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 | 84 Comments »
Follow me(@binnyva) on Twitter
[...] 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). [...]
no VLC? come on!!
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.
Would have been nice to see Decibel Audio Player tested, it’s a cool and simple app IMO.
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
Thank you for the review. I installed amarok and im already loving it.
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
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.
> 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.
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
thanks a lot … dont really like rythmbox .. lets try out ur amarok.
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.
I like the amarok. It works great!
Hi,
I enjoyed this site getting something new. The SuSE standards like the Amarok, Banshee, Juk all do badly SegFaults on my machine, the XMMS crashes for “Doublesize” and Audacious goes down when playing an 128 MP3 and trying to change the volume. Also the audio output plugins from audacious are heck.
RhythmBox and Exaile do the job for my modern times.
I currently run a SuSE 11.2 with some Packman updates (Gstreamer and so on) on an older K6 machine which has been trusted to be OK for many years.
A Player I like very much and is not yet meantioned here ist the good old Alsaplayer. It is lean & mean and does the job and has went better with every version.
If we come to the mpg123 player, we should also note the mp3blaster Player, which is about monolithic and really extremely rugged & stable. If no other plays, mp3blaster will still do. About the same, and a thing for the “vi” Fan is the cmus Player.
keep it goin’
Old amarok rocked, new is eh… more of gnu/unix idea – he doesnt support that many opts as former has, cause there are different apps for that (autotagging for example).
I missed equalizer at first, but right now i don’t miss it – it wasnt such a big deal (xcept boosting basses at parties)
I really like gmusicbrowser (in Ubuntu software center) for managing my library…tons of features though have to play around with it and can organize it however I like .. my favorite since the old Musicmatch (wish I could get Wine to run it!)
Amarok # 1 ? No equilizer, cluttered interface, hopeless with podcasts and this is #1 ?
Sorri I’m still looking for a stable, basic mp3 player for suse 11.2 KDE that actually works.
I tried xmms and stopped immediately because they are bugging me with this ever annoying daemon-thing. How crazy a man must be to invent a daemon for a simple mp3-player – well that’s linux….
I can’t believe quodlibet didn’t make the cut– not even the cut cut.
I like and use XMMS at work because it looks so much like Winamp..
@Michael: Very true, it’s annoying and totally unnecessary, really a shame since it makes a good first impression.
Why don’t you try foobnix player?
mpg123 is the best. It is fast, its sound quality is best.
$find -name “*.mp3″ -exec mpg123 -C {} \;
does the job for me. press ‘s’ / ‘space’ to pause, ‘f’ for next song, press ‘h’ for full list of control keys.
mpg123 is the best and best and best.
LINUX ROX!!
USE LINUX, BE FREE!!
@dbbolton: Damn right! QuodLibet is the one! It lets me organize my music the way I want, that is, the way it’s organized in my music folders, and it plays it! That’s all I ask of a music player and it does it superbly!
Exaile forks great!
Just installed Audacious after trying (and failing) to get both Amarok and Rythmbox to recognise my (huge) collection of music in windows. Audacious plays it all….. nough said!
Rhythm Box doesn’t seem to handle podcast subscriptions?
SongBird has worked best all around for podcasts and playing music on my computer but can’t deal with Sansa Clip.
I would love one piece of software that does all three tasks.
I have to take it all back. SongBird for Linux has been dropped.
Rhythm Box now doing podcasts just fine. Don’t know what changed….
QuodLibet is my favourite as well, since I hate any overloaded stuff with features I don’t need…and it does the job it should do.
Great post. I am installing Amarok right now. I usually use Rhythmbox but, since I upgraded my system to F14, my mouse locks up when I open Rhythmbox.
Thank for the great post.
Wheres Deadbeaf and Moc?
IMO Foobar2000 is the best on Windows and Gmusicbrowser on Linux
Thanks for the hints! Totem did it for me as long as I required no library management. To have it, I switched to Rythmbox, as it comes default with Linux Debian.
Now I would like one to feed my iPod: any suggestion? (besides gtkPod)
Try out Sayonara Player. I programmed it on my on to create a mighty alternative…
http://code.google.com/p/sayonara-player/