pro
Doesn't require additional codecs
Everything VLC needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. This makes it one of the most hassle-free music players as it can play virtually anything as soon as it's installed.
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Top
Con
Contains some insignificant but irritating flaws
Despite all keyboard shortcuts, the width of the picture can't be controlled by trackpad. Besides that, the VLC start-up window doesn’t open at the same place or the same width at which it was previously closed.
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Pro
Tons of advanced settings
Besides basic configurations, video player has an extensive amount of adjustable settings.
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Top
Pro
Doesn't manage your music library for you
You organize your music into folders any way you want. Want to play an album? Drag and drop. No tags, no confusion, no fluff. Easy.
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Top
Pro
Can be almost completely keyboard-driven
VLC includes keyboard shortcuts for most actions. The video player can be controlled with simple and customizable keyboard commands.
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Pro
Surprisingly Lightest on Resources
Yes. Lightest. Even better than the ones known to be light. Both when playing music, only a single song or when playing a video. Either in terms of Ram and Cpu. Compared with almost all, including the ones from Windows like mpc-hc .. or light ones from Linux like Alsa Player, Audacious, SmPlayer .
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Top
Pro
Can play every format video available (as of 2017)
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Pro
Includes Blu-Ray playback support
Blu-Ray playback support was added on July 13th, 2014. It allows playing back DRM-free Blu-Rays with the help of libbluray, libaacs and libbdplus.
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Pro
Supports a GUI interface and an ncurses terminal interface
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Pro
Can easily stream music across your home network from any device on the network
Using sftp/ssh music (and videos) can be streamed from any server on the network to any device running VLC. VLC can also be used as a webcam for streaming and snapshots. Amazing all in one package
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Top
Pro
Large amount of extensions
VLC has a large amount of extensions.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, ChromeOS, AppleTV
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Experiences
Free
634
188
MPlayer
All
11
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
4
Specs
Top
Pro
Needs no additional codecs
Everything MPlayer needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed.
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Top
Con
Not much documentation on the use and configuration
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Top
Pro
Easy shortcut keys
Quick skip ahead buttons and other shortcut keys.
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Top
Con
Contrary to review, some media that play well in vlc does not play in mplayer
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Pro
No bugs , no lag in the video display
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Top
Con
Doesn't support directory playback
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Top
Pro
Works via CLI and has multiple frontends to choose from
Some of the more popular frontends include Deepin Media Player, GNOME MPlayer, KPlayer, KMPlayer, Rosa Media Player, SMPlayer and Xt7-Player.
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Top
Con
Lacks a built-in visualizer
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Top
Pro
Multiple forks
Some of the more popular forks include MPlayer2 and mpv.
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Top
Pro
Nice theme available to choose from
Also, the video window is separate from the main window making it less cluttered while playing audio
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Mac, Linux
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Experiences
Get it
here
53
11
IINA
All
11
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Like MPV with better GUI and settings
It's like mpv, just more user friendly GUI and more settings available via UI.
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Top
Con
Unstable
May crash unexpectedly, while clicking on something in the subtitles section in the right-hand panel, for example.
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Top
Pro
Extremely stable
Extremely stable, even while still in the beta.
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Top
Con
Blacks out other displays when going full screen
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Top
Pro
Support for lots of codecs
Supports lots of video codecs, like mp4, mkv, etc, and lots of audio codecs including opus.
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Top
Pro
Doesn't black out other displays when going full screen
It can black out other screens if you want, but out of the box it leaves your other displays alone.
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Top
Pro
Runs on MPV so it's scriptable and runs any MPV script.
More information here. Tip: if you're doing a lot of cropping and slicing of videos and you thought the new quick tools in Finder / Quicktime Player are a great improvement, try setting up IINA with slicing.lua and some keybindings for navigating your video + setting the slicing positions. Make sure your ffmpeg command (in slicing.lua) is set to copy the original codecs and that it's using your GPU.
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Pro
Online subtitle searching and intelligent local subtitle matching
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Top
Pro
Fully customizable keyboard, mouse, trackpad, and gesture controls
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Top
Pro
Open source
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Top
Pro
Powered by FFmpeg
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Experiences
Get it
here
319
35
Kodi
All
12
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
5
Specs
Top
Pro
Can install on several devices
Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Xbox, Apple TV (jailbroken), and more.
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Top
Con
You may have to jailbreak some devices
This is only for things like a Fire stick, but Android TV boxes etc. should be fine.
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Top
Pro
Lots of plugins available
Like PlutoTV, Curiosity Stream, and YouTube. 3rd party repositories, such as the SlyGuy Repository, contain more plugins like Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, and Netflix.
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Top
Con
Terrible navigation
Menus over menus with dozens of submenus.
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Top
Pro
Free
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Top
Con
Not Client/Server Capable
While most solutions provide a client/server setup the KODI developers REFUSE to adopt this approach forcing individual setups for every device.
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Top
Pro
Open source
Completely FOSS, licensed under GPL 2.0
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Top
Con
Poorly optimized
Often not a fluid experience on low-end devices.
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Top
Pro
Great customization/multiple skins
You can change navigation flow and other aspects of Kodi with the plethora of customization options and skins.
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Top
Con
No official AAA addons for streaming services
It does not have any official AAA addons and fully relies on the community which result in often broken packages/addons.
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Top
Pro
Can play many different file formats
It supports Blu-ray Discs, CDs, DVDs, USB Flash Drives, local Hard Disk Drives, AirPlay, network file shares, basically every video, audio, and image format available, subtitle files, and even retro game console ROMs.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, AndroidTV, iOS, tvOS
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Experiences
Free
76
14
MPC-HC
All
5
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
2
Top
Pro
Supports H.265, and has for over 5 years
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Top
Con
Discontinued
It's been discontinued since 2017.
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Top
Pro
Is actively developed by clsid2 on github
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Top
Con
Windows only
MPC-HC supports only Windows operating systems.
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Top
Pro
Supports frame stepping with Ctrl+Left/Right
Useful for game development frame debugging. Your average user won't need this. VLC has frame advance, but it's hidden and non-intuitive; not clear if VLC can step backwards.
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Hide
Get it
here
145
26
Audacious
All
12
Experiences
Pros
7
Cons
4
Specs
Top
Pro
Streamlined player not weighed down by unnecessary options
Audacious is a classic music player at heart that has not felt the need to weigh itself down with an assortment of unnecessary options. Advanced functionality can be attained through plugins available from within the program.
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Top
Con
No manual sorting fields
There is no option to add one's own categories to the sorting fields.
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Top
Pro
Tons of plugins
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Top
Con
Updates are not very frequent
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Top
Pro
Lightweight
My audacious uses only 18.5 MB of RAM. It has a Winamp visualization style that's very minimized and convenient.
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Top
Con
No bit perfect output past 24bit
Audiophiles require this, and while most users might not notice a difference, audiophiles will appreciate the improved audio quality.
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Top
Pro
Support for Winamp themes
Audacious can switch from its GTK interface to one that matches the looks of the famous Winamp player. What's even better is that this interface supports any Winamp themes, which allows for more options.
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Top
Con
Buggy
For example when using Visual Studio Code and Audacious you get flicked out to the gnome login screen.
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Top
Pro
Folder oriented player, but able to play any music container and highly configurable
Lets you play, delete and even change metadata of your music files.
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Top
Pro
The easiest player for multiple types of files
It plays dts, aac multichannel, etc.
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Top
Pro
Compatibility with most media formats
It's able to reproduce most of media formats without external plugins.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, BSD
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Experiences
Free
227
40
Windows Media Player
All
6
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
4
Top
Pro
Saves information on files while ripping CD
While ripping a CD onto the computer, it easily saves the information for the songs, while storing on the media player.
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Top
Con
No longer able to play DVDs
The older versions can play DVDs, while the latest version can't play, but only able to play VCDs.
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Top
Pro
Beautiful music visualization
Windows Media Player comes with their own built-in music visualization. In addition to this, users can install their own visualizations which are downloaded from the internet.
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Top
Con
Sluggish
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Top
Con
Large cluttered interface
It's hard to find needed options.
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Top
Con
No longer being updated
Windows Media Player is no longer updated to new versions since the release of Windows 7. The latest version of Windows Media Player is Windows Media Player 12 (released in July 2009); it is still bundled in Windows 8 and above.
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Get it
here
28
28
Clementine
All
32
Experiences
Pros
12
Cons
19
Specs
Top
Con
Slow development
Very little development work has been going on for a while as of mid-2017. Nobody is responding to bug reports.
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Top
Pro
Tag editing
Clementine features competent tag managing for all music files, be it album art or just simple text entries.
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Top
Con
Resource exhaustive
Clementine uses up to two orders of magnitude more CPU than VLC and takes up about 180 MB of memory, plus additional memory for spawned processes (tag-readers), while VLC uses 80 MB with no other processes.
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Top
Pro
Intuitive and fast to set up
Clementine is easy to get up and running with lyrics, equalizer, online info, etc., within minutes after installation.
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Top
Con
Doesn't allow gapless playback
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Top
Pro
Sensible UI
A fork of the 1.X line of Amarok, Clementine favours usability over design trends.
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Top
Con
Bit perfect output no longer configurable
Audiophiles want to play their expensive HD albums.
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Top
Pro
Very good folder organization
Organizes your music folder based on the tags of your library.
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Top
Con
Too bloated by default with things like LastFM that can't be removed
When you install it, you get ton of internet radios and services plugins, that you can't remove, only turn off. There is also useless stuff like artist info that doesn't work and stuff.
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Top
Pro
Remote app for Android
There is a very good remote app for Android. The app lets you do a lot: from the usual volume controls to checking the lyrics on your phone. You can even download the songs from Clementine onto your phone.
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Top
Con
Not customizable
It doesn't allow you to modify its interface by dragging toolbars around etc.
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Top
Pro
Supports a lot of online services
Clementine includes support for services such as Ampache, Google Play Music, Spotify, and many internet radio stations such as Jamendo and Icecast. It's also possible to search all available sources (local and online) at once, as well as mixed content playlists.
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Top
Con
Horrible user interface and confusing layout
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Top
Pro
Built-in equalizer for custom sound
There is a built-in equalizer with many presets from genre-specific rock, pop, and party, to experiences such as large hall and live. You can also tweak it yourself and name your own preset.
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Top
Con
Ugly
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Top
Pro
Creates playlists based on past music you listened to
Clementine gathers the user's listening data to use for smart playlists. Clementine uses your listening history to play music similar to the music you play most - which typically is music you will like but maybe haven't discovered yet.
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Top
Con
Goes crazy with CPU and RAM
Takes its toll on your system's CPU and RAM.
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Top
Pro
Built-in format conversion
Users can format any of their music files to a different format with Clementine's built-in format conversion tool.
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Top
Con
Default settings aren't great
Although this is subjective, you might have to do some tweaking before you like it.
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Top
Pro
Can display song lyrics
Fetches lyrics from several lyric providers.
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Top
Con
Ugly ressource hog with no features and buggy without hotfix
And yet Nr. 1 recommended because of nerds being accustomed.
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Top
Pro
Looks good and is really responsive
Unlike some other players in this list, Clementine doesn't seem to go unresponsive in the Ubuntu 16.04 system and looks really good with options for Visualization too.
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Top
Con
Slow to start in Gnome/Cinnamon
It takes about the same time to start as an IDE or Photoshop.
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Top
Pro
Decent library management
Clementine allows the user to move and organize audio files easily. Some examples include the following: It's easy to find a specific album song (find artist, select album, select song). It's easy to add songs to a playlist and queue the songs. It's easy to rename files from their metadata (artist, album, song number, etc). It's easy to add cover images. There are options to find duplicates, untagged songs, etc.
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Top
Con
Not a lot of documentation
Clementine does not offer a lot of documentation, which can make discovering its features a bit difficult.
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Top
Con
Buggy
Clementine is probably the most fully featured music player for Linux, however it has its own issues. It crashes and experiences occasional memory leaks that can slow down your system.
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Top
Con
Database regularly messes up
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Top
Con
Sometimes messes up taskbar
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Top
Con
Last.fm support is broken
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Top
Con
Cannot choose which tag profile to use
I use Tag2 (ID3:2.4) which doesn't seem to be the default tag used and I can't see a way to choose this.
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Top
Con
No way to search on filename
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Specs
License:
GPL-3.0-or-later
Release Date:
2016-19-04
Development:
Open Source
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Experiences
Free
697
192
MPC-BE
All
6
Experiences
Pros
6
Top
Pro
Displays preview thumbnails
Seek Bar supports thumbnail preview (like Youtube) and chapters marker.
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Top
Pro
Supports madVR external Video renderer
madVR is a high quality video renderer (GPU assisted).
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Top
Pro
Supports most known audio and video formats
Plays various video and audio files, and also supports H.265 (with small file size installation). The player doesn't use a lot of computer resources.
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Top
Pro
32-bit & 64-bit support
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Top
Pro
Built-in YouTube playback support
Can play YouTube videos out of the box. Just drag and drop the URL to the interface.
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Top
Pro
Supports multimedia hotkeys
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Free
108
11
DeaDBeeF
All
16
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
7
Specs
Top
Pro
A lot of plugins
DeadBeef has a lot of different plugins users can use to customize the interface, controls, and options.
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Top
Con
shuffle mode doesn't play an entire huge playlist (over 25 days)
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Top
Pro
Lightweight
DeadBeef uses few system resources, making it great for low end systems and for those requiring a media player that uses as few resources as possible.
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Top
Con
GTK-App
So there is basically no integration into non-GTK desktops.
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Top
Pro
Extremely customizable
DeaDBeef has support for title formatting scripting, like foobar2000, which allows you to customize group patterns, the converter output, the window titles, etc. to your needs. DeaDBeeF also has a Design Mode, which allows you to add new widgets to the interface and move/delete existing ones.
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Top
Con
Terrible GUI
stop reinventing (ugly) guis. play music and get out of my way.
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Top
Pro
Uses GTK2 or GTK3
Users are able to choose a GTK2 or GTK3 build of the application to use within DeaDBeeF.
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Top
Con
Fails when opening a CUE file
Doesn't work even after 30 minutes of tweaking. Not as good as Audacious.
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Top
Pro
ALSA plugin allows bit-perfect pipeline to DAC
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Top
Con
Ubuntu's sound menu buttons don't work
DeaDBeeF shows up in the sound menu; however, clicking the next/previous buttons doesn't do anything.
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Top
Pro
Supports single-album CUE files
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Con
Not as many options as other players
When it comes to options DeaDBeef may not have as many as other more prominent music playing applications.
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Top
Pro
Smooth and easy
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Top
Con
Clunky
I've seen people showing lyrics - but I can't figure out how to make that work. It's very difficult to use the 'design' function (unlike Guayadeque) to re-arrange and design the interface beyond something like a music list and artwork...
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Top
Pro
Offers a ReplayGain scanner out-of-the-box
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD
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Experiences
Free
233
36
Quod Libet
All
16
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
7
Top
Pro
Great for organizing and editing large collections
Quod Libet gives the user the necessary tools to edit and organize their library from within the app. There is support for tags as well to help you quickly find the music to fit your mood. To help you sort through large libraries, you can use the filters which help filter by genera or other search perimeters.
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Top
Con
(not) customizable
If you get a player, you want to make it yours. QL has a lot of stuff preconfigured, which you can't make as you want it. So base is great, but never makes it to be come yours.
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Top
Pro
Lots of plugins available
Quod Libet offers many plugins including Last FM sync, lyrics support, and iOS sync.
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Top
Con
Doesn't support playlist files
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Top
Pro
Powerful search syntax
Quod Libet has powerful search syntax options, which are very useful for creating smartlists or querying a big music collection.
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Top
Con
The GUI could have more eye-candy
There aren't any icons within the GUI, just text. This makes it feel more like a library management tool than an audio player. A little polish would go a long way here.
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Top
Pro
Easy to use
Despite very good library management capability, Quod Libet is easy to use. The base music player doesn't have too many features, making it a breeze to use. However, if you want to go deeper you can install plugins. These plugins can sometimes add complexity, but it's up to you what you do or don't want.
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Top
Con
Rhythmbox clone
Can't find many differences with Rhythmbox.
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Top
Pro
Integrates with IoT / home audio
Sonos, Squeezebox, ...
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Con
GTK app
It will need a bit more of resources in a non qt environment.
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Top
Pro
Built-in Soundcloud support
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Top
Con
Plugins could be better integrated
Lyrics are not downloaded automatically in Quod Libet, while simply viewing lyrics could be made a lot more accessible. There is also little information pulled from last.fm - scrubbing works, as well as there being no artist info or suggestions for similar artists.
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Top
Pro
Folder view
Quod Libet has multiple viewing modes, including Folder (File System) hierarchy view. The only other program to have a good folder view would be Sayonara.
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Top
Con
Uses quite a bit of memory
Quod Libet can use up to 130 MB.
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Pro
Customizable looks
There are a few controls that allow the user to change how the player looks.
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Top
Pro
Fast & Small
Fully functional and takes up little space on the hard drive.
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Experiences
Free
96
20
AIMP
All
27
Experiences
Pros
20
Cons
6
Specs
Top
Pro
Multiple audio codec compatible
AIMP supports a huge list of audio formats and several playlist types.
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Con
Not open source
AIMP is not libre / open source software, so development is closed and lead by the AIMP staff only.
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Top
Pro
Useful audio library
AIMP can play, manage, and filter music stored in the whole computer or specified folders. It is able to read metadata from music files' tags and perform real-time searching out of it.
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Top
Con
Buggy, bloated and obfuscated options
Seems to hang when adding a large number of files.
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Top
Pro
Internal updater
AIMP updates using its built-in updater, so you don't have to visit AIMP's website and download the whole installer every time a new version is available.
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Top
Con
Cluttered and confusing interface
The interface is very busy and not intuitive so it can take awhile to become familiar with it. The skins don't conform to specific design standards so they often have different behaviors. You can read more about it here.
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Top
Pro
Lightweight skinning
Even with lots of skinning options, AIMP is lightweight and works on the smallest computer.
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Con
AIMP "Help" only in Russian and English
AIMP's "Help" included in the software itself is only available in Russian and English.
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Top
Pro
18 band equalizer + 22 presets + preamp
AIMP has an 18 band equalizer (which is manually customizable), plus 22 presets by default [user can add his/her custom presets]. It also includes a +15/-15 dB preamplification.
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Top
Con
Russian content
Supporting this is also supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Pro
Multiple other features
AIMP has many more features including: dither, anticlipping, customizable hotkeys/shortcuts, customizable player's user agent string, access to Favorites audio files and playlists, rating for tracks, tracklist export, optional temporary information bar with track info every time a track begins, volume normalization, ReplayGain support, volume fading between tracks, and more.
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Top
Con
BEWARE FRAUD, MALWARE, TROJAN, BACKDOOR
Download only from the actual aimp site
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Top
Pro
Mini Player support
AIMP can be maximized, restored, sent to the tray, or switched to Mini Player for your convenience.
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Pro
Among the best audio quality for Windows audio players
AIMP uses the BASS library, which provides one of the best audio quality of all currently available music players for Windows.
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Pro
Multiple playlist management
AIMP can manage multiple playlists by a tab system, similar to web browsers.
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Pro
Tag Editor + Audio Converter can carry out a multitude of tasks
AIMP has two tools for further music management. Tag Editor lets you add album art to audio files, fix metadata to individual files or to all files included in a folder, rename filenames, complete tags from filenames and viceversa, and more. Audio Converter lets you convert an audio file into another format (for instance, from FLAC to M4A). You can choose quality parameters, renaming of files, and output paths for converted files. Audio conversion supports multiple core encoding, so if your CPU has four cores, you can convert audio using 1, 2, 3, or 4 cores.
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Pro
Supports audiophile-level playback quality
Other music players usually require separate plugins for this, but AIMP comes by default with the modern WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) audio output support thus providing purest sound output unadultered by the Windows mixer (in WASAPI Exclusive mode) out of the box.
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Pro
Delete files from player
Simple and good working ability to delete files right away from the player.
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Pro
Multiple languages available
AIMP is available in 36 languages, including: Russian, English, Arabic, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Argentina), Spanish (Spain), French, German, Italian, Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), and more.
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Pro
Built-in scheduler
AIMP has a scheduler which lets you stop playback, close the program, or turn off your computer at a specified time/period.
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Pro
Waveform seekbar
AIMP's seekbar features a waveform display of the entire audio file for easier navigation within the sound file. For example you can easily see where are the silences which is especially useful for podcasts and talked content.
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Pro
Icon sets available for download
The user can download icon sets for different audio formats.
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Pro
Allows for radio capture
AIMP can grab internet radios' audios and save them to drive, in real-time. You can save the streaming in its original format, or choose the codec manually [AAC, OGG Vorbis, OPUS, etc] and its bit rate. You can even save its CUE log and split files, if desired.
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Pro
DSP manager allows for sound effects
AIMP has a digital sound processor manager which lets you apply sound effects to the output audio in real-time. These effects include: echo, reverberation, Flanger, Chorus, bass, enhancer, speed, tempo, and pitch. It also has a voice remover feature for stereo audio files.
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Pro
Support for several WinAmp's plugins
AIMP supports several plugins originally designed for WinAmp. However, it also supports new plugins designed for AIMP itself. From visual plugins to extra codec support, YouTube playlists playback, Soundcloud playback, or spectrum analysing, these are a selection of supported plugins.
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Pro
Easy to use
Handsome design
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Android
Release Date:
January 13, 2020
Windows Versions Supported:
Vista/7/8/8.1/10 (64-bit)
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Experiences
FREE
362
59
Dopamine
All
11
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
2
Top
Con
When track ends, next alphabetical track plays automatically, even when playlist empty
This app will continue to play unrequested music until you press the stop button.
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Pro
Beautiful
Can play FLAC too.
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Con
Doesn't support Album titles that are shared among different artists
"Greatest Hits", for example, will be treated as a single, huge album with different artists' tracks and a single album cover that will be wrong for most.
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Pro
Light, easy to use and looks good
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Pro
Fetch artist biography or lyrics
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Pro
Play by folder possible
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Pro
Can use your Windows 10 theme
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Pro
2 visualizer to choose from
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Pro
Can display lyrics
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Pro
Miniplayer mode
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Pro
Built-in equalizer
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FREE
33
9
foobar2000
All
32
Experiences
Pros
21
Cons
10
Specs
Top
Pro
Lightweight
Foobar2000 has a clean, minimalistic UI, small filesize, and is light on resource usage.
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Con
Not easy to skin
Out of the box it looks like something out of win2000. It is also very difficult to skin for the normal user.
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Pro
Functionality can be extended with components
Foobar200 has over a hundred components to choose from that add UI functionality, decoding support for various formats, etc.
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Con
Provides little in terms of hand-holding
Advanced tasks such as skinning and installing components may be a bit intimidating for beginners because they require knowing your way around the computer, not just the player.
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Pro
Supports a wide variety of audio formats
Foobar2000 natively supports MP1, MP2, MP3, MPC, AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, ALAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, CD, Speex, Opus, and support for additional formats can be added with plugins.
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Con
Outdated Plugins
Many, many plugins are outdated and not maintained for years, leading to stability issues with a lof of them. A rather complex SDK and missing sufficient documentation makes maintaining or creating new plugins unnecessarily hard. Getting to that neat GUI setup you've seen somewhere is probably impossible because of that.
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Top
Pro
Plugins can be used to bypass Windows mixer to output a bit-exact signal
Through the use of a plugin (of which there are three popular ones), users can get bit-exact sound output straight to their DAC or soundcard. While not something every user will use, for audiophiles this is a pretty important feature.
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Con
Locks files and folders, making it hard to manage them
Several parts of Foobar lock files and folders in a way that they cannot be file-managed (move/copy/rename/delete) easily in the program (and externally). With the waveform plugin it's even worse. Cannot delete a file until the waveform is fully scanned.
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Pro
Highly customisable
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Con
Cumbersome start-up
Foobar2000 requires a bit of work to get it up and running.
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Pro
ReplayGain support
ReplayGain can be applied on a per album or track basis, allowing the user to set up an even volumed listening experience.
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Con
The previous button doesn't work in random playback
You are unable to go back to a song when using random playback.
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Pro
Internal search is a beast
Foobar2000 provides an extensive search to look through your library. It supports special queries to only look for certain tags and other conditions and is incredibly fast in doing so even with over 20k of songs in your library.
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Con
Breaks existing components every few updates
Makes it very hard to keep a customized version of Foobar running smoothly without worrying about non-working components.
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Pro
Advanced layout
The player has a layout-editing mode that allows for a wide variety of UI setups.
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Con
Periodical unexpected shutdown
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Pro
Good quality
It was made in order to be as respectful to music as it can be.
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Con
Not 'easy' as in plays stream services/ podcasts etc.
May be asking too much, this app is PERFECT for the 'hardcore'.
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Pro
Good compatibility with Windows Media Center IR remote controls and wireless mini-keyboards
Foobar works well with Windows Media Center IR remote controls with virtual mouse functions; also with wireless mini-keyboards.
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Con
Can crash right after install
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Pro
Compatible with Microsoft Media Center (MMC) remote controls
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Pro
Fast monitoring of the folders
It has one of the fastest monitoring abilities. Only couple of seconds passes between adding a file into monitored folder on external NAS and it appearing in the library.
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Pro
Grouping by folder structure
Grouping files by folder structure is an important feature especially when files don't have proper tags.
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Pro
Variety of skins available
Foobar 2000 has powerful theming support. Browsing a site like DeviantArt will give you hundreds of skins (that have been made by other users) to choose from.
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Pro
Easily handles large music libraries
It has by far the best scanning of large music libraries containing couple of thousands of files.
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Pro
Built-in support for Windows Media streaming
Foobar2000 can natively play ASX/MMS/RTSP streams.
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Pro
Transcodes all supported audio formats
The converter component allows foobar2000 to convert from and to any file formats that the player is capable of playing back.
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Pro
The many add-ons (components) available
Includes dynamic range analysis, integrity checkers, equalizers, and visualizers, such as waveform, oscilloscope, spectrum, spectrogram (waterfall), peak and smoothed VU meters, and X-Y (Shpect Lissajous) displays.
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Top
Pro
Random/Shuffle on an album basis.
I'm old enough to have a lot of music where whole albums are worth listening to. This is also essential when the composers created music where the flow from one song to the next is part of the art of the album. E.g. on Queen's ANight_at_the_Opera_, the first song -- Death_On_Two_Legs -- is a very hard rock song with very pissed off lyrics. The next is _Lazing_On_a_Sunday_Afternoon, which is a very lighthearted amusing song. The contrast is wonderful. Also many artists have one song flow into another and breaking them up by using random on a song basis really breaks the music. Plus shuffle prevents repeats until the entire playlist is done. If you want, you can select individual songs and the are shuffled as if they are the entire album. It's harder to describe than to do: configure play mode to shuffle albums If you're like me -- and I know I am: add library to list play But you can be more selective: select albums (or songs if you only like a few) do { play_the_shuffled_list(list); if (mood("not in for the current")) skip(); if (mood("change_the_list)) change_the_list(&list); } while !shuffled_off("mortal_coil"); die("happy");
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Pro
Lots of themes made by foobar users.
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Pro
MP3 player management
Users can easily send their music files to their MP3 device through the use of the right click menu when browsing their library.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows/MacOS/Android/iOS
License:
BSD-2-Clause
Release Date:
December 31, 2019
Portable:
No
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Experiences
Free
503
90
Rage
All
3
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
1
Top
Pro
Lightweight
A very lightweight media player, with almost no dependencies.
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Con
Customization is hard
Customization is done in efl which uses a C-like syntax.
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Pro
Fully customizable
Since it is written with efl there is basically everything possible that you can imagine.
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Free
11
1
Winyl
All
6
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
1
Top
Pro
The library is well organized
Winyl organizes your library by folder and not by ID3 tags. As such, your library stays organized (as long as your music folders are organized) even if you have incorrect or missing ID3 tags.
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Con
It only shows the file name when playing tracks
Winyl cannot display the format or bitrate of the track as it plays. The user must therefore find the file in their library, select it, and go to properties.
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Pro
Looks great
Winyl has a beautiful interface with thumbnails for each album (if the art is in the ID tag). If not, you can easily add cover art. It also has a great mini player and that too has cover art.
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Pro
You can quickly and easily add music
Winyl is designed to be a fast media player with low resource usage, meaning that it takes about 20 minutes to load 67 000 files. This is a pretty good time frame in comparison to some other media players' import times. So for those with a large library, this may be a good choice.
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Pro
Album view
Shows albums, covers and tracks next to it, like Google Music.
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Pro
This program uses .cue files to split albums that are in one file
This is a convenient tool for those who may have many albums that are not yet split into separate files for each song.
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Get it
here
61
6
Nuclear Music Player
All
6
Experiences
Pros
5
Cons
1
Top
Pro
Streaming and playing local files within a single client
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Con
Resource intensive
Just like any other web app.
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Pro
Cross-platform
As an Electron app NMP runs on GNU/Linux, macOS and Windows.
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Pro
Free and open source
Licensed under AGPL-3.0. Everybody can inspect the code, use it and improve it.
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Pro
Looks beautiful and modern
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Pro
Plugin system allowing for easy addition of more streaming sources
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free
34
5
MediaMonkey
All
15
Experiences
Pros
11
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Exceptional cataloging options
You can organize music by over 40 different criteria, including common criteria such as title, artist, and album, as well as items like track volume, lyricist, and parental rating. You can even use custom labels by which to organize and you can set how you want to prioritize the criteria. Media Monkey can also rename large batches of files based on set rules.
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Con
Not really "multi-user" friendly
Example: If you have a family, not everyone has same tastes or star ratings. You CAN achieve a somewhat multi-user experience, but it's overly complex and clunky.
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Pro
Helps remove duplicates from the library
MediaMonkey can find duplicate files and songs, helping the user to remove any unnecessary items from the library.
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Con
Really buggy at times
Biggest annoyance: Often get database errors (data corruption?). Usually, you'll end up clicking "cancel" in some dumb cryptic error prompt and/or restart app. Android sync isn't a breeze. Multiple instances sometimes open up (due to unknown cause) can cause the corruption / database issues. You should backup often just in case.
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Pro
Can pull metadata from the web
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Con
Accuracy of automatically pulled meta data can be spotty
In cases where a song is a part of multiple albums, or there's a re-release with slight changes (such as track numbers, bonus songs, etc.), MediaMonkey can get confused and apply wrong titles to songs based on their track numbers. It then ends up mislabeling content that has already been labeled correctly. There's also no way to manually set what album to base the auto-tagging on in order to work around this.
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Pro
Works with almost any UPnP or DLNA enabled media player
MediaMonkey can stream the library to most UPnP or DLNA enabled devices. This allows you to, for example, stream to your Blu-Ray player.
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Pro
Powerful file renaming system
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Pro
Advanced automatic auto-dj
MediaMonkey has a built-in auto-dj feature, appropriately called Party Mode, that can automatically play tracks based on set criteria.
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Pro
Can convert audio and video files
MediaMonkey can convert all common audio formats and some video formats. Supported files include .mp3, .ogg, .aac, and .flac.
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Pro
Supports most tagging formats
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Pro
Format agnostic
MediaMonkey supports everything from lossy MP3 files to lossless FLAC files.
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Pro
Has a decent companion Android app which can sync with / connect to PC server
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Pro
Can build smart playlists with automatic filters
For example: 4+ stars jazz songs Top played recent songs Best rated classic rock Unplayed recently added songs Build your own "smart" radio station, etc.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows/Android
License:
Proprietary
Release Date:
January 10, 2020
Portable:
Yes
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Free / paid
82
15
Music Player Daemon
All
7
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
4
Top
Pro
Multiple frontends available
MPD is a music player server that requires a separate client for user interaction. There are many frontends available, with the most popular being ncmpcpp.
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Con
Not a music player, only a music server
You know how you need your browser (Firefox, Chrome, etc.) to access web pages? The browser is what YOU touch, see, and interface with, but in order for it to give you anything it must connect to a server that "serves" appropriate content. mpd is the server in this analogy, NOT the thing you actually use. The front-ends that are available for mpd, now those are music players.
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Pro
Features provide a good music experience
While mostly bare-bones, Music Player Daemon does include a few features which help make it perform well. Buffer support ensures that your music continues to play without interruption even when your system is under an extremely heavy (but temporary) load, gapless playback starts loading a song just before it's needed so that it's ready to play the instant the last song ends. Meanwhile, crossfading allows your songs to blend into one another for continuous playback.
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Con
May not conform to how you organise your library
MPD expects you to have all your music in a single folder (music_directory) and use symbolic links to retrieve other resources.
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Pro
Easy to use with various outputs
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Con
Poor tagging support
Does not support enough tag types.
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Con
Requires a refresh every time you add music
MPD won't automatically refresh it's library - if you add music to your music folder, you will have to manually tell MPD to refresh or else it won't add the new music.
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Experiences
Free
59
12
Resonic
All
11
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
1
Specs
Top
Pro
Portable version available
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Con
No playlists
Or not yet, at least in the forums they say they're working on it
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Pro
Clean interface
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Pro
Fast
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Pro
Lightweight
About 8 MB, and about 11 MB with the integrated Soundfont for its MIDI playback synthesizer. Native application, no dependencies (no .NET runtime).
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Pro
Has a waveform seekbar and analyzers
Has a big single-click waveform seekbar and three real-time analyzer visualizations by default.
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Pro
Pure sound
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Pro
Supports all formats
WAV, BWF, RF64, AIFF, AIFC, FLAC, APE, ALAC, WV, TTA, DSF, DFF, MP3, MP2, MP1, M4A, MP4, AAC, MPC, MP+, OGG, OPUS, SPX, WMA, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless, MP4, WMV, AVI (certain codecs), MID, RMI, KAR, IT, XM, S3M, MTM, MOD
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Pro
WASAPI/ASIO support
High-end audio cards can be easily used to their full potential without any additional software due to WASAPI (Player and Pro) and ASIO (Pro) support.
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Pro
Most actions can be done with a single click
Most actions can be done without having to double-click. Things like navigating folders, playing files, seeking audio, changing volume are all done with a single-click.
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10 (32 and 64-bit)
License:
Proprietary
Release Date:
March 21, 2019
Portable:
No
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