Comparison of audio player software
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 .
General
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; 7 months ago (2023-12-20 ) [1] ) [±]
Android : 4.05, build 1393 (December 27, 2023; 7 months ago (2023-12-27 ) [2] ) [±]
No cost
Proprietary
BASS audio library (decoder)
Delphi
Amarok
Mark Kretschmann
June 1, 2003
2.9.71 (January 31, 2021; 3 years ago (2021-01-31 ) ) [±]
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; 10 years ago (2014-06-22 ) ) [±]
No cost
GPL-2.0-or-later
Java
Audacious
Audacious Development Team
October 30, 2005
4.2 (July 9, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-07-09 ) [3] ) [±]
No cost
BSD-2-Clause
XMMS based
C , C++
(GTK & Qt)[4] ^
Banshee
Aaron Bockover
February 17, 2005
2.6.2 (February 18, 2014; 10 years ago (2014-02-18 ) [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; 8 years ago (2016-04-19 ) ) [±]
No cost
GPL-3.0-or-later
GStreamer
C++ (Qt )
cmus
Timo Hirvonen
January 18, 2005
2.10.0 (July 5, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-07-05 ) ) [±]
No cost
GPL-2.0-or-later
C
Cog
Vincent Spader
May 1, 2006
0.07 (December 24, 2007; 16 years ago (2007-12-24 ) ) [±]
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
2.1.5[6] (4 May 2024) [±]
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; 2 years ago (2022-02-08 ) [7] ) [±]
$59.98 to $79.98
Proprietary
JRiver code
C++
JuK
Scott Wheeler
February 1, 2003
3.11 (February 4, 2014; 10 years ago (2014-02-04 ) ) [±]
No cost
GPL-2.0-or-later
C++
MediaMonkey Standard
Ventis Media Inc.
August 25, 2003
5.0.4.2690 (November 23, 2022; 20 months ago (2022-11-23 ) ) [±]
No cost
Proprietary
Delphi, C
MediaMonkey Gold
Ventis Media Inc.
August 25, 2003
5.0.4.2690 (November 23, 2022; 20 months ago (2022-11-23 ) ) [±]
$24.95USD
Proprietary
Delphi, C
MediaMonkey Lifetime
Ventis Media Inc.
August 25, 2003
5.0.4.2690 (November 23, 2022; 20 months ago (2022-11-23 ) ) [±]
$49.95USD
Proprietary
Groove Music
Microsoft
2012
No cost
Proprietary
Mpxplay
Mpxplay
January 1, 1998
3.14 (October 24, 2021; 2 years ago (2021-10-24 ) ) [±]
No cost
Proprietary
C
Music on Console
Damian Pietras
January 1, 2002
2.5.1 (April 24, 2016; 8 years ago (2016-04-24 ) ) [±]
No cost
GPL-2.0-or-later
C
Music Player Daemon
Warren Dukes
May 1, 2003
0.21.22 (April 2, 2020; 4 years ago (2020-04-02 ) [8] ) [±]
No cost
GPL-2.0-or-later
C
MusicBee
Steven Mayall
December 4, 2008
3.5.8447 (February 19, 2023; 17 months ago (2023-02-19 ) ) [±]
No cost
Proprietary
BASS audio library
Visual Basic .NET
musikCube
Casey Langen
January 1, 2005
3.0.4[9] (14 July 2024) [±]
No cost
BSD-3-Clause
Napster
William Christopher Gorog
October 1, 2003
4.6.3.4 (August 31, 2010; 13 years ago (2010-08-31 ) ) [±]
Subscription
Proprietary
Quod Libet
Quod Libet Team
November 8, 2004
4.5.0 wikidata:Q1621193 (March 2022; 2 years ago (2022-03 ) ) [±]
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; 10 years ago (2013-10-28 ) )
iOS: 3.0.3 (27 September 2014; 9 years ago (2014-09-27 ) )
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; 4 years ago (2020-01-04 ) ) [±]
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; 11 years ago (2013-02-04 ) ) [±]
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
Android 8.9.24.633 / March 22, 2024; 4 months ago (2024-03-22 ) [10] Wear OS 8.9.24.633 / March 22, 2024; 4 months ago (2024-03-22 ) iOS 8.9.19 / March 4, 2024; 4 months ago (2024-03-04 ) [11] iPadOS 8.9.19 / March 4, 2024; 4 months ago (2024-03-04 ) Windows 1.2.37.701 / May 9, 2024; 2 months ago (2024-05-09 ) [12] macOS 1.2.33.1042 / August 31, 2023; 10 months ago (2023-08-31 ) Linux 1.2.31.1205 / February 23, 2024; 5 months ago (2024-02-23 ) [13]
Subscription
Proprietary
Style Jukebox
Digital Geek LTD
July 1, 2009
2.2.1 (October 8, 2016; 7 years ago (2016-10-08 ) ) [±]
No cost
Proprietary
C#
Winamp
Nullsoft
April 21, 1997
5.9.2 Build 10042[14] (April 26, 2023; 15 months ago (2023-04-26 ) ) [±]
No cost
Proprietary
Wasabi
C /C++
XMMS
XMMS Team
November 1, 1997
1.2.11 (November 16, 2007; 16 years ago (2007-11-16 ) ) [±]
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
Operating system compatibility
This section lists the operating systems on which the player works. There may be multiple versions of a player for different operating systems.
Features
^ Basic function with NMM
^ Context Browser uses CSS .
^ UIs may be switched. Shares Windows' themes by default. Additionally, a plugin (foo_looks) can skin foobar2000.
^ Using DCOP
^ Flexible tagging is the ability to read or write custom tags, apart from the default ones like title, album and date. Users can use custom tags to provide additional information to media files. Custom tags work via ID3v 2.4 (via the TXXX tag field), Vorbis comments and APEv2 .
^ Through use of the Advanced Tag Editor.
^ a b "Repeat A/B" .
^ Paid version only
^ a b Through Audio Pitch, Speed plugin
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.
^ Requires External Encoding App
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
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
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?[f]
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
Protocol abilities
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.
^ Only WMA files are playable by foobar2000 through an RTSP connection. RealMedia, AAC, etc. are not supported.
^ 3rd party plugin for 0.9 allows reading RSS 2.0 feeds as playlists. No subscription/automatic update features.
^ Present in version 3.0 currently going through Alpha Testing.
^ As of 0.9.2 it allows reading RSS as podcast source. Issues if links in RSS do not point directly to playable media. Automatic update of podcasts available.
Information about which playlist formats the players understand.
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.
^ a b c d e f g Understanding of ID3v1, ID3v2, APEv2 and Vorbis comments is handled by an external library called TagLib.
^ Amarok does not understand embedded covers.
^ Yes Archived 2012-05-12 at the Wayback Machine , but buggy.
^ There is a plugin called CD-TEXT Reader adding such a feature.
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.
See also
Notes
References
^ Latest AIMP for Windows changelog
^ Latest AIMP for Android changelog
^ "Audacious 4.2 released" . 9 July 2022. Retrieved 26 July 2022 .
^ "Audacious - An Advanced Audio Player" . audacious-media-player.org . Retrieved 2022-09-08 .
^ "October 10, 2012" . banshee.fm . October 3, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2012 .
^ "foobar2000: Change Log" . 4 May 2024. Retrieved 31 May 2024 .
^ "Release Notes MC29" . Retrieved 1 May 2022 .
^ "Releases - MusicPlayerDaemon/MPD" . Retrieved 12 April 2020 – via GitHub .
^ "Release 3.0.4" . 14 July 2024. Retrieved 23 July 2024 .
^ "Spotify: Discover music, podcasts, and playlists - Apps on Google Play" . play.google.com .
^ "Spotify New Music and Podcasts" . App Store .
^ "Open Source - Spotify" .
^ "Spotify Flathub page" . Flathub .
^ "Winamp : Supported versions : Latest supported version" . Winamp Forums . December 22, 2022. Retrieved January 15, 2023 .
^ "MusicBee help and FAQ" . getmusicbee.com .
^ "Releases · clangen/Musikcube" . GitHub .
^ Chow Loong, Jin (2012-01-02). "With plug-in remuco-exaile" . packages.debian.org . Retrieved 2017-04-18 .
^ Kuzník, Ondřej; Christine, Spang; Tristan, Seligmann (2017-01-23). "With plug-ins Ex Falso and Group Tagger" . packages.debian.org . Retrieved 2017-04-18 .
^ "Amarok/GettingStarted/Download/Windows" . Retrieved 24 February 2013 .
^ "VLC playback Features" . VideoLAN Organization. Archived from the original on 3 January 2010. Retrieved 25 February 2013 .
^ Local files . Spotify.com.
^ Import and export m3u playlists . Spotify.com.