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Add to SafariWhen comparing Quod Libet vs Sayonara, the Slant community recommends Sayonara for most people. In the question“What are the best audio players for UNIX-like systems?” Sayonara is ranked 7th while Quod Libet is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Sayonara is:
It is so flexible it respects your local theme, or can be set to a theme, very slick, independent dark mode. And yes, it does show your cover art!
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
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.
Pro Lots of plugins available
Quod Libet offers many plugins including Last FM sync, lyrics support, and iOS sync.
Pro Powerful search syntax
Quod Libet has powerful search syntax options, which are very useful for creating smartlists or querying a big music collection.
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.
Pro Integrates with IoT / home audio
Sonos, Squeezebox, ...
Pro Built-in Soundcloud support
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.
Pro Customizable looks
There are a few controls that allow the user to change how the player looks.
Pro Fast & Small
Fully functional and takes up little space on the hard drive.
Pro Looks really cool, and does have cover art
It is so flexible it respects your local theme, or can be set to a theme, very slick, independent dark mode. And yes, it does show your cover art!
Pro Closes to panel while playing...
It closes to the icon (tray) on your panel, while it keeps playing. Clicking the icon you can open it again, or pause/ stop/ play it there. Great to get it out of your way when you're working with cool sounds in the background.
Pro Does conky...
If you are one of those who like to close your player to panel and see what it plays in your conky?
Sayonara can do that over dbus, whether you like just artist and title, a progress bar, or even the cover art in your conky.
Pro Many plugins standard
Has many plugins out of the box, e.g. internet "radio"streams, equaliser, sprectrum analyser, bookmarks, audio converter, broadcast, playlists, lyrics for the song you're playing, and more. It's the full music enjoyment experience. If you like minimalistic, Sayonara can do that too.
Pro Sorts by the users options
Has everything you may need onboard.
Cons
Con (not) customizable
If you get a player, you want to make it yours. QL has a lot of stuff preconfigured, which you can't make as you want it. So base is great, but never makes it to be come yours.
Con Doesn't support playlist files
Con The GUI could have more eye-candy
There aren't any icons within the GUI, just text. This makes it feel more like a library management tool than an audio player. A little polish would go a long way here.
Con Rhythmbox clone
Can't find many differences with Rhythmbox.
Con GTK app
It will need a bit more of resources in a non qt environment.
Con Plugins could be better integrated
Lyrics are not downloaded automatically in Quod Libet, while simply viewing lyrics could be made a lot more accessible. There is also little information pulled from last.fm - scrubbing works, as well as there being no artist info or suggestions for similar artists.
Con Uses quite a bit of memory
Quod Libet can use up to 130 MB.
Con Playlist driven play back
If you install Sayonara, hook it up with your music directory, and want to have it play by clicking a music file and let you surprise yourself with its shuffle... it won't. It will play that double clicked song, but then just plain stop untill you double click that next one. To have it just play through your collection, you first have to make a playlist, and only then let Sayonara play that (randomly). No deal breaker, but certainly an non-intuitive hassle preventing "click that in my library, play and don't bother me no more".
Con Dynamic playback
Sayonara works with a dynamic mode shuffle method, that quite often eliminates any surprises and comes with "the same" suggestions when your collection is smaller. It can be switched off though (bottom left switches, under your playlist) if you don't like it. All the options will require you to "look into it" though, since it is somewhat confusing...
