When comparing TOMAHAWK vs VLC, the Slant community recommends VLC for most people. In the question“What are the best audio players for Windows?” VLC is ranked 4th while TOMAHAWK is ranked 36th. 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
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Pros
Pro Innovative music inbox
Pro Familiar interface
TOMAHAWK uses a familiar panned interface that users have become accustomed to within other music players.
Pro Plays from online third-party sources
You can connect Tomahawk with Spotify, Google Play Music, Last.FM, YouTube, Soundcloud, and a lot of other online sources. This means you have instant access to virtually any song you could ever want - even remixes (especially on YouTube) from this one program.
Pro Beautiful Design
TOMAHAWK has one of the best modern design
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 Cover songs show up in mixes
Amateur cover songs have a habbit of finding their way into mixes which means TOMAHAWK has trouble telling the difference.
Con Buggy
Not stable.
Con Lacks some polish
While listening to music, the music area doesn't scroll along with the music. Also, some of the plugins are slow to respond and they each provide a slightly different experience with which information they show, and how they show it (there isn't a standard format).
Con Development seems to have stalled
This project's github readme.md states that the project is abandoned, although some people appear to be contributing still.
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.