Top 10 Linux MP3 Players
Written by BinnyVA on March 14, 2008 – 11:11 am -
There are no shortage of audio players in Linux. It has everything from command line MP3 players(mpg123) to RAM eating GUI players(like Amarok). With easily available codecs, linux supports almost all available formats.
This is the final post on a series about MP3 Players in linux. This series focuses on dedicated audio players – not video players that can handle audio as well(like mplayer). Without further ado, presenting the top 10 Linux MP3 players…
1. Amarok
amaroK is currently the player of my choice – it rocks. Everything I ever wanted in a MP3 Player and more. It is the clear winner in this field. In my opinion, there is nothing that beats amarok even if you look at Windows and Mac MP3 players as well.
More Information on Amarok MP3 Player
2. XMMS
A Winamp clone. Simple and user friendly, it is very popular on linux. It does not have a large feature set – but I am going to give it second place due to its popularity.
Official Sites for XMMS Player
3. RhythmBox
Rhythmbox Music Player is a music player and library for tagged files, that support various music formats. It was inspired by Apple’s iTunes. Although it is designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop, I had no issues with it in KDE.
RhythmBox – Gnome Music Player
Official Sites
4. Exaile
Exaile is a music player aiming to be similar to KDE’s Amarok, but for GTK+ and written in Python. It incorporates many of the cool things from Amarok (and other media players)
Exaile – Music Player for Gtk+
Official Sites
5. Audacious
Audacious is not among the ’star media-players’ in Linux – so many people never try it out. But those who have tried it out like it. For the sake of the article, I installed it – and I liked it. I even considered switching from amaroK to Audacious.
Official Sites
6. Banshee
Banshee is an MP3 players for Gnome. You can import, organize, play, and share your music using Banshee’s simple, powerful interface.
Banshee – Music Management and Playback for GNOME
Banshee Official Sites
7. SongBird
SongBird is an MP3 player built on the XUL framework. It’s a desktop media player mashed-up with the Web.
SongBird – The Firefox of MP3 Players
Official Sites
8. Juk
An audio jukebox that supports collections of MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files. It is a part of the kdemultimedia package.
9. mpg123/mpg321
mpg123 is a fast, free, minimalist, console MPEG audio player software program for UNIX and Linux operating systems.
mpg123/mpg321 – The Command Line MP3 Players
Official Sites
10. Other MP3 Players and Media Software…
Instead of putting the last MP3 Player here, I am going to list the MP3 software that did not make it to the list…
- Beep Media Player
- X-platform Music Multiplexing System 2 – XMMS2
- SnackAmp
- Decibel Audio Player
- Aqualung
- Cactus Jukebox
So, which is your favorite MP3 Player? Leave a comment…
Update: I reviewed two more players…
del.icio.us
| 
Digg it
| 
reddit
| 
StumbleUpon
Tags: Audio, Gnome, KDE, list, mp3, music, player, review, software, top10
Posted in Applications, Audio, Gnome, KDE | 63 Comments »
Follow me(@binnyva) on Twitter
March 14th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
This post has been dugg!
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Top_10_Linux_MP3_Players
March 14th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Thanks, This is a beautiful list of mp3 players.
Thanks,
Nikesh
March 14th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Excellent Post. Stumbled too. I was never able to play music till now. Thanks
March 14th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
How about:
Listen (also very Amarokish but for Gnome)
JaJuk
March 14th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
@Shankar Ganesh, @Ashish Mohta, @Nikesh Jauhari
Thanks!
@Gijs
Thanks for the suggestions – I have not heard about those. I will try them out and add it to this list.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Amarok is great when it doesn’t crash. Of course, it always crashes, so for me, Amarok kinda sucks. Great features, awesome interface, horrible stability.
I also have used Rhythmbox. Its interface is a little clumsy.
Hate to say it, but I haven’t found an mp3 player on Linux that’s as stable and easy to use as Winamp.
March 14th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
cplay is my personal favorite, although it is more of a wrapper to mpg123
March 14th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
mpd = all of them
March 14th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Thanks for this nice list!
But no matter how many players I try, I always switch back to Quod Libet. It’s very lightweight and yet has powerful library search, folder browsing capabilities, alarm, lullaby and much more stuff via plugins.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:06 am
eww KDE user, get OUT
March 15th, 2008 at 1:19 am
WTF??? Where is VLC???
Light fast, plays practically anything…
March 15th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Don’t forget Kaffiene. It is a simple media player that can be used to create playlists quite easily. You can even put music videos into the playlists if you please.
March 15th, 2008 at 9:47 am
amorak doesnt retrieve mp3 from a smb:// share — rythmbox does….
March 15th, 2008 at 10:35 am
@James, the top of this post says that this is a list of audio players only, not audio/video players.
Also, +1 for mpd!
March 15th, 2008 at 11:48 am
[...] read more | digg story [...]
March 15th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I’m surprised Listen isn’t listed, it’s a fantastic Gtk player. Definitely worth trying out if you like amaroK.
March 15th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
mpg321/mpg123 here.
However, I can’t say anything bad about amarok. ^_^
March 16th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Great list, but you left out my number one. VLC player will do just about everything most of the above listed will do and more. It is easy to be unimpressed by it’s simple and tiny GUI, but it also plays videos in just about any format and will even make videos of your desktop just like the Istanbul application. The only thing it won’t do is surf the web like Songbird. It even plays .flv’s.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
so.. where’s mpd? I use mpd exclusively on my server and on my laptop with its beautiful client sonata (sonata.berlios.de). mpd plays everything including streams and consumes not half the memory that all these heavy players need.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Wow amazing how far the linux desktop has come in the last 10 years.
March 19th, 2008 at 8:07 am
[...] 10 de los reproductores MP3 sonido para Linux Esta en ingles pero bastante util: Top 10 Linux MP3 Players There are no shortage of audio players in Linux. It has everything from command line MP3 [...]
March 20th, 2008 at 2:42 am
“..I even considered switching from amaroK to Audacious…”
Just don’t do it
If I have enough RAM available and my system it’s not overloaded, I use Amarok, if it’s, I use Audacious, but I want audio + video, of course that I use the SUPER VLC.
March 21st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Using at work VCL, and Banshee at home – the best players I think =)
But thanks for the list, may be will try out some other =)
March 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 pm
[...] expected my MP3 player series will end with the last post – but the comments pointed to some other players. Two players stood out – so I decided that I will [...]
March 24th, 2008 at 4:28 am
Great list! Personally, I use Exaile and I must say I’m very satisfied!
March 24th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Noticed quod libet is missing from your list. It really is a handy player for lightweight environments.
March 28th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Another interesting audio program is Mixxx, which has some interesting features not included in the mainstream players such as speed control and reverse. The program itself has a very basic UI and supports (.aiff, .mp3, .ogg, & .wav).
March 28th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I just know now that there are so many alternative…I used Exaile.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
10 MP3 mänijat Linuxi all…
Erinevaid võimalusi Linuxi all MP3sid kuulata…
April 6th, 2008 at 1:43 am
[...] am taking a break from the regular MP3 Players Series for a special announcement. The first stable version of Frees has been released. Frees is a GUI [...]
April 11th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
another vote for mpd here…
April 14th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
[...] If you are a casual desktop linux user with zero geek genes, stay away from this player. There are many other simpler players for [...]
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:40 pm
[...] second reason is that now that my series on Linux MP3 Players are over, I am going to take a small break from desktop posts and write on more [...]
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 pm
[...] Linux Mp3 Player you’re not on the right page. For a good list of choices, have a look at Binny’s Top 10 Linux MP3 Players. there you’ll find the right player for you. Back to my player. Why in the world i’m using a [...]
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Hey, great list. In the command line mp3 player category it could be include mp3bluster. I’m using it on my laptop and I just love it.
June 8th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Nice list, I think you should consider trying quod libet.. if you have a big collection and if you need to orginize it, it will be the best option
July 4th, 2008 at 11:15 am
So many choices, so little time. I’ll give Amarok a go in preference to VLC.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:08 am
VLC is the greatest. I’ve tried a few of the others but always come back to VLC.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:15 am
I’ll be honest, I’d never even though of using my Linux machine for playing MP3s until I saw this article. I’m going to give Amarok a try now and see if it’s worth ditching iTunes.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I am looking for a mp3 player that just lets me open a directory and play the files inside it, with a minimal interface like PAUSE STOP PLAY on the system tray… I’ve tryed SoundBird (the closest to what I want in interface, but its “library” functions pisses me off), Audacious (it has a plugin to add an icon to the system tray, but it’s not enougth for me), and Rhythmbox (no comments…)
Any suggestions?
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
amaroK rocKs!
September 20th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Audacious has a very clean and no-nonsense interface. Thanks for the list. I’ll check out a few.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Good choices. Also keep an eye out for Entertainer – front/backend structured media player written in python. Development seems to be coming along nicely.
November 4th, 2008 at 5:03 am
I agree with who claim VLC. It’s the best media player.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:37 am
[...] new laptop doesnt have software to play it on cos it doesnt run on windows. GAY! hi wilson ther here that shud help you play mps on your linux laptop also here is a guide to installing xp on your [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
[...] und Filmen kommen nicht zu kurz. So gibt es den beliebten VLC Player auch als Linux-Version und viele gute MP3-Player kämpfen um die Vorherrschaft. Einzig in Sachen „Spiele“ ist Linux leider nicht so weit [...]
June 12th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
For the console lovers favoring vi over emacs, I can recommend cmus, available at http://cmus.sourceforge.net/
cmus is a console based player with vi bindings.
Been using it for half a year now and couldn’t be happier.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:41 am
[...] I am not writing too much about this – considering the fact that I have already wrote a post about mpg123/mpg321 in the audio player series. [...]
June 24th, 2009 at 7:12 am
I’ve tried almost all (with the only exception being Songbird) of the media players listed here, and I can tell you Amarok would be my favorite if the eq was more easily fetched, Exaile would be my second if it would stop crashing in Ubuntu, and the winner? Audacious- it’s slick, strong and does the job with a great eq system and interface.
July 4th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
I’m really disappointed that Audacious only got 5th place as for me it is one of the bests. As a simple player, it really beats XMMS I think. AmaroK, Exaile and Rythmbox are far more advanced since they have options Audacious hasn’t, like library support, podcast support and many other stuffs, but I find them really “RAM eating” to quote your own words. AmaroK and Exaile even freeze my computer, which is quite not what I would call an old beater.
As for me, I use Audacious, and Rythmbox occasionnaly (when I’m in totally random mood, or podcast mood).
Great post anyway.
July 20th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
[...] Now there are a few options for playing your MP3 files. If you remember the old days of WinAMP then you will like the design of Audacious. Now if you want a more iTunes like player which catalogs your collection you have many choices. If you are a KDE man Amarok is what your looking for. For GNOME or XFCE users there are a number of choices such as Rythmbox, Banshee, and my favorite Exaile (LinDesk has a good overview of Linux MP3 players). [...]
August 6th, 2009 at 1:19 am
no VLC? come on!!
August 8th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
It really annoys me that you have to stuff around and download special codecs and patches to make some Linux players play MP3s. Probably a copyright issue I guess.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Would have been nice to see Decibel Audio Player tested, it’s a cool and simple app IMO.
October 10th, 2009 at 6:32 am
heho, nice list – since i’m a linux noob, im still looking for the best player for me (im quite demanding)
just wanted to say
“Goggles Music Manager” seems to be worth a try
http://freshmeat.net/projects/gogglesmm
though it hasn’t to much features now, (or maybe because) its lightweight and the basics really work perfectly 4 me
October 19th, 2009 at 5:45 am
Thank you for the review. I installed amarok and im already loving it.
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:03 am
Para mi el mejor es audacious, nunca truena, es ligereo, un verdadero clon de winamp y desde luego, fácil de manejar. Tambien el mpg123/321.
For me, the best is audacious, never crash, is lightweight, it’s a winamp clon, and of course, easy to use. Also the mpg123/321 player
January 26th, 2010 at 5:50 am
Strongly disagree with what said about Amaroks. It looks cool but isn’t too configurable… at least I need too group tracks by folders, not albums – but I simply can’t. I wish to control track order (random, etc.) using a button, not a menu somwhere… I can’t. Also, randomization by albums is nice, but I also wan’t to do the same with folders…
Look at foobar2000 under Windows, and you what I mean. Btw, “nothing can beat it”
Nothing offensive, but I do miss such features under Linux players.
January 26th, 2010 at 10:23 pm
> group tracks by folders
Add column called Directory and sort using it.
> control track order (random, etc.) using a button
Possible – there is a button in the status bar.
I’m talking about Amarok 1.4 – not sure if these features are enabled in Amarok 2.
January 31st, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I have to agree with Ilya, i tried every player in linux, cue support is missing in the vast majority, only audacious supports but i hate winamp, i still use foobar under wine, sadly it doesn’t support drag and drop.
The most annoying thing is sorting by albums, i want folders, songbird is close to my needs but doesn’t synchronize with my mp3.
Thinking in returning to windows only to use foobar2000, errr, i was only kidding
February 19th, 2010 at 3:41 am
thanks a lot … dont really like rythmbox .. lets try out ur amarok.
March 3rd, 2010 at 11:38 am
The fuzzy-search feature of ‘Yammi’, and the speed at which it can handle 30,000+ song libraries (both initial scan, and in use) makes it irreplaceable on my system. Even as it still uses KDE3.5 & hasn’t been supported for years.
March 19th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
I like the amarok. It works great!