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4.7 star rating
0
What is the best alternative to Music Player Daemon?
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MPV
All
10
Experiences
Pros
7
Cons
2
Specs
Top
Pro
Needs no additional codecs
Everything MPV needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed.
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Top
Con
Minimal theme support
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Top
Pro
Integrates with streaming services
When used with youtube-dl.
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Top
Con
Lack of a typical GUI can be jarring to some
The minimal interface comes at the cost of beginner-friendliness. You need to know keyboard shortcuts by heart, settings are set in text files, right-clicking won't bring up a menu, etc.
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Top
Pro
Minimal interface
Click to open files and get Video with sound (and passthrough of codecs like DTS etc) for a perfect cinema experience. Works okay for many files. Default window is not much more than a title bar - and if you drag/resize the window it resizes the video and leaves no empty areas. There is no visible control or display unless you use mouse/keyboard over the window. This is the best player to use unless you're going for a media center (then use MPV based Plex Media Player to display and play the Plex Server library).
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Pro
Up to date
Always up to date, rapid development.
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Pro
Extremely responsive
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Pro
Caches livestreams
Intelligently caches livestreams and enables jumping within the cached stream.
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Top
Pro
Fast
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, Android
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Experiences
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here
1444
86
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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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
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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Top
Con
Resource intensive
Just like any other web app.
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Top
Pro
Cross-platform
As an Electron app NMP runs on GNU/Linux, macOS and Windows.
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Top
Pro
Free and open source
Licensed under AGPL-3.0. Everybody can inspect the code, use it and improve it.
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Top
Pro
Looks beautiful and modern
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Top
Pro
Plugin system allowing for easy addition of more streaming sources
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free
34
5
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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Top
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
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53
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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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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Top
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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Top
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
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
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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Top
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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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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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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Con
BEWARE FRAUD, MALWARE, TROJAN, BACKDOOR
Download only from the actual aimp site
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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
cmus
All
12
Experiences
Pros
8
Cons
4
Top
Pro
CLI only
CLI makes Cmus clean, fast and minimalist.
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Con
No album art
cmus does not display album art
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Top
Pro
Does not use a lot of memory
Cmus only uses about 15 MB. This is a very small and light media player, which is ideal for people with low end hardware.
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Con
CLI only
No graphical interface is available for cmus. Everything is done through CLI (command line interface).
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Pro
Works very well with tags from MusicBrainz database
cmus will factor in additional data from the MusicBrainz database while sorting. For example sort orders for arist or album, and the original release date for an album (in the case of a re-release).
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Con
Difficult to use
Cmus uses odd keyboard shortcuts such as "C" to pause, "E" to add songs to queue, and "4" to edit the queue.
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Pro
Good library structure
A lot of music players may act more like playlist viewers rather than a music library. cmus sorts by Artist > Year > Album.
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Con
Can't play wavepack files
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Pro
Fast
A lot of music players will be slow when starting if they have huge libraries, but CMus starts fast no matter the library size.
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Pro
Customizable keybindings for a personal experience
You can add keybindings for just about anything - including seeking (forward/backwards 1 minute, for example) which isn't supported by all music players.
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Pro
No mouse required
cmus does not require a mouse as it runs in the terminal
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Pro
Open source extensions and scripts
On GitHub you can find the official WIKI where there are a dozen extensions and scripts from color themes to a lyrics viewer and the ability to play YouTube songs.
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Experiences
Free
122
25
qmmp
All
10
Experiences
Pros
9
Cons
1
Top
Pro
Offers some skinning options
Qmmp allows the user to drastically change its look via skins. It can use Winamp and Xmms skins, as well as a list of 12 skins made specifically for qmmp that can be found here.
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Con
Interface is not particularly intuitive
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Pro
Small single-window interface
Unlike more popular players that draw a huge window taking up the entire screen, with tons of knobs and menus popping out in new windows, qmmp gives you a single tiny window (that looks pretty much the same as Winamp used to look) with the basic controls and the playlist. The rest is available through a menu.
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Pro
Lightweight and supports almost all formats
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Pro
Plugin based
You can extend it with plugins.
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Pro
Qt-App
No matter what OS or desktop you use Qmmp will integrate well
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Pro
Clean and simple interface
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Pro
Depends on libaries
It depends on libaries instead of big fat toolkits like gstreamer.
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Pro
integrated file browser
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Pro
Supports cue sheets
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Experiences
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30
8
Guayadeque
All
12
Experiences
Pros
7
Cons
5
Top
Pro
Starts fast
Most other players start rather slowly. This one is written in C++, and the end result is excellent speed.
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Con
Development seems to stall since 2016
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Pro
Doesn't use much memory
Once installed, Guyadeque only uses about 15 MBs.
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Con
Sidebar lists multiple artists as one artist
A song with multiple artists labeled like "Artist 1; Artist 2; Artist 3" will not be displayed under all three artists, but rather under an artist labeled as "Artist 1; Artist 2; Artist 3." This makes actions as simple as queuing up an album with multiple artists a huge pain.
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Pro
Well-implemented auto playlist
After music has finished playing, Guadayeque will play a similar type of music.
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Con
Songs with differing artists in an album are displayed as separate albums
Suppose Album 1 by Album Artist A has a lot of songs by Artist A, with one song that features Artist B. Album 1 will get fractured across different artists in the sidebar.
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Pro
Handles large music databases very well
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Con
Interface is too busy
There's a lot shown on each of Guayeque's screens, and the more important buttons (play/pause and skip buttons) are small and hidden in the top left corner. Most users use music players in the background, meaning they will be switching back and forth with whatever else they're doing. As such, having larger buttons in a more prime location would be preferable.
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Pro
Lots of niceties / options / integration
Last.fm shows your profile in the software and also displays info about the artist. Lyrics are downloaded automatically when you want to see them. Cross-fading between songs keeps music constantly coming, which is very important when using music to block out ambient sounds. VU (volume unit) Meters give you something to look at while the music is playing.
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Con
Sometimes freezes and crashes
This can happen if you change some settings i.e. add or remove tabs etc.
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Pro
Smart play
It automatically make a playlist song-by-song you hear from your music file. It finds similar songs. So, as you listen to a song an endless playlist with similar songs is about to happen..
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Pro
Clean appearance
Guayadeque has a clean yet customizable appearance.
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Experiences
Free
42
11
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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Top
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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Top
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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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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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
XMMS
All
3
Experiences
Pros
2
Cons
1
Top
Pro
Support for Winamp themes
XMMS is able to use any Winamp skin available.
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Con
Looks are dated and may be unappealing
XMMS is pretty long in the tooth now and it's design definitely reflects that.
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Pro
Simple and familiar music player
Many users should be pretty familiar with the interface as it has been built to match that of the popular Winamp player.
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12
5
Spotify
All
10
Experiences
Pros
6
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Huge collection of music and fast access to newly released songs  
Spotify has over 20 million songs and arguably the largest collection out of its competitors and usually has the fastest access to new music. The Spotify desktop client allows local music files to be imported with the option of syncing with a mobile device which largely mitigates the issue of missing artists.
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Con
Free account have lots of ads
If you hate commercials, you would buy Premium or go on using something else.
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Pro
Related artists
Helps to find new authors based on your previous picks
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Top
Con
Discovery is terrible
The discovery algorithm is poor and does not learn fast enough. Not obvious how to train it.
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Pro
Curated playlists
Public playlists on Spotify created by other people are great for finding new music.
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Con
Poor audio quality
There's a high range of bitrates and most of vary from average to bad.
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Pro
Client's functionality can be extended via third-party apps
Spotify desktop client allows for third-party apps. They extend the functionality of Spotify and many of them offer new ways of discovering music. Noteworthy apps include Moodagent, Last.fm, Swarm.fm, ShareMyPlaylists, The Hype Machine, We Are Hunted, Shuffler.fm.
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Pro
Has a free version 
A free, ad-supported account allows streaming from an extensive library of music.
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Pro
Weekly Discover playlist uses a great algorithm
A playlist generated by Spotify based on your listening habits and released every Monday. The algorithm used by this playlist is great and stands out from its competitors.
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Specs
Platforms:
Web; Android; iOS; Linux; Windows; MacOS
Playlist Sharing:
Yes
User-Created Playlists:
Yes
Offline download:
Yes
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Experiences
Get it
here
504
148
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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
Amarok
All
8
Experiences
Pros
4
Cons
4
Top
Pro
Loaded with features
Amarok contains the following features: Built-in equilizer Built-in lookup of songs and artists (Amarok will display Wikipedia articles or lyrics of songs that it can find.) Ability to add online playlists or streams, which is great for online radios such as soma or di.fm. Supported by Cinnamon Desktop media widget. Built-in iPod and iPhone support. Built-in MTP and USB support. Built-in music services for Ampache, gpodder.net, Jamendo, Last.fm, Magnatune, Amazine Music, MP3tunes, and podcasts. Amarok can configure, add, and import scripts.
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Con
UI is not the most intuitive
While the design of the UI is different to most other music players, the way it actually functions can feel foreign to many and result in a lot of confusion.
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Pro
Original design
The design of Amarok does not resemble most other music players. It's definitely in a class of its own.
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Con
Resource hog...
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Pro
Global keys to move from one song to another, rewind X seconds, advance X seconds, etc
The ability to assign global keys to move from one song to another, rewind X seconds, advance X seconds, etc. Other players do not have that feature.
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Top
Con
No seamless transition between tracks when they're on different files.
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Pro
Search in the playlist while seeing other songs
You can search for songs in the playlist... without adding a filter that prevents you from seeing the other songs. That way you can find e.g. the song that has been played before House of the Rising Sun. Using other players you can not search for songs in the playlist without hiding the songs that are not looked for.
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Con
Doesn't feel very responsive
This is particularly the case with the play/pause button: it feels like there's a delay from when the button is pressed to when the music actually starts/stops.
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Experiences
Free
56
23
Lollypop
All
16
Experiences
Pros
11
Cons
5
Top
Pro
Super intuitive way of organizing and browsing albums and artists
You can view all the albums you have in one long list. Clicking on one of them will bring a popup at the bottom of the screen where you will see a list of all the songs on that album.
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Con
GTK App
Its a GTK app so integration in other desktops is terrible it also uses GNOMEs ClientSideDecorations so it will break many window managers.
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Pro
Works fast and reliably
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Con
No equalizer
Lollypop still does not have an equalizer.
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Pro
Super flexible layout
The latest version has a good full-screen layout and is very responsive. Goes very smoothly from full screen to minimal player (also being a GTK+ app).
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Con
Good party mode
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Pro
Integrates with the MPRIS sound menu
This applies for most players in the "Linux world", but not for all. Therefore I consider it worth mentioning.
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Con
No In-App Volume Control (0.9.242)
It has no in-app volume control, it has to be managed through system 'Sound control/Applications'
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Pro
Huge development
There is constant improvements, librem and gnome3 is possibly the future.
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Con
Requires a well organized music collection
Lollypop will be a pain to use if music is badly tagged. The setup is a one time thing, but it can be a pain to organize a large library.
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Pro
Cloud music
Lollypop allow you to play music from the web (iTunes charts and search from Spotify).
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Pro
Integrates well with many desktop environments
One example being the conditional use of client side decorations (a.k.a. header bars) depending on the currently active desktop environment.
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Pro
Good party mode
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Pro
Clean, light and works very well.
The only one that can play a lot of files without to stop.
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Pro
Queue option lets you change what's playing on the fly
You can add songs to a queue, and then re-order or remove songs as you please. It works similarly to a temporary playlist.
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Pro
Online radio integration
The newest version features a nice interface for adding, browsing, and playing online radio stations. This gives you access to more music than you would normally have, which can help expand your music library for free.
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Experiences
Free
86
35
Musique
All
7
Experiences
Pros
3
Cons
3
Specs
Top
Pro
Can handle very large local music libraries
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Con
No differentation between Album Artist / Track Artist
Albums are sorted via "Album Artist" but each deviating "Track Artist" creates a new album handle. Very bad when you have album tracks where the filename consists of the typical "Artist #1 feat. Artist #2" setting as each of these files creates another album entry.
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Pro
Minimal UI
The UI for Musique is pretty minimal. By not throwing every option in the book into the application, the developers are able to keep the interface clear of any clutter.
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Con
Doesn't resume from last close
Musique won't resume from the last time the app was closed. If you had a great music queue all set up, unfortunately it won't stay there if you close the app.
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Pro
Consistent queue simplifies what's playing next
There is a queue on the right side of the player, which shows you what is coming up next. This makes it easy to add a new song or remove a song before it plays to be sure that you/your guests stay in the groove. You can also slowly transition to different genres, not to mention plan ahead and adapt as you need to.
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Con
Linux controls don't work
The Linux next/previous buttons don't do anything - you will need to open Musique in order to do anything with it (other than change the volume).
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Specs
Platforms:
Windows, MacOS, Linux
Price:
Free
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Experiences
Free
83
38
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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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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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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Con
Large cluttered interface
It's hard to find needed options.
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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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28
28
mp3blaster
All
3
Experiences
Pros
3
Top
Pro
Awesome sound quality!
Absolutely beats the quality from SMPlayer with mpv in the background.
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Pro
Robust playlist support
mp3blaster has great playlist support, especially when compared to other terminal music players as many don't have playlist support at all.
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Pro
Shrotcut keys shown at the top of the app
mp3blaster, by default shows the shortcut keys at the top of the player, making it easy to see how to control the app.
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