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Add to SafariWhen comparing Rhythmbox vs Kodi, the Slant community recommends Rhythmbox for most people. In the question“What are the best audio players for UNIX-like systems?” Rhythmbox is ranked 22nd while Kodi is ranked 39th. The most important reason people chose Rhythmbox is:
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.
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 Can install on several devices
Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Xbox, Apple TV (jailbroken), and more.
Pro Lots of plugins available
Like PlutoTV, Curiosity Stream, and YouTube. 3rd party repositories, such as the SlyGuy Repository, contain more plugins like Disney+, Paramount+, Hulu, and Netflix.
Pro Free
Pro Open source
Completely FOSS, licensed under GPL 2.0
Pro Great customization/multiple skins
You can change navigation flow and other aspects of Kodi with the plethora of customization options and skins.
Pro Can play many different file formats
It supports Blu-ray Discs, CDs, DVDs, USB Flash Drives, local Hard Disk Drives, AirPlay, network file shares, basically every video, audio, and image format available, subtitle files, and even retro game console ROMs.
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 You may have to jailbreak some devices
This is only for things like a Fire stick, but Android TV boxes etc. should be fine.
Con Terrible navigation
Menus over menus with dozens of submenus.
Con Not Client/Server Capable
While most solutions provide a client/server setup the KODI developers REFUSE to adopt this approach forcing individual setups for every device.
Con Poorly optimized
Often not a fluid experience on low-end devices.
Con No official AAA addons for streaming services
It does not have any official AAA addons and fully relies on the community which result in often broken packages/addons.
