When comparing MPV vs TOMAHAWK, the Slant community recommends MPV for most people. In the question“What are the best audio players for Windows?” MPV is ranked 8th while TOMAHAWK is ranked 36th. The most important reason people chose MPV is:
Everything MPV needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Needs no additional codecs
Everything MPV needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed.
Pro Integrates with streaming services
When used with youtube-dl.
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).
Pro Up to date
Always up to date, rapid development.
Pro Extremely responsive
Pro Caches livestreams
Intelligently caches livestreams and enables jumping within the cached stream.
Pro Fast
Pro Innovative music inbox
Pro Familiar interface
TOMAHAWK uses a familiar panned interface that users have become accustomed to within other music players.
Pro Plays from online third-party sources
You can connect Tomahawk with Spotify, Google Play Music, Last.FM, YouTube, Soundcloud, and a lot of other online sources. This means you have instant access to virtually any song you could ever want - even remixes (especially on YouTube) from this one program.
Pro Beautiful Design
TOMAHAWK has one of the best modern design
Cons
Con Minimal theme support
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.
Con Cover songs show up in mixes
Amateur cover songs have a habbit of finding their way into mixes which means TOMAHAWK has trouble telling the difference.
Con Buggy
Not stable.
Con Lacks some polish
While listening to music, the music area doesn't scroll along with the music. Also, some of the plugins are slow to respond and they each provide a slightly different experience with which information they show, and how they show it (there isn't a standard format).
Con Development seems to have stalled
This project's github readme.md states that the project is abandoned, although some people appear to be contributing still.