The following comparison of audio players compares general and technical information for a number of software media player programs. For the purpose of this comparison, "audio players" are defined as any media player explicitly designed to play audio files, with limited or no support for video playback. Multi-media players designed for video playback, which can also play music, are included under comparison of video player software.
Name | Author | First public release | Latest stable version | Cost | Software license | Framework used | Written in | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | AIMP DevTeam | August 8, 2006 | Windows: 5.30, build 2533 (December 20, 2023 [1] ) [±] | No cost | Proprietary | BASS audio library (decoder) | Delphi | ||||||||||||
Amarok | Mark Kretschmann | June 1, 2003 | 2.9.71 (January 31, 2021) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | via Phonon: GStreamer, xine, MPlayer, VLC, DirectShow, QuickTime | C++ | ||||||||||||
aTunes | Alex Aranda et al. | January 1, 2006 | 3.1.2 (June 22, 2014) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | Java | |||||||||||||
Audacious | Audacious Development Team | October 30, 2005 | 4.2 (July 9, 2022 [3] ) [±] | No cost | BSD-2-Clause | XMMS based | C, C++ | ||||||||||||
Banshee | Aaron Bockover | February 17, 2005 | 2.6.2 (February 18, 2014 [5] ) [±] | No cost | MIT | GStreamer | C# | ||||||||||||
BTR Amp | BTR Labs | February 13, 2020 | 15.1 (March 21, 2023) | $0.99/month, $9.99/year, $29.99 one-time | Proprietary | ||||||||||||||
Clementine | Clementine Team | February 22, 2010 | 1.3.1 (April 19, 2016) [±] | No cost | GPL-3.0-or-later | GStreamer | C++ (Qt) | ||||||||||||
cmus | Timo Hirvonen | January 18, 2005 | 2.10.0 (July 5, 2022) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | C | |||||||||||||
Cog | Vincent Spader | May 1, 2006 | 0.07 (December 24, 2007) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-only | Objective-C | |||||||||||||
DeaDBeeF | Oleksiy Yakovenko | August 2009 | 1.9.6 / November 7, 2023 | No cost | GPLv2, zlib | C, C++, Objective-C, Assembly language | |||||||||||||
Exaile | Adam Olsen | May 24, 2006 | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | GStreamer | Python (GTK) | |||||||||||||
Ecoute | Louka Desroziers & Julien Sagot | September 2008 | 3.0.8 | No cost (until version 4) | Proprietary | AV Foundation & QuickTime | Objective-C | ||||||||||||
Flash MP3 Player | Reality Software | March 11, 2008 | 1.00 | No cost | Proprietary | ||||||||||||||
foobar2000 | Peter Pawlowski | November 29, 2002 | 2.1 [6] (18 December 2023) [±] | No cost | Proprietary (core), BSD (SDK) | C++ | |||||||||||||
Guayadeque Music Player | Juan Rios | March 12, 2009 | 0.4.6 (June 5, 2019; 20 months ago) | No cost | GPL-3.0-or-later | GStreamer | C++ (wxWidgets, wxSqlite) | ||||||||||||
iTunes | Apple Inc. | January 9, 2001 | No cost | Proprietary | QuickTime | ? | |||||||||||||
JRiver Media Center | JRiver, Inc. | February 1, 1999 | 29.0.47 (February 8, 2022 [7] ) [±] | $59.98 to $79.98 | Proprietary | JRiver code | C++ | ||||||||||||
JuK | Scott Wheeler | February 1, 2003 | 3.11 (February 4, 2014) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | C++ | |||||||||||||
MediaMonkey Standard | Ventis Media Inc. | August 25, 2003 | 5.0.4.2690 (November 23, 2022) [±] | No cost | Proprietary | Delphi, C | |||||||||||||
MediaMonkey Gold | Ventis Media Inc. | August 25, 2003 | 5.0.4.2690 (November 23, 2022) [±] | $24.95USD | Proprietary | Delphi, C | |||||||||||||
MediaMonkey Lifetime | Ventis Media Inc. | August 25, 2003 | 5.0.4.2690 (November 23, 2022) [±] | $49.95USD | Proprietary | ||||||||||||||
Groove Music | Microsoft | 2012 | No cost | Proprietary | |||||||||||||||
Mpxplay | Mpxplay | January 1, 1998 | 3.14 (October 24, 2021) [±] | No cost | Proprietary | C | |||||||||||||
Music on Console | Damian Pietras | January 1, 2002 | 2.5.1 (April 24, 2016) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | C | |||||||||||||
Music Player Daemon | Warren Dukes | May 1, 2003 | 0.21.22 (April 2, 2020 [8] ) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | C | |||||||||||||
MusicBee | Steven Mayall | December 4, 2008 | 3.5.8447 (February 19, 2023) [±] | No cost | Proprietary | BASS audio library | Visual Basic .NET | ||||||||||||
musikCube | Casey Langen | January 1, 2005 | 3.0.2 [9] (11 September 2023) [±] | No cost | BSD-3-Clause | ||||||||||||||
Napster | William Christopher Gorog | October 1, 2003 | 4.6.3.4 (August 31, 2010) [±] | Subscription | Proprietary | ||||||||||||||
Quod Libet | Quod Libet Team | November 8, 2004 | 4.5.0 wikidata:Q1621193 (March 2022) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | GStreamer | Python (GTK) PyGTK | ||||||||||||
Rdio | Rdio Inc | August 3, 2010 | Microsoft Windows: 1.12.0.0 (2013) WP 8+ : 4.0.5.0 (28 October 2013 ) iOS: 3.0.3 (27 September 2014 ) | Subscription | Proprietary | ||||||||||||||
Rhapsody | RealNetworks | January 1, 2003 | 14.0 (16 October 2006) [±] | Subscription | Proprietary | ||||||||||||||
Rhythmbox | Colin Walters | April 1, 2004 | 3.4.4 (January 4, 2020) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | GStreamer | C | ||||||||||||
Sayonara Player | Michael Lugmair (until 2020 under the pseudonym Lucio Carreras) | 2011 | 1.5.1-stable5 / 29 August 2019 | No cost | GPL-3.0-or-later | GStreamer | C++ | ||||||||||||
Songbird | POTI Inc. | February 8, 2006 | 2.2.0, Build 2453 (February 4, 2013) [±] | No cost | GPL | GStreamer | |||||||||||||
Sonic Visualiser | Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary, University of London | May 10, 2007 | 3.1.1 (August 14, 2018) | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | ||||||||||||||
Sonique | Media Science | November 1, 1998 | 1.96 (March 2002) | No cost | Proprietary | ||||||||||||||
Spotify | Spotify LTD | October 7, 2008 |
| Subscription | Proprietary | ||||||||||||||
Style Jukebox | Digital Geek LTD | July 1, 2009 | 2.2.1 (October 8, 2016) [±] | No cost | Proprietary | C# | |||||||||||||
Winamp | Nullsoft | April 21, 1997 | 5.9.2 Build 10042 [13] (April 26, 2023) [±] | No cost | Proprietary | Wasabi | C/C++ | ||||||||||||
XMMS | XMMS Team | November 1, 1997 | 1.2.11 (November 16, 2007) [±] | No cost | GPL-2.0-or-later | original | C | ||||||||||||
XMPlay | Un4seen Developments | 1998 | 3.8 (December 23, 2013) | No cost | Proprietary | BASS audio library | |||||||||||||
Name | Author | First public release | Stable version | Cost | Software license | Framework used | Written in |
This section lists the operating systems on which the player works. There may be multiple versions of a player for different operating systems.
Audio player | Windows | macOS | Linux | iOS | Android | BSD Unix | Solaris | Other Unix | DOS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | Yes | No | via Wine | No | Yes | via Wine | No | No | No |
Amarok | Yes | beta | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
aTunes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Audacious | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Audion | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Banshee | alpha | beta | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
BTR Amp | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
cmus | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Cog | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Clementine | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | remote controller only | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
DeaDBeeF | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Ecoute | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Exaile | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
foobar2000 | Yes | beta [osnotes 1] | via Wine [osnotes 2] | Yes | Yes | via Wine [osnotes 2] | No | No | No |
Guayadeque Music Player | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Groove Music | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
iTunes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
JRiver Media Center | Yes | Yes | Yes | remote controller only | Yes | No | No | No | No |
MediaMonkey | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
MPXPLAY | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Music Player Daemon | cygwin | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
MusicBee | Yes | No | Partial [14] | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Musicmatch Jukebox | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
musikCube | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | remote control only [15] | Yes | No | No | No |
Quod Libet | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Rdio | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Rhapsody | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Rhythmbox | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Sayonara Player | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
Songbird | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Sonique | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Spotify | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Style Jukebox | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Winamp | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
XMMS | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
XMPlay | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Zinf | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Audio player | Windows | macOS | Linux | iOS | Android | BSD Unix | Solaris | Other Unix | DOS |
Audio player | Video playback | Outbound streaming | Skinnable | Media database | Gapless audio decoding | Visualizer | Remote controllable | Intelligent playlists from database (based on criteria) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | No | via Plugins | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | via Plugins | No |
Amarok | Partial [featurenotes 1] | Yes | Partial [featurenotes 2] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Audacious | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Audion | No | No | Yes | No | ? | Yes | ? | No |
BTR Amp | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
cmus | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Cog | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
Clementine | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Exaile | No | ? | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes [16] | Yes |
foobar2000 | No | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes [featurenotes 3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes |
iTunes | Yes | Yes | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JRiver Media Center | Yes | via Plugins | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | via Plugins | Yes |
JuK | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes [featurenotes 4] | ? |
MediaMonkey | Yes | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes |
MPXPLAY | Yes (with MMC v2.00a) | ? | text-interface | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (also LCD ability) | ? |
Music Player Daemon | No | Yes | Client dependent | Yes | Yes | Client dependent | Yes | Client dependent |
MusicBee | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Musicmatch Jukebox | No | No | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | ? |
musikCube | No | No | No | Yes | No | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | ? | Yes |
Quod Libet | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Rhapsody | No | No | No | Yes | ? | No | ? | ? |
Rhythmbox | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Sayonara Player | No | ? | No (Dark Mode available) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Sonique | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | ? | No |
Spotify | Yes | ? | No | No | Yes | No | Yes (via app) | No |
Winamp | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
XMMS | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | No | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | Yes | No |
XMPlay | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Zinf | No | No | Yes | Yes | ? | No | ? | ? |
Audio player | Video playback | Outbound streaming | Skinnable | Media database | Gapless audio decoding | Visualizer | Remote controllable | Intelligent playlists from database (based on criteria) |
Audio player | ReplayGain | Tag mass | Tag flexible [featurenotes 5] | Time stretch | Pitch shift | A-B repeat | Bookmark | Auto resume | Shutdown on play complete | Archive ability |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | Yes | Yes [featurenotes 6] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Amarok | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes [featurenotes 7] | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Audacious | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
Audion | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
BTR Amp | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | No | ? | No | Yes | No | |
cmus | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Cog | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Clementine | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | ? | No | No | No | No |
Exaile | Yes | Yes | Yes [17] | No | No | Yes [lower-alpha 1] | Yes [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 1] | No |
foobar2000 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 1] | Yes [lower-alpha 1] | Yes [lower-alpha 1] | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes |
iTunes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
JRiver Media Center | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [featurenotes 7] | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
JuK | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
MediaMonkey | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | Yes | ? |
MPXPLAY | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
MusicBee | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Musicmatch Jukebox | ? | Partial [featurenotes 8] | ? | No | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
musikCube | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Quod Libet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [featurenotes 9] | Partial [featurenotes 9] | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Rhapsody | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Rhythmbox | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Sayonara Player | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
Sonique | No | No | ? | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | ? |
Spotify | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
Winamp | Yes | Yes | ? | No | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | No | ? |
XMMS | Partial | Yes | ? | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
XMPlay | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Zinf | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | No | ? |
Audio player | ReplayGain | Tag mass | Tag flexible | Time stretch | Pitch shift | A-B repeat | Bookmark | Auto resume | Shutdown on play complete | Archive ability |
Information about what audio formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins/filters that provide such functionality.
Information about what container formats the players understand. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or filters that provide such functionality.
Audio player | AVI | ASF | QuickTime | Ogg | OGM | Matroska | MP4 | MPEG-21 | NUT | FLV |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Partial | No | No | No |
Amarok | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Basic | Basic | Yes | ? | ? | Yes |
Audacious | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Audio only |
Audion | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
cmus | No | No | No | Vorbis only | No | Basic | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Cog | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Partial | ? | ? | ? |
foobar2000 | Partial [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Audio only |
JuK | No | No | No | Vorbis only | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
JRiver Media Center | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes |
MediaMonkey | No | No | No | Vorbis only | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
MOC | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes |
MPXPLAY | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
MusicBee | No | No | No | Vorbis only | No | No | AAC only | No | No | No |
Musicmatch Jukebox | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
musikCube | No | No | No | Vorbis only | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
Rhapsody | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
Rhythmbox | No | Yes | No | Vorbis only | No | No | Yes [lower-alpha 6] | ? | ? | ? |
Sayonara Player | No | ? | No | Vorbis only | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Sonique | No [lower-alpha 7] | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
Winamp | Yes | Yes | Yes [lower-alpha 1] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes |
XMMS | No | No | No | Vorbis only | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
Zinf | No | No | No | Vorbis only | No | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
Audio player | AVI | ASF | QuickTime | Ogg | OGM | Matroska | MP4 | MPEG-21 | NUT | FLV |
Audio player | Flash | RealPix | QuickTime Video Effects in mov | HTML+TIME(+VML) | smil/smi | SVG | MIDI(smf) | MIDI(kar) | MIDI(xmf) | MIDI(rmi) | MIDI(xmi) | NSF | SPC | PSF |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Amarok | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Audacious | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Audion | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
cmus | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Cog | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
foobar2000 | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes (plugin) | ? | ? | Yes (plugin) | Yes (plugin) | Yes (plugin) | Yes (plugin) | Yes (plugin) |
JuK | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
JRiver Media Center | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
MediaMonkey | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes (Winamp plugin) | Yes (Winamp plugin) | Yes (Winamp plugin) |
MPXPLAY | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
MusicBee | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? [lower-alpha 6] | Yes | ? | ? |
Musicmatch Jukebox | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
musikCube | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Rhapsody | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Rhythmbox | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes | ? |
Sayonara Player | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Sonique | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
XMMS | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Zinf | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Audio player | Flash | RealPix | QuickTime Video Effects in mov | HTML+TIME(+VML) | smil/smi | SVG | MIDI(smf) | MIDI(kar) | MIDI(xmf) | MIDI(rmi) | MIDI(xmi) | NSF | SPC | PSF |
Information about which internet protocols the players understand, for receiving streaming media content. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality.
Audio player | HTTP | RTSP (RTSPU, RTSPT) | MMS (MMSU, MMST) | Podcasting | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
Amarok | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | UPNP |
Audacious | Yes | No | Yes | No | ? |
Audion | Yes | No | No | No | ? |
cmus | Yes | No | No | No | ? |
Cog | No | No | No | No | ? |
foobar2000 | Yes | Partial [protocolnotes 1] | Yes | Partial [protocolnotes 2] | ? |
JuK | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
JRiver Media Center | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
MediaMonkey | Yes | No | No | Yes [protocolnotes 3] | ? |
MusicBee | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | ? |
Musicmatch Jukebox | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
musikCube | Yes | No | No | ? | ? |
Music Player Daemon | Yes [lower-alpha 8] | Yes [lower-alpha 9] | Yes [lower-alpha 10] | Yes | Music Player Daemon |
Rhapsody | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Rhythmbox | Yes | Yes | No | Partial [protocolnotes 4] | UPNP |
Sayonara Player | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Sonique | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
XMMS | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Zinf | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? |
Audio player | HTTP | RTSP (RTSPU, RTSPT) | MMS (MMSU, MMST) | Podcasting | Other |
Information about which playlist formats the players understand.
Audio player | asx, wax, wvx | M3U | pls | XSPF | CUE | SMIL |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Amarok | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Audacious | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
Audion | No | No | No | ? | ? | No |
Clementine | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
cmus | No | Yes | Yes | No | ? | ? |
Cog | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Exaile | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
foobar2000 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
iTunes | No | Yes | ? | ? | No | ? |
JRiver Media Center | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
JuK | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
MediaMonkey | ? | Yes | ? | No | ? | ? |
MPXPLAY | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? |
MusicBee | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Musicmatch Jukebox | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
musikCube | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Quod Libet | Partial | Yes | Yes | No | ? | ? |
Rhapsody | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Rhythmbox | ? | ? | Yes | ? | No | ? |
Sayonara Player | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Sonique | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Spotify [21] | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
Winamp | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
XMMS | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Zinf | ? | ? | ? | No | ? | ? |
Audio player | asx/wax/wvx | M3U | pls | XSPF | CUE | SMIL |
Information about what metadata, or tagging, formats the players understand. Most other containers have their own metadata format and the players usually use them. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality.
Audio player | ID3v1 | ID3v2 | APEv2 tag | Vorbis comment | Cue sheet | CD-Text | WAVE chunks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AIMP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Amarok | Yes [metadatanotes 1] | Yes [metadatanotes 1] [metadatanotes 2] | Yes [metadatanotes 1] | Yes | Yes [metadatanotes 3] | ? | Yes |
Audacious | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
Audion | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
cmus | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ? |
Cog | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? |
foobar2000 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [metadatanotes 4] | Yes |
iTunes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
JRiver Media Center | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
JuK | Yes [metadatanotes 1] | Yes [metadatanotes 1] | Yes [metadatanotes 1] | Yes [metadatanotes 1] | ? | ? | ? |
MediaMonkey | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? |
Mixxx | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
MPXPLAY | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
MusicBee | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Musicmatch Jukebox | Yes | Yes | No | ? | ? | Yes | ? |
musikCube | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Quod Libet | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
Rhapsody | Yes | Yes | No | No | ? | ? | ? |
Rhythmbox | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Sayonara Player | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Sonique | Yes | No | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
XMMS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Zinf | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
Audio player | ID3v1 | ID3v2 | APEv2 tag | Vorbis comment | Cue sheet | CD-Text | WAVE chunks |
Information about what kinds of optical discs the players can play. Footnotes lead to information about abilities of future versions of the players or plugins that provide such functionality. Playback of Super Audio CD is not possible for any media player, because no suitable hardware exists. All media players capable of audio CD playback will also play the Redbook core of any HDCD disc, providing no sound-quality benefits over standard audio CDs.
Audio player | Audio | ||
---|---|---|---|
CD | DVD-Audio | HDCD | |
AIMP | Yes | No | No |
Amarok | Partial | No | No |
aTunes | No | No | No |
Audacious | Yes | No | No |
Audion | Yes | No | No |
cmus | No | No | No |
Cog | No | No | No |
foobar2000 | Yes | Yes (plugin) [opticalmedianotes 1] | Yes (plugin) [opticalmedianotes 2] |
JuK | Yes [opticalmedianotes 3] | No | No |
JRiver Media Center | Yes | Yes [opticalmedianotes 4] | Yes |
MediaMonkey | Yes | No | No |
MusicBee | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Musicmatch Jukebox | Yes | No | No |
musikCube | Yes | No | No |
Rhapsody | Yes | No | No |
Rhythmbox | Yes | No | No |
Sonique | Yes | No | No |
Winamp | Yes | No | No |
XMMS | Yes | No | No |
Zinf | Yes | No | No |
Audio player | CD | DVD-Audio | HDCD |
Audio |
Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014, now known as the Llama Group. Since version 2 it has been sold as freemium and supports extensibility with plug-ins and skins, and features music visualization, playlist and a media library, supported by a large online community.
foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Microsoft Windows, iOS and Android developed by Peter Pawłowski. It has a modular design, which provides user flexibility in configuration and customization. Standard "skin" elements can be individually augmented or replaced with different dials and buttons, as well as visualizers such as waveform, oscilloscope, spectrum, spectrogram (waterfall), peak and smoothed VU meters, which all of them are analysis-oriented, at least for built-in visualizations. foobar2000 offers third-party user interface modifications through a software development kit (SDK).
The following comparison of video players compares general and technical information for notable software media player programs.
ReplayGain is a proposed technical standard published by David Robinson in 2001 to measure and normalize the perceived loudness of audio in computer audio formats such as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. It allows media players to normalize loudness for individual tracks or albums. This avoids the common problem of having to manually adjust volume levels between tracks when playing audio files from albums that have been mastered at different loudness levels.
Amarok is a free and open-source music player, available for Unix-like, Windows, and macOS systems. Although Amarok is part of the KDE project, it is released independently of the central KDE Software Compilation release cycle. Amarok is released under the terms of the GPL-2.0-or-later.
WavPack is a free and open-source lossless audio compression format and application implementing the format. It is unique in the way that it supports hybrid audio compression alongside normal compression which is similar to how FLAC works. It also supports compressing a wide variety of lossless formats, including various variants of PCM and also DSD as used in SACDs, together with its support for surround audio.
APE tags comprise one extant convention used to store information (metadata) about a given digital audio file. Each APE tag constitutes a discrete element that describes a single attribute of the file's contents. Each consists of a key/value pair; the key is simply a label that names the attribute, such as Year, Title, Artist, or Track Number, etc.), and associated with it is a corresponding value, namely, some information descriptive of this file, in terms of the attribute in question. APE tags can be used with .ape-formatted recordings, as well as with sound files of other audio file formats.
PLS is a computer file format for a multimedia playlist. It is typically used by media players for streaming media over the Internet, but may also be used for playing local media.
XML Shareable Playlist Format (XSPF), pronounced spiff, is an XML-based playlist format for digital media, sponsored by the Xiph.Org Foundation.
MediaMonkey is a digital media player and media library application developed by Ventis Media Inc., for organizing and playing audio on Microsoft Windows and Android operating systems. MediaMonkey for Windows includes various management tools, and is extensible using plugins, while MediaMonkey for Android is an adjunct for sharing the library with Android devices. MediaMonkey is commonly displayed/marketed as a solution for managing large libraries of music.
Audacious is a free and open-source audio player software with a focus on low resource use, high audio quality, and support for a wide range of audio formats. It is designed primarily for use on POSIX-compatible Unix-like operating systems, with limited support for Microsoft Windows. Audacious was the default audio player in Ubuntu Studio in 2011–12, and was the default music player in Lubuntu until October 2018, when it was replaced with VLC.
This article describes audio APIs and components in Microsoft Windows which are now obsolete or deprecated.
K-Multimedia Player is an Adware-supported media player for Windows and iOS that can play most current audio and video formats, including VCD, HDML, DVD, AVI, MKV, Ogg, OGM, 3GP, MPEG-1/2/4, AAC, WMA 7, 8, WMV, RealMedia, FLV and QuickTime. KMPlayer shows many advertisements, including in the homepage, side panels, options panel, and as pop-up ads.
JetAudio is a shareware media player application for Microsoft Windows and Android released in 1997, that offers playback options for a wide range of multimedia file formats.
Clementine is a free and open-source audio player. It is a port of Amarok 1.4 to the Qt 4 framework and the GStreamer multimedia framework. It is available for Unix-like, Windows and macOS operating systems. Clementine is released under the terms of the GPL-3.0-or-later.
GNOME Videos, formerly known as Totem, is a media player for the GNOME computer desktop environment. GNOME Videos uses the Clutter and GTK+ toolkits. It is officially included in GNOME starting from version 2.10, but de facto it was already included in most GNOME environments. Totem utilizes the GStreamer framework for playback, though until version 2.27.1, it could alternatively be configured to use the Xine libraries instead of GStreamer.
Quod Libet is a cross-platform free and open-source audio player, tag editor and library organizer. The main design philosophy is that the user knows how they want to organize their music best; the software is therefore built to be fully customizable and extensible using regular expressions and boolean logic. Quod Libet is based on GTK and written in Python, and uses the Mutagen tagging library.
qmmp is a free and open-source cross-platform audio player that is similar to Winamp. It is written in C++ using the Qt widget toolkit for the user interface. It officially supports the operating systems Linux, FreeBSD and Microsoft Windows. In most popular Linux distributions, it is available through the standard package repositories. Until Audacious switched to Qt in version 4.0, qmmp was the only audio player to use Qt and not feature a database.
DeaDBeeF is an audio player software available for Windows, Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. An ad-supported Android version is available, but has not been updated since 2017. DeaDBeeF is free and open-source software, except on Android.