When comparing Guayadeque 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 Guayadeque is ranked 17th. 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
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Starts fast
Most other players start rather slowly. This one is written in C++, and the end result is excellent speed.
Pro Doesn't use much memory
Once installed, Guyadeque only uses about 15 MBs.
Pro Well-implemented auto playlist
After music has finished playing, Guadayeque will play a similar type of music.
Pro Handles large music databases very well
Pro Smart play
It automatically make a playlist song-by-song you hear from your music file. It finds similar songs. So, as you listen to a song an endless playlist with similar songs is about to happen..
Pro Lots of niceties / options / integration
Last.fm shows your profile in the software and also displays info about the artist.
Lyrics are downloaded automatically when you want to see them.
Cross-fading between songs keeps music constantly coming, which is very important when using music to block out ambient sounds.
VU (volume unit) Meters give you something to look at while the music is playing.
Pro Clean appearance
Guayadeque has a clean yet customizable appearance.
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 Development seems to stall since 2016
Con Sidebar lists multiple artists as one artist
A song with multiple artists labeled like "Artist 1; Artist 2; Artist 3" will not be displayed under all three artists, but rather under an artist labeled as "Artist 1; Artist 2; Artist 3." This makes actions as simple as queuing up an album with multiple artists a huge pain.
Con Songs with differing artists in an album are displayed as separate albums
Suppose Album 1 by Album Artist A has a lot of songs by Artist A, with one song that features Artist B. Album 1 will get fractured across different artists in the sidebar.
Con Interface is too busy
There's a lot shown on each of Guayeque's screens, and the more important buttons (play/pause and skip buttons) are small and hidden in the top left corner. Most users use music players in the background, meaning they will be switching back and forth with whatever else they're doing. As such, having larger buttons in a more prime location would be preferable.
Con Sometimes freezes and crashes
This can happen if you change some settings i.e. add or remove tabs etc.
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...
