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…
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Tags: Audio, Gnome, KDE, list, mp3, music, player, review, software, top10
Posted in Applications, Audio, Gnome, KDE | 91 Comments »
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This post has been dugg!
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Top_10_Linux_MP3_Players
Thanks, This is a beautiful list of mp3 players.
Thanks,
Nikesh
Excellent Post. Stumbled too. I was never able to play music till now. Thanks
How about:
Listen (also very Amarokish but for Gnome)
JaJuk
@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.
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.
cplay is my personal favorite, although it is more of a wrapper to mpg123
mpd = all of them
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.
eww KDE user, get OUT
WTF??? Where is VLC???
Light fast, plays practically anything…
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.
amorak doesnt retrieve mp3 from a smb:// share — rythmbox does….
@James, the top of this post says that this is a list of audio players only, not audio/video players.
Also, +1 for mpd!
[...] read more | digg story [...]
I’m surprised Listen isn’t listed, it’s a fantastic Gtk player. Definitely worth trying out if you like amaroK.
mpg321/mpg123 here.
However, I can’t say anything bad about amarok. ^_^
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.
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.
Wow amazing how far the linux desktop has come in the last 10 years.
[...] 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 [...]
“..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.
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 =)
[...] 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 [...]
Great list! Personally, I use Exaile and I must say I’m very satisfied!
Noticed quod libet is missing from your list. It really is a handy player for lightweight environments.
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).
I just know now that there are so many alternative…I used Exaile.
10 MP3 mänijat Linuxi all…
Erinevaid võimalusi Linuxi all MP3sid kuulata…
[...] 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 [...]
another vote for mpd here…
[...] If you are a casual desktop linux user with zero geek genes, stay away from this player. There are many other simpler players for [...]
[...] 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 [...]
[...] 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 [...]
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.
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
So many choices, so little time. I’ll give Amarok a go in preference to VLC.
VLC is the greatest. I’ve tried a few of the others but always come back to VLC.
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.
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?
amaroK rocKs!
Audacious has a very clean and no-nonsense interface. Thanks for the list. I’ll check out a few.
Good choices. Also keep an eye out for Entertainer – front/backend structured media player written in python. Development seems to be coming along nicely.
I agree with who claim VLC. It’s the best media player.
[...] 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 [...]
[...] 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 [...]
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.
[...] 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. [...]
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.
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.