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Add to SafariWhen comparing Rhythmbox vs VLC, the Slant community recommends VLC for most people. In the question“What are the best audio players for UNIX-like systems?” VLC is ranked 13th while Rhythmbox is ranked 22nd. The most important reason people chose VLC is:
VLC is licensed under the CC-SA v3.0+ and available on Windows, OSX, and Linux with source code available [here](http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-sources.html).
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Loads of features
Rhythmbox allows you to extract CDs to MP3s while listening, and you can also burn CDs from playlists. You can listen to Last.fm and podcasts through Rhythmbox, which has support for lyrics and more.
Pro Plugins add only the features you want
Rhythmbox has built-in support for first and third party plugins. Instead of adding a bunch of features not everyone will use, you can download just the plugins that you want.
Pro Podcast management
Rhythmbox features built-in podcast management.
Pro Pre-packaged!
Rhythmbox comes pre-packaged with distros like Ubuntu, so you can just start listening to your favorite music - no apt-get install!
Pro Internet radio
Rhythmbox has built-in support for users so that they can add their own streaming audio / internet radio channels.
Pro Reliable
Pro Good organization
Music can be browsed by the usual artist and album, but Rhythmbox also allows for genres which aren't supported by all music players. It also has a very useful queue box.
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.
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.
Pro Very versatile and easy to use
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.
Pro Tons of advanced settings
Besides basic configurations, video player has an extensive amount of adjustable settings.
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.
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.
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 .
Pro Can play every format video available (as of 2017)
Pro Supports a GUI interface and an ncurses terminal interface
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
Pro Large amount of extensions
VLC has a large amount of extensions.
Cons
Con Buggy and slow when there's a large music collection
Can't cope with a large music collection.
Con Not crossplatform
The only bad part of RhythmBox is that I cannot install it on other OS's.
Con No album artist field
Most other modern music players come with an Album Artist Field when sorting music. Collaboration is very common these days and often a song would feature multiple artists, but sometimes it's easier to just sort for Album Artists. It's a rather simple feature, yet Rhythmbox has repeatedly shot down its users for making that request.
Con No folder browse/add-to-playlist view
So few music players seem to let you browse by your directory structure and add songs to a playlist that way. That's unfortunate because it's a really useful feature and eliminates the problem of mistagged music.
Con Still no built-in equilizer
Rhythmbox has been around for a good while now and yet there is still no default built-in equalizer. An equalizer allows users to tweak the audio to their preference. It can also help compensate for hardware (for example, lots of headphones are bass heavy, but to get a more balanced sound an equalizer can tune the bass down a touch).
Con Crashes often when there's a large music collection
Con No CUE file support
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.
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.
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.
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.
