What are the best media players for UNIX-like systems?

Question

LinuxSoftwareMultimediaUnixUnix-likevideo playerAudio Player

What are the best media players for UNIX-like systems?

28

Options
Considered

905

User
Recs.

Jan 30, 2024

Last
Updated

The Best 1 of 25 OptionsWhy?

Best media players for UNIX-like systems	Price	Platforms	License
92 MPV	-	Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, Android	-
69 DeaDBeeF	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD	-
-- QMPlay2	-	-	-
63 SMPlayer	Free	Windows, Mac, Linux	-
58 VLC	-	-	-

See Full List

24 Other Options Considered

DeaDBeeF

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. See More

Top Con

Playlist based

I doesn't have a Music libary, however if you organize you folders correctly then you won't miss it. See More

FascinatingProteus's Experience

Easy to add local content in a well organized, folder approach, way. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD

Top Pro

Plugin based

It's plugin based and there are many plugins available like lyrics, artist informations, visualization. See More

Top 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. See More

AwareWadd's Experience

crash a lot in linux mint See More

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. See More

Top Pro

A lot of plugins

DeadBeef has a lot of different plugins users can use to customize the interface, controls, and options. See More

Top Pro

Slim

It does't depend on any frameworks like phonon or gstreamer, you could for example run it with mp3 or flac support See More

See All

SMPlayer

Top Pro

Uses mplayer 2 and mpv as engines

Top Con

Stability issues

Over the last year, I've had problems with the app: lock ups, mainly. This has been happening more often lately. See More

Rafael Social User's Experience

No video artifacts while playing videos, as it usually happened to me happen with VLC. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Top Pro

Faster than VLC in some cases

Top Con

Does not support directory playback

CharmingMastoratia's Experience

Uses mpv as a backend with all the pros and none of the cons. The default setup looks quite dated but can be easily customised. https://github.com/PapirusDevelopmentTeam/papirus-smplayer-theme See More

Top Pro

Has all basic features which are missing in VLC and many other players

Can play/pause video on click; remember playlist and its last position when closed; everything is configurable. See More

Top Con

Webtv channels do not work

ResponsibleEndymion's Experience

Very good player. See More

Top Pro

Minimalist media player and easy to use

SMPlayer does exactly what you need. See More

Top Con

Theme support is basic

No fancy layout like vlc and mplayer. See More

Top Pro

Plays stuff VLC struggles with

Top Con

Dated and unattractive UI

Top Pro

Can download subtitles

Top Pro

Complete media solution

Compatible with all popular video and music formats. See More

Top Pro

Good looking interface

Top Pro

Has support for adding and playing online TV channels

See All

VLC

Top Pro

Needs no additional codecs

Everything VLC needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. See More

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, usage of tags is very limited, no rating system and VLC is best at playing a file directly from a folder as opposed to helping you manage or find good songs in your music library. See More

FantasticVili's Experience

I recommend VLC mainly because of the massive file type support it has. You never need to have anything else installed, and generally if a file won't play, it's usually the file and not VLC. See More

Top Pro

Streaming support

Top Con

Take note of each EQ channel setting to save it.... You must be joking.... 1980's at its best

nooblinux's Experience

It works fine if you raise the number of threads in ffmpeg settings See More

Top Pro

Active development

In addition to VLC being actively developed by the core developers, due to its popularity, VLC also receives regular update from the community. See More

Top Con

Absence of personalisation

Player has only one basic interface in white or black colour and overall personalisation opportunities are quite narrow. See More

HelpfulGobannus's Experience

Crashes in Linux Mint. Re-installing doesn't help. Lots of people on Linux Mint 20 have the same problems. Used VLC for many years though. See More

Top Pro

Unobtrusive

You'll never be bugged to register or pay, as is the case with many other software movie and DVD players. See More

Top Con

Incredibly ugly UI

The UI works fine but looks ugly. See More

ConvivialMeskhenet's Experience

does not support casting of subs to chromecast See More

Top 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. See More

Top Con

Just too old and heavy to compete with the likes of MPV

Yanis's Experience

VLC is The Dude ! See More

Top Pro

Intuitive UI

An incredibly robust application but very simple on the surface. It makes playing music simple and puts the user in control. See More

Top Con

No way to strip down vlc for a more responsive playback

There should be a way to remove unwanted features. Moreso building VLC is one of the most daunting tasks. See More

CheerfulVarmanpaz's Experience

Easy to use. See More

Top Pro

Can convert media

Top Con

No "Click on Video" to Pause & Resume

It is not possible to click into the video screen to pause the video, or to resume playing the paused video. See More

NiceZhongliQuan's Experience

can get stuck open, and need force close it See More

Top Pro

Playlist UI very friendly

Widget on main window opens up the playlist window into which you add files/dirs ... very intuitive to create/save playlists. See More

Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience

Awesome ! See More

Top Pro

Functionality can be extended with addons

VLC can be extended through scripting; it uses the Lua scripting language. More information VLC scripting in Lua can be found on their official forums. See More

Sojan Janso's Experience

Great player, lots of power, incredible format support. See More

Top Pro

Support for theme is massive

See All

Audacious

Top Pro

Tons of plugins

Top Con

Buggy

For example when using Visual Studio Code and Audacious you get flicked out to the gnome login screen. See More

DedicatedAlcyone's Experience

Simple, easy to use, it does what it has to do flawlessly See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, BSD

Top Pro

The easiest player for multiple types of files - dts, aac multichannel etc.

Top Con

No manual sorting fields

There is no option to add one's own categories to the sorting fields. See More

TolerantArinniti's Experience

Works fine. Now you can add an equalizer. Yes, it browses your music folders that you've organized yourself just fine. Runs in GTK or QT mode and interface. Has a network interface with proxy configuration if you want to mess with that. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

My audacious uses only 18.5 MB of RAM. It has a Winamp visualization style that's very minimized and convenient. See More

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. See More

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. See More

Top Pro

The easiest player for multiple types of files

It plays dts, aac multichannel, etc. See More

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. See More

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. See More

See All

Clementine

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. See More

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. See More

GregariousBaalHammon's Experience

by far the best music player for linux....I have about 50, 000 tunes on my laptop and it works great...the podcast option is good too See More

Specs

License:GPL-3.0-or-later

Release Date:2016-19-04

Development:Open Source

Top Pro

Handles large collections with ease and is cross-platform

Handles 60,000 MP3s just fine. See More

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. See More

MethodicalBorlung's Experience

I have used this on many Linux distros & have had the best experience with it looks good works well could use a shut down button & better add content takes awhile to find content on drive but that's normal with a large collection See More

Top Pro

Looks good and is really responive

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. See More

Top Con

Horrible user interface and confusing layout

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. See More

Top Con

Doesn't allow gapless playback

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. See More

Top Con

Not customizable

It doesn't allow you to modify its interface by dragging toolbars around etc. See More

Top Pro

Can display song lyrics

Fetches lyrics from several lyric providers. See More

Top Pro

Tag editing

Clementine features competent tag managing for all music files, be it album art or just simple text entries. See More

Top Pro

Sensible UI

A fork of the 1.X line of Amarok, Clementine favours usability over design trends. See More

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. See More

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. See More

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. See More

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. See More

See All

MPlayer

Top Pro

Needs no additional codecs

Everything MPlayer needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. See More

Top Con

Not much documentation on the use and configuration

CuriousAmm's Experience

Plays anything, easy shortcut keys. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux

Top Pro

Easy shortcut keys

Quick skip ahead buttons and other shortcut keys. See More

Top Con

Contrary to review, some media that play well in vlc does not play in mplayer

ConvivialMeskhenet's Experience

cumbersome, still didn't figure to to cast to chromecast... See More

Top Pro

No bugs , no lag in the video display

Top Con

Doesn't support directory playback

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. See More

Top Con

Lacks a built-in visualizer

Top Pro

Multiple forks

Some of the more popular forks include MPlayer2 and mpv. See More

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 See More

See All

cmus

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

IncredibleAlernus's Experience

Fast and never complains. See More

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. See More

's Experience

Fast and minimalistic! See More

Top Pro

CLI only

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

No mouse required

cmus does not require a mouse as it runs in the terminal. See More

Top 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). See More

Top 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. See More

See All

Music Player Daemon

Top 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. See More

ExuberantTamanuitera's Experience

use it all the time. daemon runs on one computer but can be controlled by any computer with a client on my LAN. pretty easy to set up a local network stream, which means I can run it on my computer with my music library in one room and listen to the music in another room via wifi. I also really like the consume option in the playlist, I wish other players had that, I can keep a running random playlist and the tracks that I've heard are removed as it goes. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use with various outputs

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. See More

See All

Celluloid

LoveableRenpet's Experience

stutters a lot, video and voice out of synch, no solution found online for linux that worked. See More

qmmp

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. See More

Top Con

Interface is not particularly intuitive

Top Pro

Lightweight and supports almost all formats

Top Pro

Plugin based

You can extend it with plugins. See More

Top Pro

Qt-App

No matter what OS or desktop you use Qmmp will integrate well See More

Top Pro

Clean and simple interface

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Supports cue sheets

Top Pro

Depends on libaries

It depends on libaries instead of big fat toolkits like gstreamer. See More

See All

Quod Libet

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. See More

InterestingAnansi's Experience

can sort by genre See More

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. See More

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. See More

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. See More

Top Pro

Lots of plugins available

Quod Libet offers many plugins including Last FM sync, lyrics support, and iOS sync. See More

Top Pro

ExFalso

Its ID3 tagger is available as standalone version which makes tagging big collections a breeze. See More

Top Pro

Customizable looks

There are a few controls that allow the user to change how the player looks. See More

Top Pro

Traditional Interface

It comes with out any CSD/headerbar or some other weird GNOME stuff so it will work with other desktops. See More

See All

Amarok

Top Pro

Original design

The design of Amarok does not resemble most other music players. It's definitely in a class of its own. See More

Top Con

Endless dependencies

Amarok has a lot of features however this comes with the price of endless dependencies See More

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. See More

Top Con

Lyrics functions only from web

I like the lyrics function from web, but I would like that, if music has its own lyric embedded, it must prioritize it. See More

Top Pro

Easy to organize

Lot's of options to organize correctly the music library. Works very well tagging any music format (Except APE). See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top 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. See More

Top Pro

Currently updated

Currently updated, as seen on amarok.kde.org and invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/commits/master See More

Top 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. See More

See All

Guayadeque

Top Pro

Handles large music databases very well

Top Con

No download available

LikableEunostus's Experience

Unable to download from any links listed!!!!! See More

Top Pro

Well-implemented auto playlist

After music has finished playing, Guadayeque will play a similar type of music. See More

Top Con

Development seems to stall since 2016

AdaptableElatha's Experience

The only player here with 'Smart Play'. Best for showing lyrics, with an option to click/open and find on net, cut and paste and have it saved in the file, same goes for artwork. Easiest for dragging to playlists, saving to multiple playlists, handles music levels and has a great configurable (also can drag elements off to their own windows, like a player and playlist/artwork/lyrics/lastfm window etc). Add in configurable services, open with file browser, delete, convert, open with musicbrainz - great flexibility... but can just sit and play all day (you can just set filters, press play, and minimise it, filter to accept dance, reject classical or accept my playlist and reject the 'easy listening' playlist - or do it with tags in the music etc). See More

Top 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.. See More

CuriousJeoseungHalmang's Experience

This is the closest to iTunes I used in Linux, has built in cover finder. Excellent for extra large collection of albums. See More

Top Pro

Clean appearance

Guayadeque has a clean yet customizable appearance. See More

LoyalEreshkigal's Experience

Excellent!!! All what I need to listen music See More

Top Pro

Doesn't use much memory

Once installed, Guyadeque only uses about 15 MBs. See More

Top 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. See More

See All

Built By the Slant team

Find the best product instantly.

4.7 star rating

Try it now - it's free

score 308 · Accepted Answer

MPV

Top Pro

Integrates with streaming services

When used with youtube-dl. See More

Top Con

Minimal theme support

TruthfulSuwaliyat's Experience

fluid, minimalist and stable See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, Android

Top Pro

Needs no additional codecs

Everything MPV needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. See More

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. See More

NiceZhongliQuan's Experience

it just works See More

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). See More

GloriousNuwa's Experience

Just everything you need in one package. Works cross-platform, open source, minimalist, and just amazing! What more do you want See More

Top Pro

Up to date

Always up to date, rapid development. See More

Top Pro

Extremely responsive

Top Pro

Caches livestreams

Intelligently caches livestreams and enables jumping within the cached stream. See More

Top Pro

Fast

See All

The Best 1 of 25 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for MPV

My Recommendation for MPV

Integrates with streaming services

Minimal theme support

Needs no additional codecs

Lack of a typical GUI can be jarring to some

Minimal interface

Up to date

Extremely responsive

Caches livestreams

Fast

24 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for DeaDBeeF

My Recommendation for DeaDBeeF

Extremely customizable

Playlist based

Plugin based

Not as many options as other players

Lightweight

A lot of plugins

Slim

My Recommendation for QMPlay2

My Recommendation for QMPlay2

The interface can be easily customised

Has an AppImage version

It is easy to crate and export playlists

My Recommendation for SMPlayer

My Recommendation for SMPlayer

Uses mplayer 2 and mpv as engines

Stability issues

Faster than VLC in some cases

Does not support directory playback

Has all basic features which are missing in VLC and many other players

Webtv channels do not work

Minimalist media player and easy to use

Theme support is basic

Plays stuff VLC struggles with

Dated and unattractive UI

Can download subtitles

Complete media solution

Good looking interface

Has support for adding and playing online TV channels

My Recommendation for VLC

My Recommendation for VLC

Needs no additional codecs

Lacks libraries and advanced music player features

Streaming support

Take note of each EQ channel setting to save it.... You must be joking.... 1980's at its best

Active development

Absence of personalisation

Unobtrusive

Incredibly ugly UI

Includes Blu-Ray playback support

Just too old and heavy to compete with the likes of MPV

Intuitive UI

No way to strip down vlc for a more responsive playback

Can convert media

No "Click on Video" to Pause & Resume

Playlist UI very friendly

Functionality can be extended with addons

Support for theme is massive

My Recommendation for Audacious

My Recommendation for Audacious

Tons of plugins

Buggy

The easiest player for multiple types of files - dts, aac multichannel etc.

No manual sorting fields

Lightweight

No bit perfect output past 24bit

Folder oriented player, but able to play any music container and highly configurable

The easiest player for multiple types of files

Streamlined player not weighed down by unnecessary options

Support for Winamp themes

My Recommendation for Clementine

My Recommendation for Clementine

Supports a lot of online services

Too bloated by default with things like LastFM that can't be removed

Handles large collections with ease and is cross-platform

Buggy