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Add to SafariWhen comparing Amarok vs Kodi, the Slant community recommends Amarok for most people. In the question“What are the best audio players for UNIX-like systems?” Amarok is ranked 23rd while Kodi is ranked 39th. The most important reason people chose Amarok is:
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.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Original design
The design of Amarok does not resemble most other music players. It's definitely in a class of its own.
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.
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.
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 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.
Con Resource hog...
Con No seamless transition between tracks when they're on different files.
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.
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.
