When comparing Spotify vs qmmp, the Slant community recommends qmmp for most people. In the question“What are the best audio players for UNIX-like systems?” qmmp is ranked 15th while Spotify is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose qmmp is:
Qmmp allows the user to drastically change its look via skins. It can use Winamp and Xmms skins, as well as a list of 12 skins made specifically for qmmp that can be found [here](http://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/files/skins/qmmp-skins/).
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Huge collection of music and fast access to newly released songs
Spotify has over 20 million songs and arguably the largest collection out of its competitors and usually has the fastest access to new music.
The Spotify desktop client allows local music files to be imported with the option of syncing with a mobile device which largely mitigates the issue of missing artists.
Pro Related artists
Helps to find new authors based on your previous picks
Pro Client's functionality can be extended via third-party apps
Spotify desktop client allows for third-party apps. They extend the functionality of Spotify and many of them offer new ways of discovering music. Noteworthy apps include Moodagent, Last.fm, Swarm.fm, ShareMyPlaylists, The Hype Machine, We Are Hunted, Shuffler.fm.
Pro Curated playlists
Public playlists on Spotify created by other people are great for finding new music.
Pro Has a free version
A free, ad-supported account allows streaming from an extensive library of music.
Pro Weekly Discover playlist uses a great algorithm
A playlist generated by Spotify based on your listening habits and released every Monday. The algorithm used by this playlist is great and stands out from its competitors.
Pro Offers some skinning options
Qmmp allows the user to drastically change its look via skins. It can use Winamp and Xmms skins, as well as a list of 12 skins made specifically for qmmp that can be found here.
Pro Small single-window interface
Unlike more popular players that draw a huge window taking up the entire screen, with tons of knobs and menus popping out in new windows, qmmp gives you a single tiny window (that looks pretty much the same as Winamp used to look) with the basic controls and the playlist. The rest is available through a menu.
Pro Lightweight and supports almost all formats
Pro Plugin based
You can extend it with plugins.
Pro Qt-App
No matter what OS or desktop you use Qmmp will integrate well
Pro Clean and simple interface
Pro Depends on libaries
It depends on libaries instead of big fat toolkits like gstreamer.
Pro integrated file browser
Pro Supports cue sheets
Cons
Con Free account have lots of ads
If you hate commercials, you would buy Premium or go on using something else.
Con Discovery is terrible
The discovery algorithm is poor and does not learn fast enough. Not obvious how to train it.
Con Poor audio quality
There's a high range of bitrates and most of vary from average to bad.